While it’s always special to see Ballet Black, it was particularly special to see this talented, versatile and innovative company at the Quays Theatre for the opening night of their autumn tour – their first live performance since the pandemic hit...
Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake – conceived by Sir Peter Wright and Galina Samsova – first premiered at the Palace Theatre back in 1981, but this is not a production that looks nearly 40-years-old. The curtain rises on a striking funeral scene...
Ahead of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s production of Swan Lake at The Lowry, Roz Laws talks to dancer Céline Gittens who along with Momoko Hirata takes on the double principal roles of Odette/Odile for the tour. Céline Gittens made history in 2012 in...
South African choreographer Dada Masilo’s Giselle brings the ballet into the 21st century. The Soweto-born choreographer and dancer has taken the classic favourite and thoroughly shaken it up so audiences can anticipate the unexpected. The original...
At the start of their 70th anniversary season, English National Ballet bring their new production of Cinderella to audiences in Manchester for the first time. Choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon and performed in the round earlier this year at the...
As part of English National Ballet’s 70th anniversary season the company is bringing to Manchester’s Palace Theatre the proscenium arch version of Christopher Wheeldon’s inventive restaging of Cinderella. Quays Life meets People’s Choice Emerging...
Flapper girls, jazz and the decadence of the 1920s in New York are the setting for the Northern Ballet’s sensational production of The Great Gatsby. We were invited to the most glamorous party in town, and were certainly not disappointed. The Great...
The story of Beauty and the Beast has been told in various forms since the mid-16th century. Since the early 1990s, however, Disney seems to have had the monopoly on it. There’s no denying Disney’s animated film is a wonderful version, but the...
Birmingham Royal Ballet return to The Lowry with David Bintley’s acclaimed fairytale ballet, Beauty and the Beast. The production marks the Director’s final tour with the company and, as Carmel Thomason discovers, his work behind the scenes has been...
“It’s definitely not a twinkly, Disney version of the story; it’s quite a lot darker” – Quays Life chats to Delia Mathews, who dances Belle Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Beauty and the Beast. When and why did you first start dancing? Delia:...
Georgina Wells
Carmel Thomason
Diane Parkes
Liz Ratcliffe