The Goldberg Variations
Dancing Times Blog
by Barbara Newman
1y ago
In her final blog on the Dancing Times website, Barbara Newman sees Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker at Sadler’s Wells The Goldberg Variations is the sixth piece Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker has choreographed to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and there’s no way to talk about it without first considering the music. A solo work for the keyboard, intended for the harpsichord, the composition consists of an opening aria, which is repeated at the end, and 30 variations developed in a formal pattern of canons and established musical forms of widely varied character. The score’s overall length and elabo ..read more
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Silent Partner
Dancing Times Blog
by Daniel Pratt
1y ago
I first came across a copy of Dancing Times, fittingly, in a dance studio. My first ballet teacher kept a box of old copies at the back of her studio and the children learning their first steps would use the magazines as props during whatever little dances we were moulding our bodies around. I remember it took many weeks for me to build up the courage to ask to take a copy home, just to borrow, so I could wonder privately.  What I saw in the magazine beguiled me. The gods and goddesses wreathed over the magazine’s pages danced steps and made beautiful shapes that were nothing like what I ..read more
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New works in London
Dancing Times Blog
by Barbara Newman
2y ago
Photograph: English National Ballet dancers in Playlist EP for The Forsythe Evening, photo by Laurent Liotardo. For every person who thinks ballet means fairytales, there’s another who’s hunting for narratives steeped in sex and another who prefers movement stripped of drama and decoration. Over time, the classical ballet vocabulary has evolved into a flexible language that can satisfy them all. The new creations I’ve seen in recent weeks spoke that language in strikingly different ways and for different purposes. Making a new one-act for The Royal Ballet, titled The Weathering, Kyle Abra ..read more
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Old Swan Lakes reflecting new ideas
Dancing Times Blog
by Daniel Pratt
2y ago
I’ve been conspicuously absent from this blog for a while. Shamefully, I don’t have a real reason. I could excuse myself by saying it was a kind of coronavirus fatigue. I looked back over this blog’s catalogue with warmth and interest, realising what a privilege it is to have this space to muse on dance. One truth discovered over the course of the past year, as the world made strides to remake itself in the wake of the pandemic, is that my time has been consumed by the act of dancing. Life outside of this seems to have just happened behind the scenes, without me taking much notice. Few things ..read more
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London Mime Festival at the Barbican
Dancing Times Blog
by Barbara Newman
2y ago
Pictured: Shantala Shivalingappa in asH, a piece by Aurélien Bory. Part of the London Mime Festival. Photograph by Aglae Bory. Over the years, London’s annual Mime Festival has developed into a grab bag of theatrical activity meshing movement, music and speech. Its international array of artists attracts viewers of all ages, who are possibly the boldest adventurers around because they never know what to expect. In the Pit at the Barbican Centre, Thick & Tight produced a clutch of short pieces, Short & Sweet, that ranged from nonsensical portraits of Rasputin and Edith Sitwell – do you ..read more
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English National Ballet’s Raymonda
Dancing Times Blog
by Barbara Newman
2y ago
Pictured: Isaac Hernández and Shiori Kase in Raymonda. Photograph by Johan Persson. Tamara Rojo has made an enormous effort to stage a full-evening production of Raymonda for English National Ballet (ENB). It is her first attempt at choreography and the first such production by a company from the UK, if you don’t count Rudolf Nureyev’s initial version, commissioned by the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto and danced there in 1964 by The Royal Ballet’s former Touring Company. There have been several complete stagings of the ballet in Russia – by Alexander Gorsky, Agrippina Vaganova, Konsta ..read more
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Nutcracker in New York
Dancing Times Blog
by Barbara Newman
2y ago
Above: Indiana Woodward in New York City Ballet’s production of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker. Photograph by Erin Baiano. Relaying news from New York in the January issue of Dancing Times, Leigh Witchel wrote that “New York City Ballet has done the same version of The Nutcracker since 1954,” but because “there were no major debuts during opening week,” there was “nothing to report” about it. As it happened, that old production made headlines this year, with good reason. George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker is as much a part of Christmas in New York as Rockefeller Center’s towering Chri ..read more
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Two exhibitions
Dancing Times Blog
by Barbara Newman
2y ago
Main image: Laura Knight, The Dressing Room at Drury Lane (1922). Image reproduced with permission of The Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE. Designed by Isamu Noguchi (who was born in 1904 and died in 1988), a sunken stone garden and a giant tilted cube that balances on one corner form part of New York City’s permanent landscape, available all day every day to passersby. Noguchi’s Garden of Peace at UNESCO headquarters in Paris and his sculpture garden at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem are also permanently open to visitors and the elements. Much of his output, however, is not so public, if you d ..read more
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Strictly Speaking: The final
Dancing Times Blog
by Marianka Swain
2y ago
Well, serves me right for taking such pleasure in our perfect Strictly final. I should have known that 2021 would have one final gut punch in store: poor AJ and Kai having to drop out through injury. It made the result even more of a foregone conclusion – in terms of public support, no one stood a chance in a head-to-head battle with Rose – and added a sad note to another otherwise celebratory finish. This has been a season of extremes. Once again Strictly joy wrestled with coronavirus angst, and we had remarkably high-standard dancing versus medical dropouts, trailblazing and progressive cont ..read more
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Strictly Speaking: Week 12
Dancing Times Blog
by Marianka Swain
2y ago
Well, what a semi-final! Usually doubling the dances means halving the standard, at least, but everyone delivered here – even if the judges did get overexcited with the 10s. It’s not that many were undeserved, more than the maximum score has become so completely devalued at this point. Even Motsi realised it, wishing her 10 for Rose could have a crown added to differentiate it. Pro tip: use the lower paddles more and the 10 will indeed feel fully earned. Anyhow, great to see everyone really fight for their place in the final. Rhys rose to the (admittedly unkind) challenge of the samba, John ba ..read more
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