Weather Tonight: 9°c Light showers Morning: 14°c Overcast

Five of the Best...Shows
  1. The Kreutzer Sonata
  2. The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
  3. Endgame
  4. Annie Get Your Gun
  5. Bedroom Farce

Critics' Choice

Film

Andrew O'Hagan

quoteNew Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of itquote

Andrew O'Hagan The Twilight Saga: New Moon Theatre

Henry Hitchings

quoteA smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusionquote

Henry Hitchings Cock Restaurants

David Sexton

quoteKitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave quote

David Sexton Kitchen W8

Reader reviews

Film

Adam, Harrow

quoteToo long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effectsquote

2012 Theatre

Rob, London

quoteThis is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flawsquote

The Habit Of Art Music

Bernard, London

quoteAlex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factorquote

Alexandra Burke

Theatre & comedy reviews London,

Cherkaoui/De Frutos/Maliphant/McGregor: In The Spirit Of Diaghilev (Dyad 1909/Faun/AfterLight/Eternal Damnation To Sancho And Sanchez)

Your rating
one startwo starthree starfour starfive star
Click on a star to rate
Sadler's Wells
Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN

Evening Standard rating Sarah Frater's rating
Evening Standard rating Reader rating
 Add your review


Description: Four newly-commissioned works by Wayne McGregor, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Russell Maliphant and Javier De Frutos, inspired by the 100th anniversary of the founding of Les Ballets Russes.


Trains: Tube: Angel Overground network

Phone: 0844412 4300
Website: www.sadlerswells.com

 
Please wait the page is loading extra content
  • Show details
  • Hide details
  • Book Online
  • Show map
Close X

Directions

 

Diaghilev the great mischief-maker

By Sarah Frater, Evening Standard  16.10.09
 
Josephine Darvill-Mills, Rebecca Sutherland and Clemmie Sveaas

Stealing thunder: Josephine Darvill-Mills, Rebecca Sutherland and Clemmie Sveaas in De Frutos’s Eternal Damnation

Serge Diaghilev’s arrival in Paris 100 years ago forever changed classical dance.

His Ballets Russes revitalised a moribund art form, and his centenary is rightly remember with umpteen celebratory events.

All have genuflected to his monumental legacy, although they’ve skipped his piquant love life and implacable artistic demands.

The choreographers in the Sadler’s Wells Diaghilev pogramme tack into the prevailing wind, except, that is, for Javier Du Frutos.

The Diaghilev centenary has brought out the mischief in him, or, should I say, more mischief than usual, as the Venezuelan choreographer has long cocked a snook at theatrical deference.

Those in the know will laugh out loud at the lengthily titled Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez.

Those who aren’t may take offence, little wonder as it features an ecclesiastic grotesque raping pregnant women, having warmed himself up on the choir boys.

There’s also eye-gouging, a Brobdingnag mural of a male orgy and an Episcopal throne moonlighting as an electric chair.

Lots of people walked out on opening night, something most definitely in the spirit of Diaghilev, who loved causing kerfuffles. De Frutos knows this, and his running amok surely aims to spoof rather than shock.

His exaggerated means tease our excessive respect, while the music (Ravel’s La Valse) and choreography, when it arrives, reference Diaghilev’s diaspora and devotees — both George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton used the score and De Frutos includes fragments of their styles.

Inevitably he stole the thunder despite bold work from the other three. Russell Maliphant created a solo for the wonderful dancer Daniel Proietto (a name in the making); Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s duet for Daisy Phillips and James O’Hara caught the candid eroticism of Nijinsky’s Faun; and Wayne McGregor tracked the links between art and science in his signature fractured style.

Until 17 October. Information: 0844 412 4300, www.sadlerswells.com.

Related articles


Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

 

Reader reviews (0)

 Add your review

No comments have so far been submitted.


Add your comment

 

Your email address will not be published

Terms and conditions make text area bigger You have  characters left.


 
 


 
 
London's Weather
Tonight
Light showers
9°c
Morning
Overcast
14°c
5 day forecast
 
 

Daily Mail Mail on Sunday Travel Mail This is Money Metro

Loot | Jobsite | Homes & property | London jobs | FindaProperty.com | Primelocation.com | Educate London | Holiday Villas