21 h. ago ‘A collaboration of the senses’: Royal Ballet teams up with blind artist for new show

Exclusive: using immersive descriptive audio, performance explores how blindness can redefine experience of danceThe Royal Ballet has long offered headphones with audio descriptions so that visually impaired members of the audience can follow the action on stage. Now the entire audience will hear such descriptions, within a groundbreaking work that explores how blindness can redefine our responses to sensation, sound and storytelling.Devon Healey, a blind artist, is collaborating with Sir Wayne McGregor, among other choreographers, and the composer Max Richter in creating a new Royal Ballet commission that will be premiered on 12 November, World Ballet Day, it will be announced on Thursday. Continue reading...

Culture

65 h. ago ‘Under 5ft 5in? Forget about being a prince!’ How the Royal Ballet is kicking out the old rules

What will the ballet dancer of the future look like? We visit the hunting lodge where the next generation are being trained – and find huge changes are under wayIt’s an idyllic autumn day in leafy Richmond Park, London, where a grand Georgian hunting lodge houses the Royal Ballet school. Enter through the classical columns and it feels like a bubble away from the world. “I was on a video call with my son,” says the school’s artistic director, Iain Mackay. “He said, ‘Where are you? Hogwarts?!’” This is indeed a place of magic for children who come here, hoping to follow in the footsteps of generations of leading dancers. They touch the middle finger of Margot Fonteyn’s statue for luck as they pass, the bronze rubbed shiny by their superstition.Getting a place at the school, founded in 1926 by the formidable Ninette de Valois, is a huge achievement. Two years ago, 40 students were accepted from more than 1,000 applications (all on merit – 90% are supported by bursaries). Mackay, 45, a...

Politics

65 h. ago ‘Under 5ft 5in? Forget about being a prince!’ How the Royal Ballet school is kicking out the old rules

What will the ballet dancer of the future look like? We visit the hunting lodge where the next generation are being trained – and find huge changes are under wayIt’s an idyllic autumn day in leafy Richmond Park, London, where a grand Georgian hunting lodge houses the Royal Ballet school. Enter through the classical columns and it feels like a bubble away from the world. “I was on a video call with my son,” says the school’s artistic director, Iain Mackay. “He said, ‘Where are you? Hogwarts?!’” This is indeed a place of magic for children who come here, hoping to follow in the footsteps of generations of leading dancers. They touch the middle finger of Margot Fonteyn’s statue for luck as they pass, the bronze rubbed shiny by their superstition.Getting a place at the school, founded in 1926 by the formidable Ninette de Valois, is a huge achievement. Two years ago, 40 students were accepted from more than 1,000 applications (all on merit – 90% are supported by bursaries). Mackay, 45, a...

Politics

6 d. ago Who founded the Royal Ballet School in 1926? The Saturday quiz

From Anne Boleyn’s ghost to a novel in three volumes, by a lady, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz1 What is Earth’s largest living toothed predator?2 What 1811 work was “a novel in three volumes, By a Lady”?3 Who is the only person to play in a Super Bowl and the World Series?4 What London religious building was built on the site of Tothill Fields prison?5 In which TV show did contestants recall the contents of a conveyor belt?6 Who founded the Royal Ballet School in 1926?7 The event horizon is the boundary marking the limits of what?8 “Saigon shit” is which film’s first line of dialogue?What links: 9 Arabist and archaeologist; pioneering Channel swimmer; Munstead Wood gardener; partnered Toklas?10 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; The Dead; 21 Grams; Mayfair Witches?11 Hindu deity Chhinnamasta; St Denis of Paris; Bertran de Born in Dante; Anne Boleyn’s ghost?12 Trade and Industry Secretary; Northern Ireland Secretary; Ambassador to the US?13 Emile Berliner; Chris Blackwell...

Politics

2 w. ago Sigur Rós and the London Contemporary Orchestra review – crashing waves of refined harmony

Royal Albert Hall, LondonPerhaps the band that can best justify a mid-career gig with classical backing, the extra heft of the orchestra adds power to the Icelanders’ beautiful crescendosOn Sigur Rós’s most recent album Átta, their first in a decade, the group reversed course from the intriguing industrial experiment of its predecessor Kveikur and returned to safe ground – leaning back into the grand orchestral crescendos that defined their best-loved work, as glacial in pace as they are in beauty. It makes sense, then, that the USP of their current tour is a collaboration with a different set of classical musicians in every city.Though mid-career-band-joined-by-orchestra sets so often enlist classical musicians to fill the holes left by fading creativity, leaving awkward blends between the two parties, that’s not the case tonight. The Icelanders meld seamlessly with the London Contemporary Orchestra, musically and visually, with both camps all in monochrome, mingled together under ...

Events

3 w. ago The Sicilian Vespers at the Royal Ballet and Opera House review: Joyce El

Daniel Dooner’s revival of the Stefan Herheim production of Verdi’s opera is a timely call to stand up to tyranny

Politics