Latest news with #Osipova
The Guardian
16-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The week in dance: Trisha Brown Dance Company & Noé Soulier: Working Title & In the Fall; Osipova/Linbury
Trying to see the past through contemporary eyes is one of the great challenges of dance. It's particularly difficult with the works of the great American pioneers of the postmodern period, the group who gathered at Judson church in New York and transformed everyday movement into abstract art: Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Lucinda Childs and Trisha Brown. Watching films of their endeavours from the 1960s onwards, their radicalism is clear, but today it's sometimes hard to discern the gleam of inspiration, the absolute conviction that made them so influential. Now the enterprising Van Cleef & Arpels festival Dance Reflections, which is filling London with a huge variety of dance until 8 April, offers a chance to do just that. Brown died in 2017, but her company have continued, and on a single bill they perform two works. One, Working Title, has been slightly adapted from Brown's 1985 choreography; the other, In the Fall (2023), is by French dance-maker Noé Soulier. Both are limpidly beautiful and performed with grace and poise by eight exceptional dancers. Yet it's Brown's piece, which sets them running and turning across the stage like excitable children finding their feet, that has all the vitality. Accompanied by music by Peter Zummo that floats in and out, and with lighting by Beverly Emmons that pastes the floor with subtle strips of colour, Working Title has a jazzy sensibility that seems to run through every body, as repetitive steps and minute calibrations of movement build a scene of constant motion. Its energetic jumps and loose arms have a sense of continual inventiveness. In Soulier's In the Fall, the experimentation is more overt. This tribute to Brown plays with the falling body, creating geometrically extended shapes, but it feels like an academic exercise rather than a voyage of discovery. The Russian ballerina Natalia Osipova has based her career on exploration as she leaves behind the bravura classical roles with which she made her name. In her latest offering for the Royal Ballet, she assumes the mantle of two female groundbreakers and then adds a twist all of her own. In Errand into the Maze (1947), she invokes Martha Graham's choreography as the female battler who must suppress her own fear as she encounters Marcelino Sambé's Minotaur. Osipova lends the stylised steps both ferocity and shaded emotion; she captures the joy of triumph as well as terror. Yet her intelligence comes to life more strongly in the other two pieces. In Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan (1976), choreographed by Frederick Ashton as a memory of a dancer who inspired him, and beautifully filmed by Grigory Dobrygin (the film is screened halfway through the show), Osipova runs in peach chiffon, turning, jumping and falling with freedom and a haunted expression that beautifully conjures Duncan. The Exhibition, a new work by the Norwegian Jo Strømgren, is a piece of comic dance theatre in which two strangers (Osipova and the expressive Christopher Akrill) meet in an art gallery. She talks voluble Russian; he's annoyed. But gradually her needling presence unlocks something in him, in a developing relationship shown in fluid movement and clever words. It's gentle but rewarding, a perfect vehicle for Osipova's vivid dramatic talent. Star ratings (out of five)Working Title & In the Fall ★★★★Osipova/Linbury ★★★★
The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Osipova/Linbury review – superstar ballerina reckons with the icons of dance
Dancers don't just pay tribute to the past, they can inhabit it. In this solo(ish) triple bill, Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova steps into the shoes of two great female icons of modern dance, Martha Graham and Isadora Duncan, perhaps absorbing some of their pioneering spirit along the way. In Graham's Errand Into the Maze, Osipova is quelling demons – explicitly Marcelino Sambé's Minotaur, but inner ones too – with the power of her mighty ankle-to-ear kicks. It is a dance of strength and sharp accents, geometry and gravity, and Osipova's character simmers with power as well as trepidation. Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan is a homage by Frederick Ashton, presented here in a new film by Grigory Dobrygin, spiritedly shot and beautifully lit. A handheld camera chases Osipova under a flowing chiffon scarf, capturing her giddiness and wild freedom while closeup detail sees the vulnerability at heart. The voluptuousness of the movement is womanly but there's a childlike quality too, in its abandon and in the certainty of one's own presence at the centre of the world. It's a film that does the ballet justice. So that's the first half of Osipova's offering. The second half diverges eccentrically from the historical into something of right now. Jo Strømgren is a Norwegian choreographer, playwright and director whose The Exhibition is a piece of comic dance theatre. Two people arrive in a gallery: a well-groomed Osipova and the scruffier Christopher Akrill. She speaks Russian, he English. There's mischief and misunderstanding and the two are drawn into an odd relationship which is hampered and enhanced by their inability to understand each other. You never know where the piece is going, but it engagingly dances around themes of connection, prejudice, art and beauty, and what the body can and cannot say. Even if you can't understand Osipova's words there is a naturalism and cheeky character to her animated chatter. We know she's a good dance-actor, but speech is something different. It's a surprising swerve for Osipova, a statement about who she is, or might want to be as a performer. It's a triple bill that honours past legends while telling us that Osipova is determined to be her own artist. At the Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House, London, until 10 March
The Guardian
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Natalia's night: Royal Ballet puts the spotlight on Osipova
Marcelino Sambé and Natalia Osipova rehearse Errand Into the Maze by Martha Graham Errand Into the Maze is one of two pieces performed live in the production Osipova/Linbury The other is The Exhibition, which Osipova rehearses here with Christopher Akrill The Exhibition is a world premiere by Norwegian choreographer Jo Strømgren Sambé and Osipova in Errand Into the Maze, inspired by the myth of Ariadne and the Minotaur Osipova rehearses with Akrill for The Exhibition. The Russian ballerina also stars in a new film of Frederick Ashton's Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan as part of the evening Osipova and Akrill in The Exhibition, which will be staged in the Royal Ballet's intimate Linbury theatre Osipova in Errand Into the Maze, a 1947 duet choreographed by Martha Graham Sambé and Osipova in rehearsals for Errand Into the Maze Rehearsals for The Exhibition choreographed by Strømgren, a former dancer who is also a playwright and theatre director The Exhibition has costumes by Bregje van Balen, lighting by Ryan Joseph Stafford, sound by Florence Hand and set design by Strømgren Osipova and Akrill in The Exhibition Errand Into the Maze has music by Gian Carlo Menotti, costume designs by Martha Graham, sets by Isamu Noguchi, original lighting design by Jean Rosenthal and revival lighting design by Chris Wilkinson Osipova/Linbury is at the Linbury theatre, London, 6-10 March
