Bayerisches Staatsballett: Schmetterling
Silent Screen and Schmetterling sit together comfortably, sharing Lightfoot and Léon’s distinct movement vocabulary and strong sense of theatricality
Europe
A beautiful confession: Alessandro Marzotto Levy’s Irene
Dedicated to a dear departed friend, the work developed out of the loss and dismay he went through after her death
A dance of seduction: Bayerisches Staatsballett in Le Parc
Prelocaj deals with love and attraction, sexual desire and seduction. It’s very much a ballet of suggestion, of desire that’s only realised in Act III
Tanzkomplizen: Ich Kann’s Nicht Lassen
A participatory family-friendly piece where the spectators became protagonists themselves, each performance thus being unique.
A tale of dashing pirates and sensuous slave girls: Royal Swedish Ballet in Le Corsaire
José Martínez has given the ballet a make-over. With the important dance intact but the libretto trimmed, it is destined to become a new favourite.
A dance of dreams: Zürich Ballett in Marcos Morau’s Nachtträume
A mesmerising piece from the dark realm of dreams inhabited by genderless creatures and a drag-queen in black sequins and a towering tiara
Bayerisches Staatsballett: Alice in Wonderland
Its weird, dream-like story and imaginative set… explode with colour; and it offers multiple roles to show off dancers.
A dip into Berlin’s Tanz im August 2023
In ‘The Romeo’, Trajal Harrell combines voguing with bizarre and fascinating outfits in choreography full of fluid, wavy, undulating movement
Platform 14 provides a stage for emerging independent choreographers
It was good to witness some excellent dancing and well-thought choreographies.
Staatstheater Nürnberg International Ballet Gala
A fine evening with plenty of variety; and one not dominated by nineteenth-century fireworks.
The finest of all narrative ballets? Stuttgart Ballet in John Cranko’s Onegin
Martí Fernández Paixà is a superb Onegin, perhaps ballet’s ultimate romantic villain. He fills the stage, even when just standing in the background