Find articles | Margaret Willis

As Nina Ananiashvili brings the State Ballet of Georgia to London for the first time in its 175-year history, she explains what her directorship of 20 years has meant to her.

A shimmering smorgasbord of some of today’s most exciting international dancers, who performed pristine works by Petipa.

An evening of sparkle and bravura at London's international ballet gala. 

Jurgita Dronina impresses as the heroine in this matinee performance of Sir Kenneth MacMillan's ballet at the Coliseum. 

For three decades, Acosta has given his audiences performances of pure pleasure. As someone who had to work against the odds to reach the top, he became one of those rare classical ballet dancers whose brilliance and incredible technical achievements, wrapped up with convincing characterisation and humble charisma, have set stages alight around the world.

Marianela Núñez was in her element as the huntress in Ashton's charming ballet. 

Rudolf Nureyev’s production of Romeo and Juliet erupts with life, giving the dancers of English National Ballet the opportunity to show off spectacular dancing and dramatic content, as well as coping with his highly technical, yet deceivingly simple looking, steps.

Mathhew Bourne's The Red Shoes seduces London as it opens at Sadler's Wells

Eifman Ballet is back in London with Boris Eifman's latest ballet, Up and Down 

Was she – or wasn’t she – the Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest daughter of Russia's last tsar who had survived the massacre of her family in 1917? Natalia Osipova made you believe she was. 

Dressed in black dance clothes, he stood still front of stage, bathed in a bright spotlight as the Royal Albert Hall erupted with a standing ovation. 

The Bolshoi Ballet's London residency continues with Alexei Ratmansky's restaging of The Flames of Paris

Swan Lake in-the-round was conceived in 1997 by Derek Deane, former director of English National Ballet, and has been seen by over half a million people.

International Ballet stars come together on stage in London to honour the late legendary Russian ballet dancer Maya Plisetskaya.

Carlos Acosta's Carmen premieres at the Royal Ballet, alongside Robbins' Afternoon of a Faun, Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux and Scarlett’s Viscera.

Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae star in MacMillan's much loved Romeo and Juliet, which opened the Royal Ballet's new season this weekend.

It’s not every day that you attend an evening of classical ballet and hear the audience chortling and guffawing as the dancers on stage perform extracts from well-loved traditional ballets.

The New English Ballet Theatre is joined by Royal Ballet guests in a special performance to raise funds for survivors of the Nepal earthquakes. 

This summer marks 25 years of excellence by Ardani artists. A gala celebrating this milestone brings together Natalia Osipova, Ivan Vasiliev, Edward Watson, Marcelo Gomes, Joaquin de Luz, Denis Matvienko and Friedemann Vogel.

Performing their prize winning The Taming of the Shrew in the Dance Open Festival at St Petersburg, this is a new-look Bolshoi company indeed!

English National Ballet's Emerging Dancer Award was this year won by Chinese dancer Jinhao Zhang, while the People's Choice Award went to Laurretta Summerscales.

Arthur Pita's balletic take on Andersen's The Little Match Girl delights children and adults, and offers a bright alternative for the festive season.

Carlos Acosta's Don Quixote opened this week at the Royal Opera House, with Carlos Acosta as Basilio and Marianela Núñez as Kitri.

The National Ballet of Cuba performs Dame Alicia Alonso's Giselle at the 24th International Festival of Ballet in Havana.

Manon proves a wonderful start to the new season at Royal Ballet with Marianela Nuñez in the title role and Federico Bonelli as her lover.

It was like going on the journey from Kansas to the Land of Oz. After dank, dark drizzle on the streets outside, the scene inside the London Coliseum suddenly transformed into dazzling and vivid colour for this famous fairy-tale by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. 

Despite the recent unrest in Ukraine, the greatest emotion to pour forth in the city of Odessa came from the stage of the charming Opera and Ballet Theatre in Giselle.

A Soviet sun shines down on Ratmansky's The Bright Stream at The Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. From its 2003 première, his Bright Stream became an instant hit with audiences both at home and abroad – and it’s easy to see why.

The beautiful city of St Petersburg is the birthplace of Russian classical ballet and home to some of the most famous dancers in the ballet galaxy, and it is here that Russia’s finest festival of dance takes place annually – Dance Open is now in its 13th year.

This production is beautiful to look at and has interesting, atmospheric commissioned music. With The Winter's Tale it is evident that inventive choreographer Wheeldon and The Royal Ballet have another hit on their hands.

Five vital young men from top international ballet companies hit the stage of the 
London Coliseum in Kings of the Dance.

The energy exuded from The Eifman Ballet in Rodin was enough to light – and keep burning – the Olympic torch. At the Alexandrinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. 

Margaret Willis reviews The Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet, starring Carlos Acosta and Natalia Osipova at the Royal Opera House, London. 

The lady at the bus stop announced that she had just been to the ballet, and commented: “I didn’t really understand it but I loved it”. The ballet was A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed by Northern Ballet, and yes, it was somewhat confusing, though highly enjoyable and very funny.

With a rocket-fuelled, high-octane production of The Flames of Paris, the Bolshoi Ballet has concluded its three-week season in London. And with the reappearance of the company’s former Wunderkinds, back as guest artists, to dance together in the ballet’s opening performance, how could it be anything but an exciting and exuberating final flourish to the tour.

There can be no lovelier and mystical moment in classical ballet than the sight of 32 ethereal ‘Shades’ in a ribbon of white, slowly descending from a darkened mountain range, down a zigzag ramp to the stage.

This charismatic Cuban is probably the only big dance name who could compete successfully with the Bolshoi Ballet now here in London. But then, for many years, Carlos Acosta has continuously shown persuasive pluck and daredevil tactics to his devoted audiences, many of whom are supporting him in his latest summer season programme at the Coliseum this week.

The great impresario Sergei Diaghilev faced many challenges when presenting his Ballets Russes in Paris at the turn of the 20th century (remember the near riot at the première of Le Sacre du Printemps?), and some things never change.

The story may be a bit thin but the quantity of its dancing makes up for it. Laurencia is a ballet little known in the west (though the Mikhailovsky Ballet brought it to London in 2010). Combining the jollities of Don Quixote with the revolutionary fervour found in Flames of Paris, Laurencia is really just an excuse to fill the stage with non-stop dancing.

Forget those photos from North Korea showing the build-up of weaponry. A couple of supersonic rockets were set off in London on Saturday night at the London Coliseum, and the audience is still reeling from the aftermath.

They’re finally here, back in London to wow audiences once again with their scintillating dancing. The darlings of the ballet world, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev last appeared together in the capital two summers ago, and a few months later sent shock waves like the aftermath of an earthquake around the dance community when they announced that they were leaving their alma mater, the Bolshoi Ba

The evening was a step back into childhood nostalgia, of getting on the hired coach with my brother and neighbours from our cul-de-sac, to drive up to London for the traditional Christmas pantomime. And, of course, Aladdin with all that mystical eastern magic was always a favourite with us kids.

The chill outside was certainly a reminder of Siberian weather, but the anticipation of seeing one of the 20th century’s most popular and beloved dramatic ballets (and set in a milder Russia!) soon had the fingers and toes circulating once more.

At the opening night of Kenneth MacMillan’s production of The Sleeping Beauty in London, all eyes were on English National Ballet’s new artistic director, up on stage – rather than in the audience. Would she still be able to hold her balances on pointe now that she is also required to balance the office books?The answer is a resounding yes.

You know it’s going to be different the moment the recorded music begins and words appear on the frontispiece setting the story. Among the recognised musical strains can be heard the cry of a baby, and it is this baby who revolutionises Matthew Bourne’s new vision of the iconic Russian classical ballet masterpiece Sleeping Beauty.

Christmas must be nearing when that traditional fare of sparkle, excitement and the surging score of The Nutcracker bursts in full flood onto the world’s ballet stages. Originally created in 1891 by Marius Petipa for the Mariinsky Theatre, the ballet has become the annual bread-winner for most companies (albeit in various versions), guaranteeing full houses and happy customers.

It must be exciting to be a member of San Francisco Ballet, America’s oldest ballet company, founded in 1933. These classically trained dancers are given the opportunity to sample many wonderful new works, rather than a repertoire of old traditional masterpieces.

Now, one assumed, with the final production in the marathon Tchaikovsky Trilogy at the London Coliseum, all loose ends would be tied neatly together and Peter Schaufuss’ conception of connecting the three great Russian classics together be evident. Right? Wrong. At the end of Sleeping Beauty the previous night, the Dream Master brought Aurora and Florimund together on the now-famous couch.

And so to the second part of Peter Schaufuss’ Tchaikovsky Trilogy of the three great Russian classical ballets. In Sleeping Beauty, re-titled A Sensual Dream, the complicated weaving of the choreographer’s vision in connecting all three ballets together begins to make a little more sense – at least to those who had viewed his Swan Lake.

Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, the three great Russian classical ballet masterpieces which were created in the late 1800s, grace the repertoires of all reputable ballet companies worldwide.