(A few) International Dance Day events – 29 April 2026
Emails about many initiatives have arrived in gramilano’s inbox over the last few days for International Dance Day – 29 April 2026. Here is a selection.
Friedemann Vogel
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Review: Onegin in Rome – two exceptional performers in a tear-jerking evening
Marta Mele sees the Rome Opera Ballet in John Cranko’s Onegin – two exceptional performers for an audience that did not shy away from the story’s emotions.
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Review: 17th World Ballet Festival in Tokyo, Programme B
Matthew Paluch sees the Programme B gala at the 17th World Ballet Festival in Tokyo with 33 of the world’s top dancers.
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Review: 17th World Ballet Festival in Tokyo, Programme A
Matthew Paluch sees the Programme A gala at the 17th World Ballet Festival in Tokyo with 33 of the world’s top dancers.
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Rome Opera Ballet to visit Paris, Dubai, Barcelona and Liège in tours beginning this month
Paris in April, Dubai in May, Barcelona in July and Liège in November – these are the four destinations for Rome Opera Ballet scheduled for 2024.
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Prix de Lausanne 2023 – the full lineup
The Prix de Lausanne 2023 50th anniversary complete programme, and the lineup for the Gala of the Stars
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Rome Opera Ballet announces 2021-2022 season
Rome Opera Ballet has announced its 2021-2022 season which starts with a Nutcracker and finishes with the restaging of Carla Fracci’s 2004 production of Giselle.
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Les Étoiles Gala in Rome 2020 features the ballet world’s starriest names with some surprises
The annual appointment with Les Étoiles in Rome is certainly a chance to enjoy a thrilling ballet gala, but the producer Daniele Cipriani also finds interesting twists to make each edition unique, so it never becomes a clichéd evening of ballet’s greatest hits. Such was the popularity last year, that the gala will spread over…
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Dancing Times, September edition – with Gramilano’s Danza in Italia column including Woolf Works at La Scala and a Glass triple bill in Rome
The latest issue of Dancing Times is out tomorrow. In September’s issue, I cover Wayne McGregor‘s “amazing” Woolf Works at La Scala with Alessandra Ferri giving a “frighteningly intense” performance alongside an excellent cast from La Scala Ballet including “powerful and touching” performances from Timofej Andrijashenko as Septimus and Claudio Coviello as Evans, and Gioacchino…
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Eleonora Abbagnato in Rome: “She should be rewarded with applause”
The recent letter sent by unions representing the dancers at the Rome Opera Ballet complaining about the “disrespectful” behaviour of its director, Eleonora Abbagnato, has sparked much discussion – mainly in Italian – on social media. There have been many indignant tut-tutters, scandalised (often in quite colourful language) by the goings-on in Rome, yet only…
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Rome Opera Ballet announces 2019-2020 season
Five different programmes make up Rome Opera Ballet‘s new season, 2019-2020. Benjamin Pech’s successful Swan Lake will be remounted to open the season. This will be followed by an evening dedicated to Jerome Robbins; a new work by José Carlos Martínez telling the tale of Lord Byron’s Il Corsaro (The Corsair); a triple bill featuring…
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Rome Opera Ballet’s Philip Glass triple bill thrills
The Philip Glass triple bill at Rome Opera Ballet showed off three very different choreographic styles to one composer’s music. Glass has a way of seducing the listener into his world —his music is guileful and hypnotising. The mainly minimalist component to his music results in there being a stronger connection with Vivaldi or Bach…
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Rome Opera Ballet presents a Philip Glass Evening featuring a new work with Eleonora Abbagnato and Friedemann Vogel
Rome Opera Ballet presents a Philip Glass Evening, which opens 29 March 2019, and features a new work with the company’s director, Eleonora Abbagnato, and guest artist Friedemann Vogel. The programme offers Benjamin Millepied‘s Hearts and Arrows, Jerome Robbins‘s Glass Pieces, and Nuit Blanche, a new piece by Sébastien Bertaud with designs by Christian Dior…
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Dancing Times, February edition – including Gramilano’s Danza in Italia column with La Scala’s new Nutcracker
Cover girl for the February edition of Dancing Times is Ballet Black‘s Isabela Coracy, photographed by Angela Zaremba, who is the Dancer of the Month. It was announced recently that Ballet Black will be collaborating with Birmingham Royal Ballet during its next season. Editor Jonathan Gray interviews Northern Ballet’s Javier Torres, Nicola Rayner meets Bonnie Langford who is in 9…
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BALLET2000’s Special New Year Issue… in English, Italian and French Editions
BALLET2000’s Special New Year Issue, is on the newsstands now. It looks back on a year in dance with, says editor Alfio Agostini, …the best shows, trendiest dancers, most significant companies and most creative choreographers. The bi-monthly dance magazine, uniquely, comes out in three separate editions: Édition FRANCE, ENGLISH Edition and Edizione ITALIA. Each year it produces…
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In pictures – Ardani Artists’ Tour de Force III at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Tour de Force III at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts was subtitled, a Dance Spectacular. In effect, the event brought many exceptional talents together, as is Ardani Artists‘ custom, and it was also Sergei Polunin‘s debut on America’s West Coast, something for Californians to get excited about. He was dancing with Natalia Osipova in…
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BALLET2000 Prix dedicates Cannes gala to Maya Plisetskaya
In a week’s time, the BALLET2000 Prix will host its annual event in Cannes, this year dedicated to the memory of Maya Plisetskaya. When the prize was launched, in 2004, then known as Les Étoiles de BALLET2000, the first Lifetime Achievement Award went to Plisetskaya. The 79-year-old not only collected her prize, but danced too:…
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18-year-old Vincenzo di Primo on winning at Lausanne and studying at the Vienna Ballet Academy
18-year-old Vincenzo di Primo was one of the seven winners at the annual Prix de Lausanne, taking away the Albert Amon Foundation scholarship which will give him the opportunity to train for a year at one of the 66 schools and dance companies that support the Lausanne competition. Lausanne was an unforgettable experience which gave…
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Viktorina Kapitonova answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? I was dancing at home the whole time as a young child, my mum sent me with my sister to the house of the arts, where children could audition to study all arts, like drawing, clay modelling, dancing and singing. The singing teacher would not take me as I…
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Ardani Artists 25th Anniversary “If only all Galas could be like this”
Sergei and Gaiane Danilian, The Russian couple known by their company name, Ardani Artists, marked their 25th anniversary of dance management, production and promotion with a gala featuring some of the most flashy names in dance today: Marcelo Gomes, Friedemann Vogel, Edward Watson, Joaquín De Luz, Denis Matvienko and Ivan Vasiliev, although, according to most of…
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Ardani’s 25th Anniversary Gala with Osipova, Watson, Vasiliev, Gomes, Matvienko…
Ardani 25 Dance Gala is a must for ballet fans on Friday 17th and Saturday 18th July at the London Coliseum. Natalia Osipova, Edward Watson, Ivan Vasiliev, Marcelo Gomes, Denis Matvienko, Joaquín De Luz and Friedemann Vogel will be sharing the bill in three contemporary pieces. The event marks Ardani Artists’ 25th anniversary. The Company was founded in 1990 by Sergei…
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Thoughts on Marianela Núñez’s life-affirming performance in Romeo and Juliet
Marianela Núñez is an extraordinary dancer who seems to possess an inner light which not only makes her glow, but illuminates everyone around her. There is a pure, almost spiritual quality to her apparent happiness on stage, as though there there is nowhere else she would rather be. It is an extremely rare quality: many…
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Zakharova, Guérin and Legris in new works by Patrick de Bana for China
Svetlana Zakharova is to dance two modern pieces in the Gala Baiser Volé which closes the season at Shanghai’s Grand Theatre on 9 August. It will be the first time that the Russian ballerina dances in China. Revelation is a work that she has performed many times in such events over the last eight years since Japanese choreographer…
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Jack Devant, ballet photographer: freezing the beauty
There are thousands, millions, of dance photos scattered around the net, and most of the best come from just a handful of photographers. We know their copyright watermarks, we know their style, we read their names, but know relatively little about the people behind the lens. Jack Devant is one of those names, with his…
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Stepping in for Vasiliev & Osipova: Vittoria Valerio’s turn
Natalia Osipova, down to dance with Ivan Vssiliev in Rubies at Teatro alla Scala, was indisposed for the dress rehearsal, the first night, and has now been replaced for the run by Vittoria Valerio. Just last season, Vasiliev’s last minute injury before a performance of Roland Petit‘s Notre-Dame de Paris, gave the unknown Claudio Coviello the…
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Zach’s Diary part two: Starting at Stuttgart’s John Cranko-Schule
After Zach’s Diary part one: Growing up dancing in Canada, Zach – an eighteen-year-old ballet dancer – arrives in Stuttgart to begin his studies at the John Cranko-Schule. * * * * * Arriving in Stuttgart was quite a culture shock. I really didn’t expect it to be so different! Of course there was the language…
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Daria Klimentova answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? When I was 10 I went to ballet school in Prague, learning the Vaganova technique for 8 years. It was a bit boring for the first few years after doing gymnastics, but then I realized that yes, I wanted to become ballet dancer. Why did you start dancing? While…
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Maina Gielgud answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition
Q&A When did you start dancing? I took my first ballet classes when I was about 6 years old. It was in Brussels, and with a Russian teacher married to a Belgian. Her name was Mme de Zeum. After my first class she asked my mother to get me some pointe shoes for the next…
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Hallberg débuts at La Scala, with Núñez, Zakharova, Osipova, Bolle and Vasiliev
Good news for dance at La Scala. Cutting down on the budget has meant axing three opera productions, but opera’s loss is ballet’s gain, for the ‘cheaper’ ballet performances have been bumped up from 49 this season to a healthier 61. More guests too will liven up the 2013-2014 season. House fixtures Svetlana Zakharova, Roberto Bolle and Massimo Murru…
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Raymonda at La Scala… a year on
A year ago at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala the ballet company scored a hit with its restaging of that difficult piece Raymonda. The ballet’s improbable story, with a lack of obvious dramatic push, can make it seem lacklustre. Therefore when Rudolf Nureyev‘s version for Paris hit the stage in 1983, with Jean Guizerix’s brilliantly macho Abderam making poor Yvette Chauviré quake with…
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