Tag Archives: Ballet

Choreography: Cathy Marston Reviewer: Peter Jacobs Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre is a game-changing work of literature, introducing character-based internalisation of the action previously largely the domain of poetry, and creating faction that explored social realism and critique, sexuality, religion and proto-feminism. It was a novel that redefined the possibilities of fiction in a way that makes it still relevant ...

Director and Choreographer: Matthew Bourne Music: Sergei Prokofiev Reviewer: Dominic Corr At the heart of any fairy-tale, is love. It’s the basis of almost all narratives, communicated in a plethora of ways, through spoken word, music but most primal through dance. The Grimm brother's Cinderella is perhaps the crowning pinnacle of the folklore world. Multiple in its variations, adaptations and ...

Writer: Charlotte Brontë Choreographer: Cathy Marston  Reviewer: Barbara Michaels For those of us familiar with one of literature’s most well-known heroines, it is not difficult to comprehend why the rightly praised Northern Ballet Company have transformed Charlotte Brontë’s novel into a ballet. While Brontë may have baulked at some of choreographer Cathy Marston’s more erotic interpretations, it has to be ...

Choreographer: Cathy Marston Composer: Philip Feeney Designer: Patrick Kinmouth Lighting Designer: Alastair West Reviewer: Leah Tozer Balancing Brontë and ballet is brave: poised between prose and pas, pathetic fallacy and precise footwork, narrative voice and choreographic action, Northern Ballet’s Jane Eyre is a bildungsroman of a ballet that’s as brave, and beautiful, as Brontë’s novel. Following the ‘poor, obscure, plain ...

Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Choreography: Marius Petipa, Peter Wright Reviewer: Helen Tope A ballet with an unrivalled pedigree, Sleeping Beauty is the classic everyone knows. The challenge, when taking on this production, is how to stop a classic turning into a cliché. The story of Princess Aurora, put to sleep by a witch’s curse, has plenty of scope for darkness beneath the glamour. ...

Artistic Director: Mark Baldwin Choreographers: Aletta Collins, Ben Duke, Andonis Foniadakis, Itzik Galili, Julie Cunningham Reviewer: Cathy Swaby Rambert’s three-part show is pulsing and visually mesmerising. Dancers bend and fold themselves around the stage to poignant music and equally poignant themes. Firstly, we witness Symbiosis where the scaled scantily clad team writhe and flit to beautiful orchestral electronica music, furtively ...

Director and Choreographer: Matthew Bourne Music: Sergei Prokofiev Reviewer: Tate James Matthew Bourne brings his own brand of magic to the Lowry with his latest tour of Cinderella. Though maybe not as definitive as the ever popular Nutcracker or the iconic Swan Lake, this may just be the most enchanting production in his New Adventures repertoire. Originally conceived in 1997 ...

Artistic Director – Eduardo Vilaro Reviewer: Dominic Corr Priding itself with a connection to its roots, the Ballet Hispánico company stitches the grandeur of ballet with the accessibility of Latin movement. Exploring Latino culture, seeking to educate whilst also entertain, Ballet Hispánico talents lie not just in dance, but in identity and awareness. From the beginning, there is little question ...