A mesmerising Rite of Spring from the National Ballet of Japan

The Afternoon of a Faun

The Rite of Spring

By Naomi Mori, 29 November 2022

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Reviewed at New National Theatre, Tokyo: Playhouse, Tokyo on 25 November 2022

Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) (Motoko Hirayama, Masahiro Yanagimoto)

L'après-midi d'un faune (Motoko Hirayama)

National Ballet of Japan

Motoko Hirayama, Director, Set Designer

Jun Ogasawara, Lighting Designer

Koichi Watanabe, Set Designer

Noriyuki Mori, Lighting Designer

Keigo Fukuda, Dancer

Kosuke Okumura, Dancer

Yui Yonezawa, Dancer

Yudai Fukuoka, Dancer

Fauns and Nymphs shows diversity of Japanese contemporary dance

Naomi Mori, 26th March

New National Theatre Tokyo's gala evening of six works by six pairs of dancers was a brilliant evening showing works from Japan's leading choreographers and dancers.

****1

Pas de deux for toes and fingers

Carla Escoda, 28th February

Superstar husband-and-wife team, renowned violinist Vadim Repin and "tsarina of the dance" Svetlana Zakharova, go on a date and take us with them. The music fared much better than the ballet.

***11

Sol Gabetta bares her soul in Elgar on Czech Phil tour

Clare Varney, 23rd April

Semyon Bychkov conducts the Czech Phil on their latest European tour with the music of Elgar and Stravinsky.

****1

Payare and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal welcome Spring

Ian Cochrane, 22nd April

Rafael Payare conducts a scintillating Le Sacre du Printemps in a program that also showcases Bruce Liu's bravura Tchaikovsky.

****1

Artistry at full throttle: Rafael Payare and the Pittsburgh Symphony

Sam Jacobson, 10th April

Can one be artful and musical while playing at maximum volume? In a program of López, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, Rafael Payare and the Pittsburgh Symphony answer a resounding yes.

*****

Alexander Whitley: the cutting edge of dance and technology

Graham Watts, 18th March

Two new works by Alexander Whitley, Mirrors and The Rite of Spring, explore society’s increasing dependency on AI in dance.

***11

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Naomi Mori

Naomi is a blogger living in Tokyo and travels frequently to see ballet. She is a law graduate of Waseda University and a former film publicist, film critic and IT business researcher/strategist. She blogs at La Dolce Vita in Japanese. She tweets about ballet as @naomip_86. and takes ballet class regularly

A brutal but mesmerising Rite of Spring from the National Ballet of Japan