ColumnsThe Royal Ballet’s Artist in Residence, Liam Scarlett is yet again a hot topic around town. His first full-length narrative ballet received mixed reviews during its four day run at the Linbury Studio Theatre at…
En pointe
What has ballet got in common with hoisting hippos?
For your amusement, some weird dance facts that you just might not have known: 1. Most balletomanes know the Tarantella because of George Balanchine. But did you know that the wild tarantella folk dance of…
You’re only as young as you reel
When I am old I want to wear floppy velvet hats, drive a flowery Morris Minor, do my gardening naked and have at least three cats. I hope to be active in both body and…
Finding a Place for dance accolades
I worked as the artist development assistant on the first-ever Place Prize for dance in 2004. There was a lot of apprehension about taking part at that time as many choreographers were worried about ‘selling…
London’s dance tribes laid bare
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the London Coliseum over the years, and I swear to the bears, always and without fail, every time I go there, I get told off or tutted…
Sergei Polunin – ballet’s lost boy
As if there hasn’t been enough drama and scandal in the ballet world recently, one of the dance world’s hottest young stars is making headlines. Again. Sergei Polunin famously quit the Royal Ballet in January…
Bag ‘em young for tomorrow’s dance audience
My eldest daughter was four months old when she first visited the Royal Opera House. I put her in her finest tartan cocktail dress (as previously mentioned, complete with netting underlay and matching head band)…
Thud, toil, tears and sweat
Sometimes going to see a ballet company take class can be more exciting than seeing the dancers perform in a full length work. This weekend I watched the Birmingham Royal Ballet take company class before…
Choice, not wealth decides whether you visit the ROH
The Royal Opera House and the Telegraph got together to discuss elitism in opera and ballet this week, in the first Big Question – a series of panel debates that have a studio audience and…
Dance…this is a man’s world
Last week was International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day. With females in the foreground in many other aspects of life, I am wondering where all the high-profile women are in dance? The dance industry in…
Time can’t diminish the memory of my dance mentor
This week marks the seven-year anniversary of the death of Anna-Greta Stahle. Anna-Greta was a dance critic and author, who worked for the Dagens Nyheter (Daily News) in Stockholm. And she was the person that…
Dance muscles in on the musical
It was the opening of A Chorus Line this week at the London Palladium, directed by Bob Avian, who co-choreographed the original Broadway show with Michael Bennett back in 1975. There are many elements that…
Dancing around Duchamp
I made a vow on Wednesday that I’d let chance principles govern my life from hereon in. I wish I could say it was by chance that I happened upon The Bride And The Bachelors:…
Uncivil war rages on behind the doors of the Bolshoi
It’s been almost a month since the chilling acid attack on Bolshoi Artistic Director, Sergei Filin, outside his home in Moscow that left him with third degree burns and severely damaged eyesight. No sooner had…
Bald pates, taut thighs and six packs
I went to the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards for 2012 this week. The bash was held at The Place’s Robin Howard Dance Theatre where the phrase “rubbing shoulders” were ne’er so apt. The bar…
Dancers get the Olympian treatment
I went to the opening of Now Is All There Is on Friday night at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden, a photographic exhibition of stars of the Royal Ballet, taken by sports snapper, Rick…
The place where dance imitates art
The gap between dance and visual art began to close in earnest when Trisha Brown walked down a wall in 1971. Ever since dancers were freed from the restraints of classical subjugation and what dance…
Ballet Boyz, Bausch and Acosta at 40 – my dance highlights for 2013
It’s mid-January and I have a confession to make. I haven’t seen any dance yet. I am only just recovering from the pantomime hangover (a pantover, if you will) – one Aladdin, one Peter Pan…
Resolution stripped bare
My New Year’s resolutions are so dull I could cry: be less gluttonous and exercise more (i.e. shed the Chrimboflab); be more patient; read more books; see more dance… nothing new here folks. But I…
Dance your way through Christmas on the sofa
We’re having Christmas at ours this year, for the first time ever, and we’re doing it all our way. The girls get to hang their stockings on the fireplace, The Kiwi gets to make a…
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