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2 weeks ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
International Draft Works★★★★★TitleInternational Draft WorksCompanyVariousVenueLinbury Theatre, Royal Opera HouseDate 9 April 2025ReviewerGraham WattsThis year’s platform for emerging choreographic talent, traditionally hosted by The Royal Ballet and curated by its creative producer, Emma Southworth, brought together work by two homegrown talents, two more from the UK and four from overseas.
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4 weeks ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitleBeach BirdsBipedCompanyLyon Opera BalletVenueSadler’s Wells, LondonDate19 March 2025ReviewerGraham WattsAlthough Merce Cunningham died in 2009, aged 90, and the dance company that bore his name ceased its business two years’ later, it is pleasing to see that his work is still alive and most certainly kicking! His legacy survives in many places, but none more faithfully preserved than by Lyon Opera Ballet where one of Cunningham’s former dancers, Cédric Andrieux, is now artistic director.
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1 month ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitleThe DreamCompanyDrum TaoVenueThe Peacock Theatre, LondonDate11 March 2025ReviewerGraham WattsDrum Tao is a Japanese ensemble, formed in 1991, that does exactly what it says on the tin. They drum.
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2 months ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitleStav Struz Boutros: SepiaLeïla Ka: MaldonneWang Yeu-Kwn/Shimmering Productions: BeingsCompanyVariousVenueLilian Baylis Studio, Sadler’s Wells, LondonDate29 January – 8 February 2025ReviewerGraham WattsThe Rose International Dance Prize has a younger sibling: The Bloom Prize, for choreographers with less than ten years’ experience. Three finalists in this global contest for emerging choreographers were in competition for a cash prize of £15,000 and a trophy designed by Es Devlin.
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2 months ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitlePhaedra + MinotaurCompanyRoyal Ballet & OperaVenueLinbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, LondonDate6 February 2025ReviewerGraham WattsThis performance was an exemplar for the subtle but important and long overdue change of name from The Royal Opera House to the Royal Ballet & Opera. For 70 years the Royal Ballet had seemed like a lodger or a poor relation in the House that was owned by the Royal Opera and now, at long last, it is a shared belonging.
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2 months ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitleEncantadoCompanyLia Rodrigues’ companyVenueSadler’s Wells, LondonDate8 February 2025ReviewerGraham WattsThe last of the four finalists in the Rose International Dance Prize was yet another work that introduced a single interesting idea but otherwise lacked depth and variety. The single concept in Lia Rodrigues’ Encantado was to have naked bodies playing with bolts of fabric.
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2 months ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitleOur Mighty GrooveCompanyUchenna Dance with young dancers from east LondonVenueSadler’s Wells East, LondonDate7 February 2025ReviewerGraham WattsDance routinely divides the dance critics, but never in the manner of this inaugural production at Sadler’s Wells East, the second half being a totally immersive performance in which most of the 550 audience members participated enthusiastically.
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2 months ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitleLARSEN CCompanyChristos Papadopoulos companyVenueSadler’s Wells, LondonDate4 February 2025ReviewerGraham WattsThe Rose International Dance Prize is for a work of dance in any genre but on the evidence of this and the previous “finalist” (Marco da Silva Ferreira’s CARCAÇA) it seems that the selection process has shown a bias towards abstract thematic work. It’s hardly surprising since, inevitably, the list of nominators is stacked with people from the world of contemporary dance.
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2 months ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitleCARCAÇACompanyMarco da Silva Ferreira CompanyVenueSadler’s Wells, LondonDate1 February 2025ReviewerGraham WattsThe Rose International Dance Prize at Sadler’s Wells showcases four dance works from any genre that have been selected from a complex process involving ‘global’ nominators and a panel of ‘selectors’ in an arrangement described in my earlier review of Kyle Abraham’s An Untitled Love.
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2 months ago | 
gramilano.com | Graham Watts |Dance Europe |London Dance
TitleAn Untitled LoveCompanyA.I.M by Kyle AbrahamVenueSadler’s Wells, LondonDate29 January 2025ReviewerGraham WattsThe Rose Prize is the latest initiative to try to do for dance what the Turner and the Booker have respectively done for art and literature. It’s a bold ambition and we should wish it well (I have fond memories of The Place Prize, which regrettably lasted for just five iterations from 2004-2013).
