Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus’ 1987 dance piece What The Body Does Not Remember, at Sadler’s Wells, London today and tomorrow, is a work credited with radically transforming the arena of contemporary dance. But what does this mean to us now? 28 years on, its once highly-innovative association of physicality and high emotion, (untrained dancers stomping, running… Read more »
Tag: dance
Interview: Shantala Shivalingappa on the Freedom of Discipline
As the world economic balance shifts ‘eastward’ our Western-centric presumptions of the way things work is sinking into the sand. Contemporary dance is perhaps the most accessible art form able to embody and communicate these changes. Born in India and brought up in France, Shantala Shivalingappa (pictured above) trained in the strict discipline of classical kuchipudi… Read more »
What’s on? El Sur – Víctor Ullate Ballet
Víctor Ullate Ballet’s performance of El Sur is my highlight of the week for all fans of classical dance, contemporary dance, flamenco… the performing arts in general. This 90-minute piece is dedicated to the late, great flamenco singer Enrique Morente, whose songs provide the musical setting for a balletic tale of love, hate, murder and suicide… Read more »
What’s On? Richard MacDonald sculptures at Barcelona’s MEAM
Only in the heights of extreme physical pain can one feel relief from the constant emotional torture. I reckon that’s the whole point behind study, sport, really loud concerts and really long after-parties … and thank god (we hope) that something might do it! albeit for a very short time. In this spirit, Richard MacDonald creates small, life-sized and… Read more »
REVIEW: Can We Talk About This? DV8 Physical Theatre
There’s something slightly aggressive about the title of Lloyd Newson’s verbose dance/theatre piece, on at Barcelona’s Mercat de les Flors this weekend. Like downloading 40 podcasts from BBC Radio 4’s Today news programme then listening to 10 minutes from the end of each, the acclaimed choreographer of award-winning ‘physical theatre’ troupe DV8 seeks to stimulate debate about… Read more »
DANCE REVIEW: Lemi Ponifasio / MAU
On a slick black stage, stabbed through the heart by a monolithic shard, dance troupe MAU terrified me with a tense, urgent, masterful piece with a throbbing, ritualistic score. You’ll never sleep again. In Birds with Skymirrors, Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio deals with the big issues: our relationship to the environment and to each other, relating… Read more »
Ballets Russes, the show.
Felia Doubrovska is The Firebird (1910) In 1909, a troupe of Russian dancers embarked on a whirlwind 20-year tour of Europe that was to sex-up ballet considerably. Hitherto a fluffy thing stuffed between opera acts, dance became a multidisciplinary multi-sensorial extravaganza that shocked the most enlightened of Parisian… Read more »
Serge Diaghilev, bad example.
Too naughty: Serge Diaghilev A talk related to the exhibition Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes at CaixaForum started with a 20minute introduction by Miquel Cuenca, a man surely too verbose to be a music critic, before the real speaker, Sjeng Scheijen, kicked into his bit. The Dutchman had just published a fat bio of Sergei Diaghilev, a… Read more »
Apocalyptic dance at LEM
Soizu: a freakishly good butoh performance that formed an unexpected part of LEM music festival. Held at the dance space la Caldera this outrageously disturbing act was made more so by the fact that many in the audience seemed non-plussed by it. On a sparse, ripped up landscape, to the grinding soundscape of Iker Ormazábal, formidable dancer… Read more »
Ballet Nacional de Cuba – Revolutionary Tutus
Ballet Nacional de Cuba has been and gone now. Still interested? Nice!