Dance at the Opera

On Saturday 7 July there is the opportunity to see a programme of dance inspired by some of the operas in the current Opera Holland Park season.  At 1pm, English National Ballet (ENB) and Opera Holland Park (OHP) present a programme of five new works, performed to music for string quartet.

James Streeter (a junior soloist with ENB) has choreographed a work for two men, inspired by Eugene Onegin, to a new score by Janine Forrester, a film composer and pianist who is one of the ENB music staff. A duet which attempts to capture the tensions the relationship between Lensky and Onegin.


Katie Ryan, from Akademi, specialises in contemporary and Indian classical dance and she has produced a piece inspired by Cosi van tutte. Naomi Deira from Union Dance is presenting work inspired by Puccini, whilst Anne-Marie Smalldon from Combination Dance is exploring themes from Lucia di Lammermoor, love, youth, innocence and madness - sounds a fun piece!

Finally Arcadie Rusu's work is for six dancers is inspired by Falstaff - a problem I'd imagine as you don't really get many extremely fat dancers do you. Rusu is a contemporary choreographer, director and dancer based in Bucharest and he is supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute for Dance, Holland Park.

The event takes place in the afternoon, so don't expect too much in the way of atmospheric lighting. But it will be interesting to see how the young choreographers take advantage (or not) of the rather distinctive OHP stage which is very wide and rather shallow.

The event is part of Big Dance Festival, a Cultural Olympiad event which is showcasing dance in unusual venues.