Ballet.co April/May 2011 Magazine

Diaries and weblogs

Jarkko Lehmus weblog...
the now ex-Scottish Ballet dancer who tells it like no other...
'Polar Tomfoolery'
"On a positive note, I'm doing a new project with Simo Kellokumpu. He's a Finnish choreographer based in Berlin. The creation period will be entirely in Berlin, but the performances will be in Finland on Kuopio Dance Festival on the 16th of June and at the Full Moon Dance in the end of July. Stomping grounds new and old then. I started out dancing at the tender age of 16 in the very town of Kuopio and even worked on the festival. Memories..." (weblog home)

Kristen McNally Weblog...
Blog 8 (Apple Store): "It's very exciting. I'm taking over the ground floor performance space for three half hour slots throughout the day and creating something to Kanye West's latest album."
My Twisted Fantasy...: "Although for the next three weeks I'll be catching up on the last three weeks lack of sleep, my Apple Store experience will be something i'll treasure forever." (Weblog Home)

Rym Kechacha weblog...
In August 2008 Rym joined Northern Ballet after training at the Central School of Ballet in London and where she first kept a weblog for us.
'Duende'
"Lorca's theories about the power and inspiration behind art, especially flamenco, are thought provoking. He gave a lecture in Buenos Aires in 1933 about this concept, the energy that he calls ‘duende’..." (weblog home)

Madame Galina's Doings Diary...
How Pinky and Perky Changed my Life: "Now to business. Suite en blanc, part of the ENB triple bill - I sat hankering to learn the Cigarette solo. And I haven’t hankered to learn anything new assoluta-wise since I first saw the third Corsaire Odalisque solo performed by Kirov soloist Irina Chistiakova in 1987’" (Weblog Home)

Matthew Lawrence Weblog...
Impressions of Hong Kong: "A good nights sleep and international touring don't mix. Neither do 'black sambuca' and white jeans (not mine) - yet you still come back for more. Welcome to Hong Kong and BRB's latest tour." (Weblog Home)

Weblog writers
Madame Galina
Rym Kechacha
Matthew Lawrence
Jarkko Lehmus
Kristen McNally

'So You Think You Can Dance - 30/04/11': Graham Watts

"A few dancers are already standing out from the crowd – Matt, Shane, Katie, Charlotte and Rithy – but the judges are also praising others - Charlie, Kirsty and Katrina – not necessarily for their dancing skills, but for some unexplained entertainment, personality or cuteness factor."

'So You Think You Can Dance - 16/04/11': Graham Watts

"Irritating judges is a given for the series but – compared to season one – the big disappointment of this first live show in the new series is how poor the choreography has been. Let's hope it gets much better."

'So You Think You Can Dance - 23/04/11': Graham Watts

"This year, more even than before, I am sensing that the ability to dance is merely one of the criteria that contestants will find necessary to beat elimination: being cute certainly seems to help; as does having a "back story" of some special interest ... but more than anything it is the style of dance and the choreography (and even, in some cases, the styling) that seem to matter most..."

UK Reviews

Royal Ballet

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland': Jann Parry

"Without knowing Lewis Carroll's book(s), you'd be hard put to understand why his Alice has endured as a classic read - and a frustrating challenge for film and ballet makers. Maybe I'm carping, but I don't see Wheeldon's ballet, once the excitement has died down, as a classic of our time."

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland': Lynette Halewood

"Congratulations to Lauren Cuthbertson for stamina and commitment to a role that sees her barely leave the stage. She does a fine teenage strop. It's a night for the women: Yanowsky is gloriously demented as the Red Queen, but there is a lingering sense that Watson as the White Rabbit and Polunin as Jack don't have quite enough to do. It was a good night for Barry Wordsworth and the orchestra and the indefatigable percussionists."

'Manon': Lynette Halewood

"This particular cast and combination of performers didn't quite have that essential spark as a whole, though there was a great deal to admire in individual roles..."

'Rhapsody' bill: Jann Parry

"Steven McRae dealt with the mannerisms in Ashton's (Rhapsody) choreography for Baryshnikov – hip wriggles, flexed wrists, violin-playing gesture, concluding shrug – by being satanic rather than charming. A flame-haired Paganini who'd sold his soul to the devil, he was a potential danger to the acolytes he darted amongst, unfurling a fiendish series of pirouettes and hurtling revoltades."

more reviews in Postings Reviews section

Diaghilev Festival in London
Kremlin Ballet and guest stars

'The Firebird, The Blue God': Lynette Halewood

"Liepa (in Blue God) is sinuous and flexible: Tsiskaridze looks splendid in the costume. It seems rather long drawn out and not particularly related to the storms of music emerging from the pit. The dance just doesn't live up to the designs... The Firebird is a more rewarding experience all round."

'Scheherazade, Thamar': Paul Arrowsmith

"What we were missing (in Thamar) was evident in the revival of Schéhérazade. Fokine's modernity had the misfortune to be pushed out of the way in Diaghilev's quest for novelty. The way in which he builds ensemble dances has a depth and variety that repays attention. The three odalisques and the six sultanas have a pliancy and precision that make this harem a delight..."

'Diaghilev Festival': Jeffery Taylor

"Wow, what an exciting, exotic and erotic spectacle ricocheted through London's West End last week."

English National Ballet

'Black White' bill: Jann Parry

"The style (of Suite en Blanc) needs to be witty and alluring for the women, with plenty of panache from the men. ENB's casts have yet to (re)claim the ballet as their own, though Maina Gielgud, who mounted it for them, has given them the essentials to work on. Elena Glurdjidze was bold in the pas de trois..."

'Emerging Dancer Award 2011:': Jane Simpson

"Kase opened the programme with Giselle's Act 1 solo, charmingly done, and emphasising character rather than technique; then in the second round she pulled out all the stops in a very strong performance of Odile's solo - she has amazing feet, which seem to grip the floor even when she's on pointe."

more reviews in Postings Reviews section

Balletboyz

'The Talent': Graham Watts

"Nunn and Trevitt are synonymous with the BalletBoyz brand and so to revise their ten year-old company from scratch and deduct themselves from the performing mix was a significant risk. But it is one that has paid off handsomely both artistically and on the bottom line."

Birmingham Royal Ballet

'Cinderella': Lynette Halewood

"On the small screen, the production looked pleasant enough but it is only live that the real charms of the staging and the design come through. ...Elisha Willis was much more persuasive live in this role than in anything else I'd seen her do before, and the shifts of her emotions through despair and hope in Act 1 were vivid and involving."

more reviews in Postings Reviews section

Scottish Dance Theatre

'Letters From America: Lay Me Down Safe, Khaos': Graham Watts

"Their work has not been seen in the UK before and both choreographies oozed the sophistication of fluid, articulate modern dance with a heavy emphasis on gritty realism in Weare's work and an inventive glaze coating the designs and movement of 'Khaos'. It was a well-matched, complementary double-bill."

The Pet Shop Boys and Javier de Frutos

'The Most Incredible Thing': Jeffery Taylor

"The most incredible thing of all about this bizarre collision of extravagant talents is that it works. ...In spite of two intervals making the evening drag, The Most Incredible Thing happily lives up to its name."

Russell Maliphant Company

'AfterLight': Jann Parry

"....Maliphant's dilemma. He has summed up Nijinsky in a haunting 15-minute solo, commissioned by Sadler's Wells in 2009 for a programme celebrating Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Then he added on enough material to make Afterlight an hour long 'evening-length' work. Yet he'd already said it all, so the laser-like intensity of the opening solo is fatally diffused."

Bartabas - Ko Murobushi

'The Centaur and the Animal': Jann Parry

"Though some of the stage pictures are beautiful, with Loie Fuller effects from the rider's billowing cloak or the white horse's tail flashing in the darkness, too much patience is required – and not just from the horses."

Place Prize

Lost Dog

'Place Prize: It Needs Horses': Graham Watts

"Whatever 'Lost Dog' has done to create this piece has been maxed to the limit by the expressiveness of this ever-engaging pair portraying these fading, licentious down-at-heel performers desperately trying to draw a crowd."

Final (and the Winner): 'It Needs Horses': Graham Watts

"...while the work enjoyed the benefit of great performers, it possessed the thinnest content of the Final and, although achieving some memorable moments, the choreography was lop-sided..."

Eva Recacha

'Place Prize: Begin to Begin': Graham Watts

"This was a powerful and thought-provoking work, danced exceptionally well... Although it received the lowest number of votes in the first audience poll – and this is likely to remain the case - I hope it will convince some judges."

Final: 'Begin to Begin': Graham Watts

"The Recacha choreography was, at times, quite beautiful in the rounds of repeated references to death and resurrection..."

Ricardo Buscarini and Antonio De La Fe Guedes

'Place Prize: Cameo': Graham Watts

"If Ingmar Bergman, a young Alfred Hitchcock and an even younger Woody Allen were ever brought together by the miracle of Dr Who and his Tardis, to discuss creating a dance project, this is what they would have conceived."

Final: 'Cameo': Graham Watts

"It got my vote on the last night."

Freddie Opoku-Addaie and Frauke Requardt

'Place Prize: Fidelity Project': Graham Watts

"The quirks of the piece are that it is mostly performed with the houselights up and an old-fashioned wheeled popcorn machine..."

Final: 'Fidelity Project': Graham Watts

"This last performance was the best the pair had given of the four that I saw and even the old faithful fresh popcorn-maker delivered its fizz and crackle right on cue."

Northern Ballet

'Cleopatra': Jeffery Taylor

"This gleaming, impeccably paced and beautifully danced new work is a turning point in the lives and future of Northern Ballet, its dancers and artistic director and chief choreographer Nixon."

Protein Dance

'LOL (lots of love)': Graham Watts

"By the second night, it was flawless: a four star performance rocketing to the furthest outreaches of five overnight..."

Maresa von Stockert - Tilted Productions

'Masquerade': Graham Watts

"With its deep veneer of surrealist art and eclectic references that veer from comedy to melancholy and onto the edge of terror, von Stockert and her team have succeeded in producing a thought-provoking work that is perfectly paced and fascinating; and within it there is a truly captivating gem of a dance."

Henri Oguike Dance Company

'Butterfly Dreaming Tour': Lynette Halewood

"I wish I could greet this as a triumphant return, but only one of the three works on offer really seemed to demonstrate the qualities so much admired previously."