A reframing of the classic tale of Narcissus, the director draws on snippets of conversation with a trusted friend to muse on gender and identity. Just as shimmers are difficult to grasp as knowable entities, so does the concept of a gendered self feel unknowable except through reflection. Is it Narcissus that Echo truly longs for, or simply the Knowing he possesses when gazing upon himself?
Concerns a young boy's mystical experiences during his Confirmation. As the ceremony unfolds, figures from religion and mythology appear and impress on him the need to become a soldier of Christ.
The wicked fairy Carabosse is furious she wasn’t invited to Princess Aurora’s christening. She gives the baby a spindle, saying that one day the Princess will prick her finger on it and die. The Lilac Fairy makes her own christening gift a softening of Carabosse’s curse: Aurora will not die, but will fall into a deep sleep, which only a prince’s kiss will break. The masterful 19th-century choreography of Marius Petipa is combined with sections created for The Royal Ballet by Frederick Ashton, Anthony Dowell and Christopher Wheeldon. Recorded live as part of the Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season 2019/20 with encore screenings broadcast online during the #OurHousetoYourHouse programme.
An exchange student in Eastern Europe enters a realm of unsettling phantasm.
During the 2021 lockdown, I directed this short film as an intimate visual diary: a tribute to dance, music, and the queer desire to be seen. Inspired by Andy Warhol’s workshop spirit, the shoot became a stage where we played at being our own celebrities, exploring difference as affirmation. Three years later, this piece returns with a new voice-over—an echo of that creature who, even today, insists: “I am a star.”
On a limbo train between life and death, Emelina and Ismael begin to understand their past earthly purpose in order to spiritually transmute helped by the train guard, who will lead them once again to life.
In this 60 second art piece, a dog named Layla is called upon by nature to defend harmless daisy flowers from the wild grass that is conquering their territory.
The classic Mariinsky (Kirov) production of the greatest of all ballets. Filmed in the imperial splendor of the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg. Starring Ulyana Lopatkina, Danila Korsuntsev and the breathtaking Mariinsky corps de ballet. Conducted by the great Russian maestro Valery Gergiev.
An attempt to bring texts from Dante's "Divine Comedy" to life. Nine episodes from the Inferno with a concluding episode from the Purgatorio.
The Sleeping Beauty holds a special place in The Royal Ballet’s repertory. It was the ballet with which the Company reopened the Royal Opera House in 1946 after World War II, its first production at its new home in Covent Garden. Margot Fonteyn danced the role of the beautiful Princess Aurora in the first performance, with Robert Helpmann as Prince Florimund. Sixty years later, in 2006, the original 1946 staging was revived by then Director of The Royal Ballet Monica Mason and Christopher Newton, returning Oliver Messel’s wonderful designs and glittering costumes to the stage.
Forced to confront adulthood, a teenage girl detached from reality prepares to leave her childhood home.
A child is born. We see underwater swimmers representing this. He is young, in a jungle setting, with two fanciful "instincts" guiding him as swooping bird-like acrobats initially menace, then delight. As an adolescent, he enters a desert, where a man spins a large cube of metal tubing. He leaves his instinct-guides behind, and enters a garden where two statues dance in a pond. As he watches their sensual acrobatics of love, he becomes a man. He is offered wealth (represented by a golden hat) by a devil figure. In a richly decorated room, a scruffy troupe of a dozen acrobats and a little girl reawaken the old man's youthful nature and love.
Tirsa, Elián, Teo, and Avril are imprisoned in a boarded-up house. In just a few minutes, their sentences will finally end. However, a call reminds them of the rules for getting out. The appearance of an external presence will put freedom at risk.
A young man named Phillip finds himself in a purgatory reality that's littered with clues of his past life. From the discovery of his own corpse to the mysterious connection with a woman scheduled for an abortion, Phillip slowly reveals this doomed fate by his own hands.
A wandering suit man finds love, but that’s not his true desire. Through a seductive encounter, he begins to reveal his own identity and delusions surrounding him.
A fragmented story of unrequited love in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the last colony on Earth, Puerto Rico.
The Nutcracker is Mikhail Baryshnikov's breathtaking and critically acclaimed Emmy-nominated production. This spectacular performance is danced by the magnificent team of Baryshnikov, one of the greatest classical dancers of the century, and Gelsey Kirkland, both showcased at the peak of their careers, with members of the American Ballet Theatre.
This unusual and intriguing interpretation of the ballet Cinderella with choreography and staging by the renowned choreographer, Maguy Marin, is set in a doll’s house with costumes to suit. This avant-garde, breakthrough version of the tale of Cinderella, described as a brilliant theatrical triumph, has toured the world since its premiere in 1985 and is acclaimed for its amazing manipulation of mood, its intriguing narrative and innovative staging. The production is regarded by some critics as a stepping stone from classical ballet to something radically new.
This athletically vibrant and sensual experience explores love across a lifetime. Using dance to inhabit a common mortal story of love born, lived, lost, burned, and seemingly gone forever, THROUGH YOU is a live-action VR richly infused with an atmosphere of passion. Dancers Joanna Kotze and Marni Thomas Wood, along with actor Amari Cheatom, take us through the coursing periods of time, from the 1970s to 2046 and beyond, where the question is harbored, “Can love be found again?
The wind carries an aspiring healer into a chaotic, virulent parallel world. Paralyzed by a familiar universe that is gradually becoming distorted, she discovers she has the power to stop time.