CriticalDance Forum

An overall review of the Arts in Scotland - dance gets a mention towards the end....

2003: The year of the Scottish artist
By James Boyle for Scotland on Sunday

....in 2003 the quality of the arts in Scotland came shining forth and what seemed a bleak world began to sparkle.

On one momentous night, Ashley Page put Scottish Ballet back on its toes when the corps took to the stage at the Festival Theatre. The tension was palpable but when the curtain fell, Scotland had a new hero.

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An entertaining review of the year, in which the author explains why ballet doesn't figure:

Stars and stinkers
So what were the cultural highlights of the year? Rod Liddle offers a thoroughly partial guide


What they really wanted me to do was a cultural review of the year, where I identify in a knowledgeable and somewhat august fashion the salient and crucial artistic highpoints of 2003 in opera, ballet, theatre, fine art and film, etc.

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Happy birthday to everyone
Anniversaries dominated, Merce Cunningham dazzled and a river of sex and death beckoned. Judith Mackrell reviews the year in dance for The Guardian


Time isn't a good friend to dance. If choreography isn't performed regularly, it slips into the shadows and is fast forgotten. Dancers in their late 30s are routinely put out for retirement. Yet this doesn't inhibit the profession from celebrating birthdays with gusto - so much so that 2003 seemed to be non-stop tributes and nostalgia.

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Review of the year: dance
Ismene Brown for The Daily Telelgraph looks back on a year in dance that blossomed after an unpromising start


Best: George Piper Dances and Sylvie Guillem in Maliphant's Broken Fall at the Royal Ballet.

Worst: Béjart's Mother Teresa and the Children of the World at Sadler's Wells.


Risky: Sylvie Guillem in Broken Fall

If you'd said in March that I'd find 2003 one of the most encouraging years of my experience, I would have thought you mad. A torrent of horrors had broken over our heads: Northern Ballet Theatre's unspeakable Requiem!!, Maurice Béjart's revolting Mother Teresa and the Children of the World, Eifman Ballet's hysterical Red Giselle and Tchaikovsky.

But then, suddenly, things began to look up. Green shoots of recovery – several new artistic directors, fresh ideas, some wonderful individual talents soaring. It wasn't so much that great things happened as that they looked as if they might, soon.

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Nation shall dance unto nation
We enjoyed Danish duets, Chinese lanterns and a tasty rum punch from Cuba. By Jann Parry for The Observer


Revolutionary architecture for dance has continued to brighten our lives this year. The Royal Ballet School moved alongside the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, with Chris Wilkinson's ingenious Bridge of Aspiration linking the two buildings. Tourists as well as ballet-goers were intrigued by the bridge's floating-rib construction. Modern dance has been brilliantly served by Herzog and de Meuron's colourful Laban building at Deptford Creekside, part laboratory, part playpen. Laban's dedicated director, Marion North, retired after seeing her vision for the relocated training centre proudly inaugurated in March.

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San Francisco Ballet come out top of the reliable Ellie Carr's picks for the year:

The year Scottish Ballet found its feet again
For The sunday Herald Ellie Carr celebrates a ballet good year.


In dance, 2003 will be remembered as the year that the long-troubled Scottish Ballet burst back onto the scene. New artistic director Ashley Page has transformed the damaged company into a lean, mean dancing machine . Could Scottish Ballet’s future be bright after all?

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