Dance
Firsts
Linbury Studio Theatre
Gnosis
Sadler’s Wells Theatre
Funky is not normally a word used to describe the cultural activities at the Royal Opera House. But that adjective encapsulates the essence of Firsts, a showcase of different performing talents, now in its seventh year. Funkiness is indeed what greeted spectators last week at the opening of the 2009 edition, once they had descended into the cheerful vaults of the Linbury Studio Theatre. Multitalented Matt Hennem interacted with the incoming public, by dancing among them with his gravity-defying, mesmerising crystal ball. His elegant, well-choreographed evolutions and improvisations set the tone for the rest of the evening, thus becoming the...
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Quantum Leaps
Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler’s Wells
Despite the clever in-joke/reference, Quantum Leaps is not exactly a crowd-pulling title for a ballet evening. Last week, outside Sadler’s Wells, a couple of passers-by had trouble imagining how someone could turn a television hit into a ballet. And, on the opening night, a lady was heard querying whether the programme had something to do with James Bond. Yet such an ambiguous title — Latin and scientific terms are seldom popular — fits the bill perfectly, as it encapsulates the essence of the energetic, thought-provoking modern ballet that is on offer.
Stanton Welch created Powder in 1998 to Mozart’s...
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Triple Bill
The Royal Ballet
Although George Balanchine’s 1957 ballet Agon is not based on a Greek myth, it is traditionally regarded as the third instalment of the ‘classical antiquity’ series, following Apollo (1928) and Orpheus (1948). Inspired by the competitive displays of physical bravura that were so popular in ancient Sparta, Agon marked a significant stage in the development of Balanchine’s choreographic aesthetic. It is in Agon, in fact, that the dance-maker’s ‘stripped-to-the-essential’ formula found its most vivid first expression. Visually unhindered by costumes and sets — the action takes place against a monotone backcloth and the dancers wear T-shirts and leotards — the...
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Mark Morris Dance Group
Sadler’s Wells
Michael Clark Company
The Barbican
Sleeping Beauty
Royal Opera House
Last week, the 2009 Dance Umbrella season rolled merrily towards its end with performances by two former ‘bad boys’ of the choreographic world. Luckily, neither event looked anything like those boyband comebacks the music industry thrives on these days. After all, Mark Morris and Michael Clark never cease to amaze and enthral audiences, thus remaining, Peter Pan-like, ‘bad boys’ for much longer than actual boyhood. Interestingly, they both presented recent works that allowed seasoned dancegoers to take the pulse of their current artistic creativity.
Those who love Morris’s tongue-in-cheek reading of illustrious scores might be pleased to know that...
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In the Spirit of Diaghilev
Sadler’s Wells
Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company: Hydra
Queen Elizabeth Hall
In a dance world asphyxiated by a lack of inventiveness, it is refreshing to be confronted by creations that can still provoke, shock and amuse. This is the case with Javier De Frutos’s Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez, premièred last week at Sadler’s Wells amid audible and visible signs of disapproval and approval. Regarded by some as a gratuitously offensive publicity-seeking stunt, the work is more than a mere succès de scandale. The graphic sex, the near-blasphemous use of religious motifs, the phallic-centered iconography of Katrina Lindsay’s sets, and the in-your-face violence are but developments of thematic features that...
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Dance Umbrella
Cloud Gate Theatre of Taiwan, Barbican Theatre
Cabane
P3, University of Westminster
Cloud Gate Theatre of Taiwan is not new to the UK dance scene. Yet, as stressed in an inflated, self- celebratory programme note, Wind Shadow marks a neat move away from the performance formulae seen in their previous productions. Created in 2006 by Lin Hwai-Min in collaboration with the visual artist Cai Guo-Qiang — who played a significant role in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics — the work strives to be an example of ‘moving installation art’. As such, it comes across as a series of moving pictures that both surprise and shock the viewer with...
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