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As Night Draws In
DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

As Night Draws In

Few choreographers made work which endures and resonates like the mighty Pina Bausch. She wasn't just an iconoclastic presence, she created work that still shocks, gets under the skin and into the marrow, and feels so visceral that it is timeless—whether it was through certain nuanced presentations of violence or societal taboos; staging work in unusual locations or bringing older and younger dancers together as twinned iterations of themselves. She stripped back veneers of genteel bourgeois respectability. She got down and dirty, she provoked, teased at larger truths about the human condition, and kept it real. Work was not always...

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What light (and darkness)
REVIEWS | By Oksana Khadarina

What light (and darkness)

Zürich Ballet’s production of “Romeo and Juliet” is a visually and emotionally gripping piece of dance-theater, a poignant dramatic vision of William Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy, which was created for the company by its artistic director, Christian Spuck, in 2012.

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Woolf Works
REVIEWS | By Róisín O'Brien

Dancing Virginia Woolf

I was so excited to see “Woolf Works” when it first premiered in 2015. Alessandra Ferri, Wayne McGregor, Virginia Woolf, Max Richter: an irresistible collision of the new with the old, a meeting of talent and history. I had been studying in London for a few years. £5 seats up in the gods at the Royal Opera House were a regular, somewhat guilty, indulgence (the opulence both beguiling and entrenched). In those trips, I got to ‘know’ the current company and found favourites: Edward Watson, Natalia Osipova, Eric Underwood. Already that is a snapshot in time, a constellation of people...

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Tale of Woe
REVIEWS | By Róisín O'Brien

Tale of Woe

“Maybe this time, it won’t end that way . . .” A wishful sentiment shared, perhaps, by the audience as they watch a well-known classic. Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words, written and produced by BalletBoyz founders Michael Nunn and William Trevitt in association with the Royal Ballet and Footwork Films, unfortunately does not manage to create this tension.

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Emotional Landscapes
DANCE FILM | REVIEWS | By Lorna Irvine

Emotional Landscapes

For any dance aficionado, Sadler's Wells is a legendary location. From the first theatre built in the seventeenth century, to the present day, with the sixth theatre standing in the prestigious Clerkenwell area of London, countless numbers of dancers, actors, choreographers and directors have cut their teeth here. The series of short online films presented by Sadler's Wells and currently available on YouTube are as eclectic as anything from the venue's centuries of inspiration. They all show the diversity of performances as well as the progression of dance, in terms of both choreography and developmental film techniques on screen. Watching these...

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Seasons Change
REVIEWS | By Oksana Khadarina

Seasons Change

Since the middle of March, when St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater closed its doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly 85 million people from all around the world have accessed a variety of high-quality streaming performances—symphonies, choral works, operas, ballets and ballet classes—which the company has offered on various online platforms, including Mariinsky.TV. This staggering number of viewers speaks for itself. In such unprecedented times for performing arts, Mariinsky Theater has demonstrated an exemplar way of outreach and engagement with their audiences.

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Taking Shelter
REVIEWS | By Gracia Haby

Taking Shelter

All around me, things are beginning to ‘return to normal’ which is misleading in both meaning and reality for things cannot return to normal; what was normal—what was before—was precisely the problem. In our separation from nature, and a balanced system of replenishment, driven by our greed and need for super-sized efficiency, our grand-scale consumerism, as Arundhati Roy writes, “another world . . . . She is on her way.” And how she forms, it is up to us all. “As the ice caps melt, as oceans heat up, and water tables plunge, as we rip through the delicate web...

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Dance ’til the Death
REVIEWS | By Madelyn Coupe

Dance ’til the Death

Royal New Zealand Ballet finished their “Live in Your Living Room” series with a tribute to old and new; their penultimate episode honoured the romantic roots of classical ballet whilst the season ended with a sweet and delicious encore of an audience favourite.

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Elegance & Exuberance
REVIEWS | By Oksana Khadarina

Elegance & Exuberance

Mariinsky Ballet’s spectacular production of “Raymonda,” presented on Mariinsky.TV as part of the company’s online season, is a real treat. Rarely seen in the West in its entirety, it’s a jewel of a ballet—the last great creation of Marius Petipa for the Imperial Russian Ballet.

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Stories from Soviet Ballet
REVIEWS | By Oksana Khadarina

Stories from Soviet Ballet

St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater offers an exceptional online season during the time of Covid-19, streaming from its website, Mariinsky.TV, a wide selection of performances—ballets, operas, and classical music concerts—from its illustrious repertory, all impeccably recorded and presented.

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The Piano
REVIEWS | By Madelyn Coupe

Edge of a Wild Sea

The next episode from Royal New Zealand Ballet’s “Live in Your Living Room” series diverges from their previous content. Up until now, the company has broadcast filmed productions such as “Romeo and Juliet,” or dress rehearsal recordings, “Cinderella” from their archives. This time, however, they decided to share something completely different. Instead of presenting a finished product—a performance with everything perfectly rehearsed and every detail finalised—RNZB chose to broadcast a documentary that focuses upon the rehearsal process. This episode shows how complicated and turbulent the creative process can be.

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A New Firebird
REVIEWS | By Oksana Khadarina

A New Firebird

As the coronavirus pandemic brought live performances to a halt, many ballet companies around the world turned to online platforms to present their work and to engage with their audiences, bringing dance performances straight into our living rooms. In fact, these trying times created an unprecedented opportunity for people all over the world to enjoy a wealth of ballet productions, new and old, which the majority of viewers would never be able to see otherwise.

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