June 2015 issue

Posted on May 29, 2015

This month, we look to the future of dance, with reports on Dance UK’s conference and the first BBC Young Dancer competition. We also look at the practical side of touring a ballet company, at ballet in Taiwan and more…

Swan Lake in a sea container

Jonathan Gray travels to Tokyo with Birmingham Royal Ballet to find out what is involved when a ballet company goes on tour:

“We almost take it for granted that when a ballet company tours abroad the dancers will be in top condition, the sets and costumes will look pristine and the production will be as excellent as it is when it is performed at home, despite jetlag and any stresses in appearing at an unfamiliar venue… what exactly goes into arranging a performance that involves over 110 people in a foreign country?”

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A formidable dance challenge

Actor Trader Faulkner remembers an encounter with the great Spanish dancer, Antonio, who had “a waist like a wasp and a tongue to match its sting”:

“I struggled through my dance, Farucca. Finished it. Silence. Spain’s dancing idol covered his face with his hands and peeped at me through his fingers. All I could see was one gleaming eye. ‘Darlink! You danth like a horth!’ Humiliated, I made for the door. He did nothing until I opened it. Then: “Not a cart horth, darlink! Come back! All is forgiven…’”

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A beacon for modern dance, but what of ballet?

David Mead explores the ballet scene in Taiwan:

“Ballet lost out again during the 1970s when modern dance suddenly blossomed, helped by the formation of Lin Hwai-min’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre in 1973. Many still cite Lin’s long debunked remark that Asians are unsuited to ballet as a major contributory factor to its fall, and you still occasionally hear individuals muse on whether it should have a place in Taiwan’s dance scene at all…”

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Also in the June issue…

Laura Dodge reports from the first ever Dance UK industry-wide conference for dance

Dominic Antonucci considers the pros and cons of dance competitions

Scottish Ballet’s Bethany Kingsley-Garner talks to Margaret Willis

Zoë Anderson reports from the first grand final of the BBC Young Dancer competitions

Debbie Malina on acupuncture for dancers

Plus news of the Sadler’s Wells autumn season, Hofesh Shechter Company’s #HOFEST, the new Pina Bausch fellowship for dance and choreography, dance elements in the Sonia Delaunay exhibition at Tate Modern, Melissa Hamilton at Dresden’s Semperoper Ballet, Roger Tully’s retirement and more; reviews of Diana Vishneva, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, The Royal Ballet in La Fille mal gardée and Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works, Company Chameleon, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in Romeo and Juliet, Breakin’ Convention, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet in D’Avant, the Royal Swedish Ballet’s Midsommernattsdröm, Ballet Nice Mediterranée in Robbins and Bournonville, Natalia Osipova and Sergei Polunin at La Scala, Slovak National Ballet’s Le Corsaire, Bavarian State Ballet, Ballett am Rhein, Aurélie Dupont in Manon, the Paris Opéra Ballet in Paquita, Dance Open in St Petersburg with Dutch National Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet, Stephen Petronio and Mark Morris in New York, books and DVDs, obituaries of Maya Plisetskaya, Kathrine Sorley Walker and Jocelyn Mather, dance education news and more

The June issue is in stores – including branches of WH Smith – now, or you can buy your print copy here, or buy your digital copy from all good app stores

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.