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ATHENS and LONDON TOUR


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I've seen the company's three programmes in London now, and enjoyed most of them a lot. There were stories that it wasn't selling well but maybe the booking has picked up at the last minute as the theatre has looked more or less full every night, and the audiences have been very enthusiastic.

Lots of strong individual performances but as usual it's the company as a whole that impresses. (Though I can't resist mentioning Lorena Feijoo in Allegro Brillante - magnificent!)

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I went last night - not quite a full house but the audience were very enthusiastic.

The programme was Allegro Brillante, Paquita Pas de Trois, '7 for 8' (music by Bach, choreographed by Helgi Tomasson) and 'Rush' by Christopher Wheeldon.

It is a while since I saw a company who seemed so highly polished and well-rehearsed, and so in time with each other and the orchestra. No one particularly stood out for me, although I thought Guennadi Nedviguine in the Paquita PDT a very good jumper - light, high elevation, really on the beat, and really tight batterie. Also, in the '7 for 8' Yuan Yuan Tan seemed to be just about the only dancer from the whole evening who seemed to be putting any of herself into the performance.

I thought that 'Rush' was just one of those ballets that companies put on because they have to - I didn't find it very exciting or different, and I thought the music was awful. I was quite disappointed because the other things I have seen by Wheeldon did excite me, and I wondered whether it was because the company seemed to have so few 'personalities', because the music was boring, or because this just wasn't very interesting choreography. Anyway, that was just me. The rest of the theatre seemed to love it.

'7 for 8' was really the best piece in the programme for me. It was beautiful and, as I said, danced with feeling.

I do like going to see a mixed programme like that. There is generally always something that stands out and sticks in the memory.

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NYCB put a link up to a review of this tour

sfb tour review link

With its courtly grace notes and its American folk form, its classical virtuosity and ripping speeds (Vivaldi and Corelli, courtesy of the English Chamber Orchestra in the pit), the 1957 Square Dance that opened the run became a manifesto for the week, ballerina Tina LeBlanc gloriously unstressed by the twiddliest pointe work and Joan Boada, a Cuban principal, the very image of the brooding, Renaissance manhood that the piece glorifies.

I found an arrangement of Vivaldi's Concerto's with guitars instead of violins or mandolins as the soloists. That might be interesting to try live.

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