High-energy double bill from France It’s perhaps not a good idea to approach the unknown with clear expectations, but having read the promotional material, I had very defined expectations of Acid Gems, the first piece in a double bill brought to the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, by Ballet de Lorraine. To wit: “Adam Linder’s Acid […]
Mary, Queen of Scots
Scottish Ballet’s Award-Winning Dramatic Work Scottish Ballet’s Mary Queen of Scots is nothing if not bold. It’s also challenging, mostly in a good way. What it deliberately is not is a literal, linear account of the life of Mary Stuart, the Scottish Queen imprisoned and eventually beheaded on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I […]
Ballet Icons Gala 2026
An Impressive Array of International Ballet Stars at the Coliseum A gala is a gala. It’s there to celebrate, not to challenge. So, it’s to the credit of Ballet Icons, the organisation behind the annual Ballet Icons Gala, which marked its 20th anniversary at the Coliseum on Sunday, that, side by side with gala staples […]
Sweet Mambo by Pina Bausch – Sadler’s Wells Theatre
Legendary choreographer Pina Bausch’s richly textured penultimate work makes its long-awaited London premiere Legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch once famously said she was less interested in how people move than she was in what moves them. It is this idea that lies at the heart of Sweet Mambo, Bausch’s beautiful, emotionally intense penultimate work, which […]
Ballet Nights #010 – DecaDance
Ballet Nights Returns to Cadogan Hall in Glowing Form DecaDance was the 10th London iteration of the Ballet Nights brand, now comfortably installed in Chelsea’s Cadogan Hall. Having seen all its predecessors, I feel confident in stating that it was the best so far. The brainchild of former dancer Jamiel Devernay-Laurence, Ballet Nights’ founder and […]
London City Ballet Unveils 2026 Season
London City Ballet’s Mouth-Watering New Season London City Ballet is one of the best things – if not even the best thing – to have happened to British ballet in the past couple of years. No wonder we are looking forward to its new season with breathless anticipation. Quick recap: London City Ballet is […]
Yorke Dance Project Honours Modern Dance Pioneers
Yolande Yorke-Edgell Talks to London Unattached about Modern Milestones “Legacy is very important to me”, says Yolande Yorke-Edgell, British dancer, choreographer and founder of the Yorke Dance Project, which launched in Los Angeles in 1998 and relaunched in the UK in 2009, thus spanning the width of the Atlantic Ocean, not only geographically, but also […]
Ballet Nights, The New Year’s Day Concert
Ballet Nights’ Newest Project Rings in 2026 Ballet Nights hit the ground running just over two years ago as “a new way of seeing dance”, in the words of its go-getting founder, Jamiel Devernay-Laurence. It has come a long way, grown and evolved, and its first New Year’s Day Concert, which rang in 2026 at […]
Birmingham Royal Ballet, The Nutcracker
Once More with Feeling! Most versions of The Nutcracker ballet aim to create magic. It is, after all, a ballet about the transformative power of dreams and imagination, prompted by a mysterious magician figure and set to a Tchaikovsky score that is itself musical magic. So it was with all four Nutcrackers I saw in […]
Breaking Bach, The Movie
Daring Marriage of Bach and Hip Hop Now on film In the summer of 2025, a packed Usher Hall in Edinburgh rose as one to acclaim a daring, unique marriage of two, on the surface antithetical, art forms: the sophisticated baroque music of J.S.Bach and the visceral street dance of disaffected urban youth – hip […]