Birmingham Royal Ballet Mixed Bill, Birmingham
David Bintley is celebrating his 20th anniversary as director of Birmingham Royal Ballet with a double bill of his own choreography. Carmina Burana was the first piece Bintley made for the company when he took over its direction, and even today it resonates with swagger and confidence. Set to Carl Orff’s choral score, it follows the music in its choreographed scenarios of love, lust, sensuality and sin. In The King Dances, Bintley imagines the court of the young Louis XIV when he danced the role of Apollo the sun god in the early court spectacle Le Ballet De La Nuit.
Birmingham Hippodrome, Wed to 20 Jun
Philippe Decouflé Company DCA: Contact, London
French choreographer Philippe Decouflé has a performing background in dance, mime and theatre, and his own work reflects the richness of the those three disciplines. Highly imagistic in style, charged with a surreal sense of humour, Decouflé’s works combine music, lighting and movement together in a spectacle of theatrical illusion. Contact sees him take inspiration from the history of musical theatre, drawing on references to cabaret, Broadway burlesque and Bollywood, and using a score by Nosfell and Pierre Le Bourgeois that has been described as “an opera from another world”.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, Tue to Thu
