Kitty McNamee, Shining a Light
It’s not every contemporary choreographer who is able to cross over into directing large-scale opera. But that’s precisely what Kitty McNamee has done.
Continue ReadingWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
Forget the merry folk jigs and wispy waltzes; Akram Khan’s “Giselle” entertains none of the levity associated with its 1841 predecessor, one of the most famous ballets to emerge from the Romantic era. The new production, created for English National Ballet, is an angry rebuke of inequality and social stratification, perceptive in its condemnation and admirable in its intensity. Khan has preserved the broad strokes of Théophile Gautier’s original narrative—the lovers from different worlds, the devastating betrayal, the supernatural revenge—but overhauled its setting and tone to present a dark parable about the failures of globalisation. The first half reveals our protagonist as a former worker in a now-desolate garment factory, a world away from Gautier’s Arcadian country setting, with its sunny peasants and bucolic harvests. The second thrusts her into an ugly underworld haunted by ghosts of workers past, their supernatural wiles less entrancing than they are vicious.
Performance
Place
Words
Alina Cojocaru and Isaac Hérnandez in Akram Khan's “Giselle.” Photograph by Laurent Liotardo
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.
Already a paid subscriber? Login
It’s not every contemporary choreographer who is able to cross over into directing large-scale opera. But that’s precisely what Kitty McNamee has done.
Continue ReadingDuring opening night of Ballet West’s performance of Val Caniparoli’s “Jekyll & Hyde,” my dad turned to me and said, “I remember you once told me that dancers are telling stories with their bodies.
Continue ReadingIn a small white studio space, the line between performers and audience is being blurred. Choreographer Meytal Blanaru, born in Israel but now Brussels based, has devised this piece along with the dancers, and it’s multifaceted indeed, a study in hope and community spirit, with many playful detours along the way.
Continue ReadingStaging the biographical details of someone’s life is by no means an easy task; doing so for a figure who was complex and controversial amplifies this charge to a new level.
Continue Reading
comments