Child's Play
Co. Un Yamada, a dance company and creative collective established in Tokyo in 2002, returned to the New National Theatre Tokyo last week to reprise their popular family-friendly production from 2021, “Obachetta.”
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
On opening night of the world premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s “Oscar” at the Australian Ballet’s new home for the next three years, the Regent Theatre (as the State Theatre undergoes renovations), I am catapulted from September 13, 2024 to April 26, 1885, and the commencement of the trial of Oscar Wilde. “Now as the jury files back into court,” narrates Seán O’Shea, “Oscar leaned over the dock, eagerly scanning the faces of the twelve good men and true, seemingly trying to read in their physiognomies his fate; no-one spoke, no-one hardly dared to breathe.” In the thick of it, we begin, and the effect is a kaleidoscopic tornedo. In the moment before the rise becomes the fall, “Oscar” teeters, and the effect is hypnotic, from start to finish.
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Co. Un Yamada, a dance company and creative collective established in Tokyo in 2002, returned to the New National Theatre Tokyo last week to reprise their popular family-friendly production from 2021, “Obachetta.”
PlusVous les voyez, les étoiles dans la salle?” the woman next to me whispered as the lights dimmed. And indeed, the stalls glittered with former stars of the Paris Opéra Ballet— dancers I recognised, visibly moved and deep in conversation during the interval.
PlusThere is probably no more beloved ballet, by audiences and dancers alike, than “Romeo and Juliet.”
PlusIn 2017 Virginie Mécène reimagined the lost Martha Graham solo “Ekstatis.” A review from that Martha Graham Dance Company premiere ended with a strong vote of confidence from critic Gia Kourlas: “Ms. Mécène should keep going.”
Plus
The actual year of Wilde’s trial was 1895 rather than 1885, as written in the review.