1,004 stories by "Judith Mackrell"
Royal Opera House, LondonNehemiah Kish, who makes his debut in this season's Swan Lake, is proving an excellent acquisition for the Royal. He dances with a finely etched power and he can act…
Royal Opera House, London Continue reading...
Oxford PlayhouseTim Rushton " Birmingham-born and Royal Ballet school-trained " has built his entire career outside the UK, his last 10 years spent as director of Danish Dance Theatre. And w…
The Imperial Ice Stars: Swan Lake On Ice, EdinburghIn the last few years there have been a flurry of ice dance productions all appropriating the music and stories of the 19th-century classic…
Royal Opera House, LondonMost performances of Giselle are all about the ballerina. With a title role that arcs from pretty innocence to a rarefied spirituality, few ballets offer such a dema…
'To some extent dance critics are all body fascists'Alastair Macaulay, the New York Times dance critic, recently complained that a ballerina in the Nutcracker looked as if she had "eate…
St Petersburg Ballet Theatre: Swan Lake/Sleeping Beauty, NottinghamSince it formed in 1994 the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre has established a niche on the international touring circuit, brin…
Black Swan stars Natalie Portman as a ballerina hitting the big time. How realistic is the movie? We asked the cream of British ballet to give their verdicts Continue reading...
Judith Mackrell anticipates two productions of Alice in Wonderland, and looks at the year's other dance highlightsIn the world of ballet, this is squaring up to be Lewis Carroll's year. Two …
Resolution! LondonThe stats accumulated during the last two decades of Resolution are pretty impressive. The Place's annual platform for new dance and new dance makers has clocked up perform…
Ballet on screenNothing can replace the experience of watching ballet in the theatre, but a project launched last year by the Bolshoi to transmit live performances via cinema screens around …
Royal Opera House, LondonSometimes all a ballerina needs is the right partner at the ball. Tamara Rojo, dancing Cinderella this week, seemed for most of act one to be slightly absent from he…
Coliseum, LondonThe Nutcracker may seem like a simple Christmas bauble of a ballet, but as Wayne Eagling's production for English National Ballet demonstrates, it's tricky to stage. Based on…
Cinderella, GlasgowAshley Page's setting of the Prokofiev fairytale score is darker and more satirical than most. Set in a decadent pre-revolutionary France, it exposes the gap between rich …
Sadlers Wells, LondonEven when it was premiered 13 years ago, Matthew Bourne's Cinderella stood out from every other setting of Prokofiev's fairytale score. In brutal contrast to the tinsel …
From recent coverage you'd think that ballet was risk-averse, abusive " even racist. But the artform is still alive and well in the 21st centuryBallet has had a difficult week. With the publ…
The Junction, CambridgeJavier de Frutos made himself a hard act to follow as director of Phoenix. Extravagant, brilliant and occasionally suicidal in his artistic choices, he put himself and…
Matthew Bourne: Cinderella, LondonIt's been more than a decade since Matthew Bourne's Cinderella was last performed in the UK and it returns this season with a distinctive and compelling mak…
Sadler's Wells, LondonJasmin Vardimon has always been fearless in her choice of the material she's prepared to tackle, but 7734 is probably the most significant challenge she's set…
Hippodrome, BirminghamFor any British choreographer, part of the challenge of creating a new Cinderella lies simply in dodging the sweet, funny but overarching shadow cast by Frederick Ashto…
From street dance to Cinderella, we pick the best dance and ballet events across the UK this ChristmasThe Royal Ballet's double-billsThe Royal have packaged up two family double-bills,…
Northern Ballet: The Nutcracker, On tourThe annual Christmas Nutcracker takeover is well under way, but the various productions currently touring the UK differ wildly in what they offer. In…
Barbican, LondonIt's impossible to count the ways in which the music of Bach has been abused in the name of contemporary dance, but few assaults have been as witless as those committed in Fo…
Sadler's Wells, LondonEver since the ballet world claimed Wayne McGregor as its hottest new choreographer, it has been tempting to see him as a dance-maker of two halves. There's the McGrego…
Firsts 2010, LondonThe Linbury's mini-festival of experimental work is in its eighth year and, on paper, this looks like one of its strongest seasons yet. Programme one includes aerial acrob…
