“With his pantherine leaps and blazing-eyed, silent-movie acting style, Vasiliev is terrific as the young man. As he struts and frets to Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, costumed in possibly the tightest jeans ever seen on the Coliseum stage, every sinew of his sculpted musculature is taut with angst.
Rojo, meanwhile, her hair in a chic little bob, slinks around in a sulphur-yellow frock and black cocktail gloves. At intervals, she evinces her self-absorption through languid developpés à la seconde, presenting her exquisitely arched feet as fetishistic bait. Then, extraordinarily, she seems to change register, all staring eyes and juddering neck. Not so much femme fatale as zombie sex doll.”
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
Graham Spicer sees the fifth company at MilanOltre contemporary dance festival – “She fixed me in the eyes, so I fixed her back until she turned her head and slunk off… did I win? How I loathe audience participation.”
Matthew Paluch sees Carlos Acosta: Myths and Modern Masters and was struck by the lasting power of the modern masters – José Limón’s The Moor’s Pavane and Christopher Bruce’s Rooster.
