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[Photo Album] Royal Ballet’s Balanchine and Robbins programme

4 June 2021 by Gramilano Leave a Comment

Vadim Muntagirov, Yasmine Naghdi, Anna Rose O'Sullivan and Mayara Magri in Apollo photo by Helen Maybanks ROH
Vadim Muntagirov, Yasmine Naghdi, Anna Rose O'Sullivan and Mayara Magri in Apollo photo by Helen Maybanks ROH

Tonight, Friday 4 June, the Royal Ballet opens a new evening of dance dedicated to George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins with Apollo, the Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, and Dances at a Gathering.

Mayara Magri, Anna Rose O'Sullivan. Yasmine Naghdi and Vadim Muntagirov in Apollo photo Helen Maybanks ROH
Vadim Muntagirov in Apollo photo by Helen Maybanks ROH
Vadim Muntagirov, Anna Rose O'Sullivan, Yasmine Naghdi, Mayara Magri in Apollo photo by Helen Maybanks ROH

American ballet is celebrated in classic works by two choreographic giants of the 20th century. Apollo brought Balanchine together for the first time with composer Igor Stravinsky with the original creation being for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1928. Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux gave life to a long-forgotten movement from Tchaikovsky's original score for Swan Lake. It was created in 1960 for virtuoso New York City Ballet dancers Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow – its thrilling technical challenges remain a test for performers today.

Natalia Ospipova in Tchaikovsky pad de deux photo by Helen Maybanks ROH
Natalia Osipova and Reece Clarke in Tchaikovsky-Pas-de-Deux photo by Helen Maybanks ROH

Jerome Robbins, who played a crucial role in the development of American ballet as well as American musicals, created Dances at a Gathering in 1969. With music by Chopin, is an ode to pure dance. Robbins said,

There are no stories to any of the dances in Dances at a Gathering. There are no plots and no roles. The dancers are themselves dancing with each other to that music in that place.

While plotless, the ballet's intimacy creates a powerful sense of community, which promises to resonate with audiences and dancers again following its revival in 2020 just before lockdown.

Reviewing a 2020 performance, Teresa Guerreiro for CultureWhisper wrote,

Robbins' choreography, unforced, flowing, at times like the finest lace, as fleet-footed dancers cross each other's paths creating dazzling patterns, is a delight. Watching it you feel, in a mysterious way, truly blessed.

Francesca Hayward and William Bracewell in Dances at a Gathering photo by Bill Cooper ROH
Fumi Kaneko, Federico Bonelli, William Bracewell, Marianela Nunez and Valentino Zucchetti in Dances at a Gathering photo by Helen Maybanks ROH
The Royal Ballet, Dances at a Gathering, photo by Helen Maybanks ROH
Marianela Nunez and Alexander Campbell in Dances at a Gathering photo by Bill Copper ROH

The programme will be streamed live on Friday 11 June and will remain available to watch on-demand for one month. The cast for that performance is as follows:

Apollo
Matthew Ball, Melissa Hamilton, Claire Calvert, Fumi Kaneko

Tchaikovsky Pas de deux
Marianela Nuñez, Vadim Muntagirov

Dancers at a Gathering
Yasmine Naghdi, Mayara Magri, Anna Rose O'Sullivan, Romany Pajdak, Fumi Kaneko,, Marcelino Sambé, Reece Clarke, Téo Dubreuil, Benjamin Ella, James Hay

Graham Spicer version
Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.

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Filed Under: news, dance Tagged With: Alexander Campbell, Anna Rose O'Sullivan, Federico Bonelli, Francesca Hayward, Fumi Kaneko, George Balanchine, Igor Stravinsky, James Hay, Jerome Robbins, Marianela Nuñez, Matthew Ball, Melissa Hamilton, Natalia Osipova, Reece Clarke, Royal Ballet, Vadim Muntagirov, Valentino Zucchetti, William Bracewell, Yasmine Naghdi

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Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan, aka ‘Gramilano’. 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. He wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.

Since 2022, Gramilano is pleased to welcome guest authors: Alisa Alekseeva, Paul Arrowsmith, Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel, Jonathan Gray, Marina Harss, Matthew Paluch, Jann Parry, Graham Watts, and Deborah Weiss.

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