✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper


Sign up by Email or Facebook.

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we sent newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Turning tips into memories

Get started Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Kids
  • Benefits
  • Membership
  • Get Started
  • Membership
  • Benefits
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Dance

Royal Ballet: Connectome/Raven Girl, ROH

06 Oct 15 – 24 Oct 15, Sat. 10th at 1300; Sat. 24th at 1230

Neuroscience and surreal fairy tale come together in a challenging Royal Ballet mixed bill.

By Teresa Guerreiro on 31/5/2015

3 CW readers are interested
Natalia Osipova in Connectome (c) Royal Ballet / Bill Cooper
Natalia Osipova in Connectome (c) Royal Ballet / Bill Cooper
Royal Ballet: Connectome/Raven Girl, ROH Royal Ballet: Connectome/Raven Girl, ROH Teresa Guerreiro
*Please note: Natalia Osipova will not be performing in the Royal Ballet autumn season due to injury.


Connectome is what scientists call a map of the neural connections in the brain; and as the curtain rises on Alastair Marriott’s ballet of that name it slowly reveals four-hundred slim glittering poles through which the principal flies in a sequence of prodigious grand jetés. Natalia Osipova, who was to illuminate this role, will not dance the autumn season due to injury.


Alastair Marriott, choreographer and Principal Dancer of the Royal Ballet has drawn his inspiration from neuroscientist Dr. Sebastian Seung’s theories on how our personalities are determined not by genes but by our neural connections.


Not the easiest of all concepts to translate into ballet; but Marriott, an experienced choreographer with a growing portfolio of works for the Royal Ballet company and school, finds a ballet-friendly way to convey it.


The lead female (Sarah Lamb in the second cast) leads the narrative: the lone woman whose complex relationships with six male dancers shape her emotional identity. The men, led by the wonderful Stephen McRae in the first cast and the up-and-coming soloist Alexander Campbell in the second, manipulate the ballerina in seemingly impossible and often very graphic ways, with much splaying of legs and display of crotch that’s definitely not to everybody’s taste.


They represent the connective tissue of society, with Marriott saying that the piece dwells on human emotions such as “infatuation, spirituality and loss.”


Curious about the complete Royal Ballet Autumn Season 2015?
royal ballet new season


Premièred in 2014, Connectome is an accomplished - if not easy - work and marks a new stage in Marriott’s attempt to develop the language of classical ballet (pointe shoes and all) to encompass modern sensibilities and body prowess.


Designer Es Devlin’s four-hundred shimmering poles and video design by Luke Halls make for dazzling visuals; and Marriott’s movement responds perfectly to Arvo Pärt’s haunting music, with its spare melodies and integral silences.


The second piece in the programme presents an interesting role reversal, for science has long been the key focus of choreographer Wayne McGregor. Most of his works for his own company Random Dance, as well as some for the Royal Ballet where he is now Resident Choreographer, have dwelt on his exploration of an aspect of physics or mathematics that has drawn his interest.


In Raven Girl, however, he made his first foray into story-telling. Based on a graphic novel by Audrey Niffenegger – award-winning author of The Time Traveller’s Wife – McGregor attempts to tell the part-fairy tale, part-science fiction story of the Raven Girl, born of man and bird, her growth and her first brush with love upon meeting the Raven Prince.


As is to be expected of McGregor productions, sets and costumes are intricate and expensive-looking. Especially inspired is the articulated pair of huge translucent wings the Raven Girl wears (but has to remove for her pas-de-deux).


It’ll be interesting to see whether McGregor has made substantial revisions to this piece. Reviews for its 2013 première were distinctly lukewarm when not downright hostile – the FT’s “turgid” comes to mind.


Critics and some punters complained of Lucy Carter and Simon Bennison’s lighting – moody, atmospheric, yes, but far too dark, with some sections of the house complaining they couldn't properly see the stage, let alone the action on it.


Gabriel Yared’s music proved equally controversial, with The Telegraph describing it as “blandly cinematic.”


Critics and audience were unanimous, though, in awarding full marks to the dancers, led in the piece’s first run by Sarah Lamb, who also takes the title role in this new outing’s first cast. The second cast, though, brings us an exciting new Raven Girl in the immensely talented young American Beatrix Stix-Brunell.


This is, in conclusion, a challenging programme that speaks of the Royal Ballet’s determination to move its work into the future, even while curating the great classics that will always be a staple of its repertoire.


click for more dance
recommendations
by Teresa Guerreiro

What Royal Ballet: Connectome/Raven Girl, ROH
Where Royal Opera House, Bow Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9DD | MAP
Nearest tube Covent Garden (underground)
When 06 Oct 15 – 24 Oct 15, Sat. 10th at 1300; Sat. 24th at 1230
Price £4-£65
Website click here to book via the ROH website



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 5 - 7 March
Things to do in London this weekend: 5 - 7 March
Bryan Cranston in Your Honor, Sky Atlantic (Photo: Sky/Showtime)
Your Honor, Sky Atlantic review
Online theatre: streaming options for staying in. Picture: Angels in America at the National Theatre
Online theatre: streaming options for staying in

A little more...

  • click for more dance
    recommendations

    Audrey Niffenegger

    American novelist, graphic artist and academic Audrey Niffenegger is perhaps best-known for her award-winning novel, The Time Traveller’s Wife. The film adaptation, released in 2009, was well-received worldwide with box office returns of over $100 million.

    She originally trained as a visual artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and her extensive collection of prints, paintings and drawings is still regularly exhibited in the USA.

    She has strong connections to Britain: her second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, is set in Highgate Cemetery ; and in 2008 she made a serialised graphic novel for The Guardian.

    The illustrated book of the Raven Girl was published to coincide with the ballet’s premiére in 2013.

    www.audreyniffenegger.com

Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

In rehearsal

We recommend nearby

  • Dominique Ansel Treehouse
    Read more...
    Map
  • The Barbary

    The team behind Soho's Palomar bring exquisite modern Jerusalem feasting and ample atmosphere to Covent Garden . Voted as Time Out's top London restaurant in September 2017, The Barbary is inspired by the food and flavours that span the Atlantic Coast.

    Read more...
    Book Map
  • Wild Food Cafe

    The Wild Food Cafe in Covent Garden brings people together. Sat on communal benches, you can order anything on this vegan menu and be guaranteed that it is clean, organic and nutritious. This is not just a restaurant, this is a centre of wellbeing and health living.

    Read more...
    Book Map
3

Royal Ballet Autumn Season 2015/16

Wayne McGregor

Es Devlin

Alastair Mariott

Lucy Carter

Arvo Pärt

Dance

Ballet

Natalia Osipova

Edward Watson

You might like

  • Christopher Gable, Lynne Seymour. The Royal Ballet, The Two Pigeons 1961, photo by Donald Southerland

    Royal Ballet - Monotones I & II/Two Pigeons, Royal Opera House

  • Tamara Rojo as Juliet and Carlos Acosta as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (c) Dee Conway/ROH 2012

    Royal Ballet: Romeo and Juliet, Royal Opera House

  • Artists of the Royal Ballet, The Nutcracker, (c) ROH 2018 Alastair Muir

    The Royal Ballet, The Nutcracker Cinema Relay Review ★★★★★

  • Vadim Muntagirov and Melissa Hamilton © 2015 ROH. Photograph by Bill Cooper

    Royal Ballet Mixed Bill: Viscera / Afternoon of a Faun / Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux / Carmen, ROH



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • What is Culture Whisper membership
  • Corporate membership
  • Give a gift membership
  • Retrieve a gift membership
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×