Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
The all-male Trocks remain one of the class acts of ballet, their comic parodies fizzing with wit, slapstick and a fanatical attention to style. Men in tutus and size-12 shoes evoke some of the great ballerinas from history, as well as dancing their princely partners. Featured in this UK tour are extracts from familiars like Swan Lake, less well-known works like Go for Barocco (the Trocks’ blissful Balanchine satire), and a Don Quixote that promises to brilliantly max up the swagger of Petipa’s classic.
- Peacock theatre, London, 15-26 September (020-7863 8222), then touring
Hofesh Shechter: Barbarians
Hofesh Shechter’s new trilogy is about love – its anxieties and banalities, as well as its passions. Its opening section was premiered last year, and contrasted the rigours of classical structure with the raw physicality of its dancers and a recorded confession by Shechter of the traumas of his midlife crisis. The two concluding parts promise their own different emotional worlds, moving through dubstep and harsh urban moves to a duet of quirky accommodation. Shechter’s choreography is currently passing through a self-questioning phase; his dancers, though, are reliably superb.
- Sadler’s Wells, London, 18-25 September (020-7863 8000)
Scottish Ballet triple bill
Artistic director Christopher Hampson is notching up an interestingly varied repertory. In Motion of Displacement – a new, family-themed work that’s set to music by John Adams and Bach – he introduces the young American choreographer Bryan Arias to the UK. Company dancer Sophie Laplane makes her debut as choreographer in Maze, and there’s a revival of Javier de Frutos’s Elsa Canasta, a marvellously dark, funny and louche homage to the music of Cole Porter, as seen through the world of 1920s US socialite Elsa Maxwell.
- Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 24–26 September (0844 871 7647), then touring.
Chéri
Fifty-year-old ballerina Alessandra Ferri was the star of the Royal Ballet’s last season in Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works. She’s back in Chéri, a production created for her by Canadian Martha Clarke. Based on Colette’s novella, Ferri plays Lea, the retired courtesan who falls in love with the beautiful son of her best friend, Madame Peloux. Herman Cornejo dances Chéri, actor Francesca Annis makes her debut as Peloux, and the evening’s period piano score (Debussy, Ravel and others) is played live by Sarah Rothenberg.
- Linbury Studio theatre, London, 29 September-4 October (020-7304 4000)
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Yabin Wang: Genesis
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is never shy of tackling major themes. Here he draws on eastern and western philosophies to meditate on the different ways we make our journey from life to death. Genesis is created with the superb Chinese dance artist Yabin Wang (whose dancing featured in the film House of Flying Daggers), and its accompanying music is drawn from Africa, India, Japan, China and eastern Europe.
- Sadler’s Wells, London, , 28-29 September (020-7863 8000)
Russell Maliphant: Conceal | Reveal
Russell Maliphant and lighting designer Michael Hulls have been working together for 20 years, carving out a unique language of dance and light. Marking this anniversary, Maliphant’s company revive milestone works like Broken Fall (originally performed by Sylvie Guillem and BalletBoyz). They also premiere new productions, including a quintet and solo for Maliphant’s partner, Dana Fouras, set to a score by Mukul with costumes by Stevie Stewart.
- Jerwood Dance House, Ipswich,2-3 October (01473 295230), then touring.
Dance Umbrella
This year’s festival is nothing if not wide-ranging, with 10 shows that range across venues in 13 London boroughs. There’s a focus on outdoor venues, with Charlotte Spencer’s Walking Stories taking place across a series of parks, and Of Riders and Running Horses, an evening of freestyle urban dance staged on a car park roof. The rest of the programme ranges from Claire Cunningham’s superb meditation on exclusion and judgment, to an evening of new dance from India.
- Various venues, London, 15–31 October
Royal Ballet triple bill
As Carlos Acosta dances his last season with the Royal, he also makes his choreographic mark with his latest work, a one-act version of Carmen. Set to an arrangement of Bizet by Martin Yates, Acosta pares his narrative down to the dramatic essentials of love, jealousy and revenge, framing the action with a minimalist design by Tim Hatley. Sharing the evening is a revival of Liam Scarlett’s excellent Viscera, a setting of Lowell Liebermann’s fast and thrilling Piano Concerto, plus the fleet, athletic classical grandeur of Balanchine’s Theme and Variations.
- Royal Opera House, London, in rep from 26 October (020 7304 4000)
Hussein Chalayan: Gravity Fatigue
The fashion designer has already had some connection with the world of dance, creating costumes for the likes of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Faun and Michael Clark’s current/SEE. Now he’s appearing in the new Sadler’s Wells season as author of his own work. While Damien Jalet is credited as the choreographer, Chalayan initiated the work’s concept, themes, narrative and movement style, as well as its visual imagery.
- Sadler’s Wells, London EC1, 28-31 October (020-7863 8000)
Rambert: Love, Art & Rock n Roll
Mark Baldwin has made it a deliberate policy to commission works from choreographers who are either British or have close links with the UK. Rambert’s latest triple bill features Didy Veldman’s 3 Dancers, inspired by Pablo Picasso’s The Three Dancers, which gives choreographic form to the painting’s dynamic imagery of death and desire. From Kim Brandstrup comes Transfigured Night, responding to the dark secrets in Schoenberg’s accompanying score. Completing the evening is a revival of Rooster, Christopher Bruce’s populist homage to the early music of the Rolling Stones.
- Sadler’s Wells, London, 3-7 November (020-7863 8000), then touring.
