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[dirac]

Reviews of the National Ballet of China at the Edinburgh Festival.

The Herald

Choreographer Fei Bo’s story of Lady Du, from the 16th-century epic The Peony Pavilion, is told as a dream: possibly ours, as well as hers. For as she trembles, her sleeping senses awakening with longing for Mengmei, a man she has never even met, there is another underlying dream at work. It’s about marrying seemingly disparate ideas: of melding Chinese traditions, in music, movement, costume and symbolism, with a modernity that embraces not just the West’s classical ballet and music, but the boldly effective minimalism of Michael Simon’s set.

The Scotsman

Trained in both modern dance and classical ballet, Fei has given The Peony Pavilion all the pointe shoe beauty an audience could wish for, but without the pomp and ceremony often associated with narrative ballets. The National Ballet of China principals are a force to be reckoned with and, as the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics proved, Chinese dancers do unity like no other, with the 20-strong corps de ballet wafting across the stage as one.

The Stage

This is fulsome, romantic stuff, with choreographer Fei Bo using the basic moves of classical ballet with a modern Chinese twist which adds an athleticism to the lovers’ duets. There is no mistaking the symbolism when Liniang removes her pointe shoe in mid duet and caresses her foot. It is a moment of extreme intimacy recalled in a later scene as the white clad corps de-ballet appear with only one - red - pointe shoe.

[dirac]

Two more.

The Telegraph

The first act is the more successful, with shimmering introductions — playing out against the suitably erotic languor of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faun - to the three images of the heroine. There is Liniang herself, in white; the Flower Goddess Liniang (her sensuous side, in red); and Kunqu Liniang, her self-restraint, played not by a dancer but by an opera singer, performing in Chinese yet sounding intriguingly Schoenbergian.

The Guardian

Yet while the emotions of the characters remain very codified and reserved, the poetics of the staging act in combination with the dancers' exquisitely nuanced style to draw us into a curiously moving world. The singular power of Peony Pavilion, and its exotic remove from western story ballets, is clinched in the last scene. Liniang is finally delivered into the arms of her lover, but not into a routine fairytale wedding. Rather, the mortal and spirit worlds join together in a wild, wheeling circle dance – a cosmic union that celebrates the marriage of the entire universe.

[dirac]

A review of the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet in 'La Bayadere' by Sarah Crompton in The Telegraph.

The Mariinsky’s dancers understand this extravagant yet disciplined style in their bones: their exactly calibrated movements are stamped in their muscles by years of training. If a line of girls are required to sit still with their heads and feet at exactly the same angle, holding fans, that is what they do. Perfectly.