Q&A When did you start dancing? In the womb. Why did you start dancing? I will probably never know the answer to that. I just know why I keep doing it. Which dancer inspired you most as a child? Rudolph, Pina, Kazuo Ohno, Gregory Hines, Erik Bruhn , Karen Kain, Evelyn Hart, Robert Tewsley, Lynn […]
Brecht
Igor Yebra answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? When I was 13 years old. Why did you start dancing? Because I liked it and in my house it was something normal to see ballet; although first I wanted to be a football or basketball player! Which dancer inspired you most as a child? Fred Astaire, Antonio Gades and Vladimir […]
The Mikhailovsky Theatre opens its new season tonight with Semionova and Gomes in Giselle
Tonight the Mikhailovsky Theatre opens its 2012-2013 season with Polina Semionova dancing the eponymous heroine in Giselle. Semionova left to join the Berlin Staatsoper immediately after graduating from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. Coincidentally, earlier this week Daniel Barenboim, the Music Director of the Berlin Staatsoper, gave a press conference at the Mikhailovsky where he announced that on 5–6 September 2013, he will perform there […]
So does Ute Lemper approve of Angela Merkel? Nein!
Ute Lemper is touring Europe with her cabaret programme which includes material by that most political of theatre writers, Bertolt Brecht. Lemper herself has always been outspoken about her views, upsetting much of the German establishment along the way. The mix of her native German tongue, with almost perfect English and French, might have made […]
Giuseppe Picone answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? I started when I was 10 years old at the Teatro San Carlo ballet school in Naples. Why did you start dancing? My elder brother Raffaele took me to the audition and I fell in love with ballet immediately. Till then I had no idea of what ballet was. […]
Vito Mazzeo answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? At 9 years old. Why did you start dancing? I saw Carla Fracci dancing. Which dancer inspired you most as a child? Carla Fracci and Erik Bruhn for their great partnership. Which dancer do you most admire? Sylvie Guillem for the light that emanates when she dances; Massimo Murru […]
Paul Chalmer answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? Age 6, then National Ballet School, Toronto, age 9. Why did you start dancing? Saw ballet on TV. Which dancer inspired you most as a child? Nureyev. Which dancer do you most admire? Anthony Dowell. What’s your favourite role? Onegin by John Cranko. What role have you never played […]
Ornella Vanoni wows the Milanese audience at the MITO Festival
“Le canzoni della Mala” are songs about the Milanese underworld, most of which originated in the 50s when the great Italian theatre director Giorgio Strehler realised that Milan lacked a tradition of songs about prostitutes and thieves. In order to give his adopted home a body of such songs, as his beloved Brecht had given Berlin, […]
Private video surfaces of the anti-Israel protest at the BBC Proms concert
A member of the audience filmed the disturbances at Zubin Mehta’s 75th Birthday Prom with the Israel Philharmonic, which led the BBC to take its live radio broadcast off the air. The anti-Israel protesters disturbed the concert as several points during the evening. In his excellent blog, Norman Lebrecht writes: The clips remind me of the way the Nazis broke up […]
Russian playwright Yuri Lyubimov quits theatre company after half a century
Russian playwright Yuri Lyubimov has left the theatre company he has led for nearly 50 years. Lyubimov, 93, founded Moscow’s Taganka Theatre in 1964 but fell out with its actors over pay during a Czech tour. “I confirm I have taken my final decision – to leave the theatre,” Lyubimov told the RIA Novosti news agency […]
