Stan Graham's Leisure Guide for North and West Yorkshire
Here we are, back at the dance; tonight it is Northern Ballet with this year’s production in the series Three Short Ballets, which does what it says on the tin. The works performed are each choreographed by a different person but there is an underlying theme running through them. Connection was the motif, utilising a…
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So far it looks as though 2026 will go down as the Year of the Dance. I can’t remember seeing so many productions of the genre in such a short period of time, and more are just around the corner. It’s lucky that I have come to enjoy this medium, if not downright love it.…
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I always say, you can never have too many dance shows (actually I don’t, but I had to start somehow), which is just as well because last week I had three! This one was different in several ways, the main ones being that it was not concerned with sexual orientation and there doesn’t seem to…
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Typical, you wait 76 years for a dance production about lesbians and then two come along at once. Gentleman Jack is a true story based on the life and times of Anne Lister, who was from a coal mining family; for once not the pick and shovel end but the ownership side. She acted as…
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It’s not often I get to visit a lesbian cabaret club on a Wednesday night, or any night for that matter, so, when asked to this one I couldn’t refuse, and I am glad I didn’t. This wasn’t any old lesbian cabaret club, it was Le Monacle and not any old Wednesday, it was a…
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I really do seem to have crossed to the dark side this past couple of weeks. After Peter Grimes and A Midsummer Night’s Dream I find myself watching a ballet about Snow White. This is not the Disneyfied version with singing dwarves, however, but the original fairy tale, collected, appropriately,by the Brothers Grimm, and retold…
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Here’s another first, a visit to Riley Theatre in the Northern School of Contemporary Dance at the bottom of Chapeltown Road. I pass this place every time I go to Leeds but have never had occasion to visit before. I was invited to go see a production aimed at the younger end of the theatre-going…
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At last, I get to see The Nutcracker from Northern Ballet, in fact it is the first time I have seen it performed by anyone. My appetite was whetted three years ago when I was fortunate enough to visit the home of the dance company to watch them rehearse for the 2022 version and write…
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Don’t look now, but it seems as though it’s nearly Christmas, and we all know what that means, yes, Pantotime! The first of this year’s offerings is Sleeping Beauty at Carriageworks, and gets things off to a great start. As you will have gathered, this show is based on the legend of Sleeping Beauty, which…
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When I saw that Opera North was presenting a piece in conjunction with Shadwell Opera, I assumed that the North Leeds Suburb of that name had an amateur operatic society, news of which had failed to reach me. In fact, the company is from the East London Shadwell and is a professional outfit. I have…
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Tyke It To The Limit 