An Ashton farewell

Ashton's Evening
La Valse
This piece was beautiful and I look forward to seeing it again. The dresses were perfect prom dresses, just like every little girl dreams about growing up. The patterns were beautiful, although there were few lines that weren't quite straight bringing to mind the words of my dance teacher 'you wouldn't expect to see wonky lines at the Royal Ballet.' Overall this piece was my highlight of the evening.

'Meditation' from Thais
In the midst of the evening this one I struggle to remember. I do recall that on the empty stage Leanne Benjamin and Valeri Hristov looked so small.

Voices of Spring
Alexander Campbell and Yuhui Choe provided a real highlight for the evening. Scattering the stage with white petals Choe and Campbell were a joyous pairing. They not only looked like they were having a lot of fun, making me want to dance too but gave a flawless performance. I'll be looking out for Campbell / Choe pairings in future performances as I want to see more.

Monotones I and II
The costumes were a little off-putting and in monotone I the dancers looked a little frog like. Overall I wasn't too keen on this piece, especially Montones I. In Montones II Edward Watson and Nehemiah Kish seemed to be doing their best to tie Marianela Nunez into knots, but she proved to be remarkably flexible and Montones II picked up.

Marguerite & Armand
A farewell for Tamara Rojo and Sergei Polunin at the Royal Ballet. I'd not seen this ballet before and I have to admit I didn't particularly like it and wasn't sure it showed either Rojo / Polunin off to their best. In particular I felt like Polunin was not on form at the start of the performance, although by the end his dancing was impressive. The evening finished on a high with more curtain calls than you could count, a cameo appearance from Carlos Acosta and a mountain of flowers thrown from the boxes. A better farewell a girl could not dream about.

A night at the ballet...

This week was the week that ballet was in all the papers and I rounded it off with a night at Sadler's Wells. It was a snap decision on Friday to book the ticket to see Ivan Putrov's Men in Motion when I saw it was on in the morning paper. It was my first time to Sadler's Wells a place which I had read about as a child growing up reading Lorna Hill. The theatre was a simple space and I was sat a the back of the upper circle which was incredibly steep but very reasonably priced. The real reason I booked the ticket was to see Sergei Polunin dance and I wasn't disappointed.

I'm often frustrated that male dancers seem to be restricted to simply lifting and supporting the women. So although I had gone to see one dancer in particular I was delighted to watch the talented cast of men dance and leap their way through the pieces. The evening started with Le Spectre de la Rose, a hundred years after it was first performed, Igor Kolb captured the imagination from the moment he leapt through the window onto the stage. Then it was the piece I was there for as Sergei Polunin bewitched with his solo Narcisse, Full of spectacular leaps Polunin seemed to hang in the air and I would be sorry if I never see him dance again.

The last piece before the interval was Ashton's Dance of the Blessed Spirits danced by the man behind the evening, Ivan Putrov. I'm sorry to say I don't really remember a lot about this piece and perhaps it was because the piece was calmer and didn't have the vitality of the other pieces. The next piece was the AfterLight, danced by Argentinian Daniel Proietto. The rest of the audience seemed to love this piece out of all of the pieces, however I really wasn't sure, the swirling lighting made me feel slightly sick and perhaps it was the desired effect but Proietto merged with the lighting and I didn't feel like I had seen a performance but more a piece of installation art.

I loved the final piece, Ithaka choreographed by Ivan Putrov and the simplicity of the costumes and set combined with fabulous performances meant the audience were drawn in and the evening finished on a high. All the dancers received great appreciation from the audience with flowers thrown from the stalls and multiple bows. I was glad I bought the ticket and saw this performance even if it was incomplete as some of the dancers were unable to get visas to be in London for the performance.