When the Bolshoi’s wunderkinder, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, suddenly left the company two years ago, the dance world played endless guessing-games as to where they would end up. It was like Claude Rains in Casablanca: round up the usual suspects. The last company anyone expected, however, was the Mikhailovsky,
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a troubled dream, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.” In one of the most famous opening lines in literature, Franz Kafka gives birth to a startling hallucinogenic premise. And Arthur Pita’s very clever dance drama produces something of
The great dance critic Richard Buckle once famously reviewed a winter season by remarking that each Christmas brings us “one Nutcracker closer to death”, and certainly it is possible to note the passing of the years by watching the Swans migrate, then the Firebirds. Kevin O’Hare has now seen his
If you are a Bausch newbie, Vollmond (Full Moon) may well be the place to start. “It’s a full moon,” says Nazareth Panadero, giving us a cynical smirk. “Don’t get drunk,” she adds before sauntering off. Glasses are raised and, as always in Bausch, water flows, both in and, especially,
Genius does not mean having no influences. Monotones, one of the very greatest of Frederick Ashton’s ballets, is heavily influenced by other works: by George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations and Apollo, by Marius Petipa’s La Bayadère. And it in turn has influenced other great works: Kenneth MacMillan’s searing Gloria would
In 2008, I reviewed Lindy Woodhead's book, Shopping, Seduction and Mr Selfridge. It was, by a long way, one of the worst books I had ever read: sloppy, repetitive, self-contradictory and filled with factual errors. It has, of course, now been made into a television 'period drama'. I reprint my
Michael Cardew, one of the great studio potters of the 20th century, was a man of doubleness. He was born into the heart of upper-middle-class establishment Edwardian England – a great-grandfather had been Lord Chancellor, a grandfather the Dean of Winchester, and he was related to soldiers, lawyers and diplomats
The Royal Ballet’s autumn season began on Monday, but this was the eagerly awaited Swan Lake. Natalia Osipova, ex-Bolshoi, now principal with American Ballet Theater and the Mikhailovsky in St Petersburg, was making her debut as a guest with the Royal Ballet, partnered by Carlos Acosta. Osipova had, dramatically, left
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