Step by Step Guides
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Brown, Trisha
Part brainy researcher and inventor, part inspired artist and creator, Trisha Brown is one of the great explorers of postmodern dance, with a distinctive body of work that is often off the wall – sometimes literally.
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Phoenix Dance Theatre
The rise and fall – then rise and fall and rise – of Phoenix Dance Theatre is a story of small beginnings, high-flying, and a couple of crash landings. Along the way, lots of people have had lots of views about what it is or should be, with the result that this company has had…
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Ailey, Alvin
Born in poverty in rural Texas, Alvin Ailey grew into a gifted choreographer who drew inspiration from African American culture. He went on to become both an American institution and a broken man.
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Grupo Corpo
Shaped by both their family and their national history, Grupo Corpo have built a body of work that has come to define a hybrid and particularly Brazilian style of contemporary dance.
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Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi is arguably the most famous ballet company in the world; it all but stars in its own epic tale of fortune and failure, a story with more dramatic turns than a pirouetting prima ballerina.
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Nederlands Dans Theater
Fifty years ago, Nederlands Dans Theater forged a middle path between classical ballet and modern dance, creating a “modern ballet” style and approach that spread across Europe.
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Cohan, Robert
American Robert Cohan redrew the map of British dance. In an unlikely partnership, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn teamed up with an aristocratic Englishman to establish a new modern dance scene in the country, and even though his company is long-defunct, its school continues and its effects are still felt.
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Ballets C de la B, Les
Founded on a dare and a joke, Les ballets C de la B is a cacophonous, many-headed dance-theatre collective whose performances careen between surrealism, social psychology, slapstick and semiotics. Coherence, needless to say, is not a priority – but that’s the world we live in.
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España, Ballet Nacional de
Not ballet, but definitely national, the Ballet Nacional de España aspires to a post-Franco ideal: to be a distinctively Spanish company that can accommodate regional and historical differences, as well as modernise and innovate.
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Colker, Deborah
A small person with a huge presence, Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker combines the competitive edge of sport, the self-discipline of ballet, the freedom of modern dance and the daredevilry of circus into one big audience-friendly package.