Dance

Amanda Britton, Principal and Artistic Director of Rambert School, is quietly pleased at how events have progressed this year. When we speak, the school is just a couple of weeks away from performing a new work by Sir Wayne McGregor at Sadler’s Wells East, a collaboration with The Juilliard School in New York and the first of its kind.

Liam Francis has had an unconventional journey to success. Over video call we’re about to discuss his newly formed Liam Francis Dance Company, his most recent works (A Body of Rumours, Lyre Liar) which will be touring internationally and a new project for 2027. His warm personality belies a self-deprecating sense of humour, and a fiercely self-critical attitude towards his work.

At this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, acclaimed choreographer Kim Brandstrup unveiled his latest work: Breaking Bach, danced to music by JS Bach. Nothing unusual about that, but if I said that it was a collaboration between six professional dancers, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE), and seven hip-hop dancers from a secondary school in north London, you might be surprised.

Pancho was just 21 when she started the company in 2001. “I wasn’t really aware of what it would actually take. I think I was very naïve,” she reflects. “If I’d had any idea of how much work it would be, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but each step has been a surprise. I learned how to do it but I’m still not sure I really know how to do it.”

Birthday Offering was created in 1956 to celebrate The Royal Ballet’s 25th anniversary. To music by Alexander Glazunov, the choreography by Sir Frederick Ashton is revived on special occasions. Birmingham Royal Ballet is performing it in June to celebrate Sir Peter Wright’s centenary year.

The Green Table is a one-act ballet created in 1932 by German choreographer Kurt Jooss for his own company. A pioneering work of Tanztheater, it was created amid the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism. This season it returns to Birmingham Royal Ballet, where it has not been performed since 1992.