For all press enquiries please contact Judy Lipsey at judy.lipsey@lipseypr.com
Press 2024
Summer Season: Acts of Exaltation and Baroque Encounters
Next Generation Festival, Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House // Mixed programme with Norwegian National Ballet 2
Seen and Heard International
“Acts of Exaltation, on a theme of broadly defined ‘religiosity’, is set to music by Claudio Monteverdi … It devises complex patterns of bodies, arms and hands. … Elsewhere it opens out into sections that give the dancers light and freedom, allowing them to express a collective sense of joy in movement.”
Culture Whisper
Acts of Exaltation: “Matthew Ball’s piece for seven dancers is … a work that opts for creating impressions and emotional responses and does it very effectively, and it’s pitched perfectly at the level of the performers.” Teresa Guerreiro
Bachtrack
Acts of Exaltation by Matthew Ball: “Beautifully danced (I especially enjoyed Genevieve Heron and Jerome Barnes) and musically pleasing ...”
“Ball is a highly inventive and intelligent individual, and working with NEBT appears to have been beneficial to all concerned.“
Baroque Encounters by Daniela Cardim: “a well crafted piece of choreography that echoes the music exactly.” Deborah Weiss
British Theatre Guide
Baroque Encounters by Daniela Cardim: “It is wonderful, as are the seven dancers, dressed in April Dalton’s Renaissance plum-coloured costumes, long dervish skirts for all in the first, short Roman military style tunic skirts for the second, under Andrew Ellis’s chiaroscuro lighting. Expressive hands seem to be fingering the music, whilst bodies become a baroque chamber orchestra: Emily Pohl and José Alves (formerly with Ballet Black) excel in the pas de deux.” Vera Liber
Seeing Dance
“Baroque Encounters by Daniela Cardim remains a joy. The work has a warm elegance, Cardim’s choreography translating perfectly into neo-classical movement two works by J.S. Bach.” David Mead
Press 2023
Genesis Dance Project and New Works
Seen and Heard International
“Across the eight pieces of dance, and their different dance styles, what remains a constant pleasure is the skill and dedication of the New English Ballet Theatre dancers.” John O’Dwyer
Seeing Dance
“Baroque Encounters is a lovely watch and made for a fine opening.” David Mead
Bachtrack
“Cardim … chose beautiful harpsichord music by Bach and her choreography for seven dancers was rich in imagery and musicality and elegantly layered with exquisite transitions. April Dalton’s long red skirts for both men and women enhanced the movement’s slick flow.” Graham Watts (Baroque Encounters, chor. Daniela Cardim)
Broadway World
“Leung’s language communicates as a successful hybrid of classical principles and modern approaches. He has a gift for making movement connect and flow.” Matthew Paluch (All in Passing, chor. Peter Leung)
Bachtrack
“… witty work of Kristen McNally who choreographed a slinky Pan’s People number to the memorable Phil Collins’ vocals of I Can’t Dance … Her tight formation of rocking, sinuous movement fitted the song like a close-fitting glove.” Graham Watts
Seeing Dance
“Ripples is … a super trio for Ana Freire, Eric Caterer-Cave and Nicholas Vavrečka in which the dance surfs the music with Freire often carried by the two men … It’s a fine, very musical piece of choreography.” David Mead (Ripples, chor. Wayne Eagling)
London Theatre
“If I had to pick a favourite, I’d plump for ‘The Cinema Show’, whose lyrics told a mini story in any event, capitalised on by Ruth Brill’s choreography and Lou Cope’s dramaturgy.” Chris Omaweng
Bachtrack
Invisible Touch by Kristen McNally is “… outstanding … Genevieve Heron and Nicholas Vavrečka traverse the stage in various angular lines of close formation but without ever touching as if kept apart by an invisible magnetic force. It was a fascinating example of pop choreography, superbly performed.” Graham Watts
Seen and Heard International
“Valentino Zucchetti’s aim … is to re-create ‘that after-party atmosphere you get once the club shuts down’. He achieves this most effectively during Steve Hackett’s extended guitar solo towards the end, when Andrew Ellis makes the lights go red and dancers stand at the sides of the stage watching other dancers, as they do in the work of Alexei Ratmansky and Kenneth MacMillan.” John O’Dwyer (Firth of Fifth, chor. Valentino Zucchetti)
Press 2022
Autumn Season – Cycles of Loss and Love
British Theatre Guide Read the full review
“The Four Seasons are a joyous awakening. April Dalton’s costumes, a different outfit for each season, are a delight (I love the tiny crinolines), and Andrew Ellis ignites the stage with changes of seasonal light…It’s the music, which lifts the spirit, and doesn’t it need lifting these days… More please!” Vera Liber
Fairy Powered Productions Read the full review
“This was a fabulous evening of dance in a stunning setting…The lovely opening piece was Nocturne, choreographed by Daniela Cardim. It’s a pas-de-deux set to the melting music of Chopin’s ‘Nocturne 13 in C Minor’. Dancers Genevieve Heron and Aitor Viscarolasaga Lopez drew us beautifully into the deep blue world of this piece, designed by Lisa James. The evening was a fine demonstration of the dancers’ commitment – besides the gorgeous technical skills, they brought striking emotional intensity to the performances. The theatre itself felt like an ideal place to enjoy this – spacious for the dancers, but bringing the audience very close.” Antonia Herbert
GabrielWilding.co.uk Read the full review
“Jenna Lee’s abstract and thematically diverse take on Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons…is the highlight…April Dalton’s costumes are playful…Andrew Ellis’s lights do their best with the polished black stage and both work hard to transport us out of Battersea….Dylan Springer and Natalia Kerner in particular give hedonistic flair, sass, and sparkle.” Gabriel Wilding
Seen & Heard International Read the full review
“…The second pas de deux Re(Current) was choreographed by The Royal Ballet Principal, Matthew Ball, who performed it with fellow company Principal, Mayara Magri…they seemed to occupy the whole of the stage with really sweeping port de bras, really assured lifts, really confident balances. Like the music of Sibelius that accompanies it, the choreography flows.
“Jenna Lee’s The Four Seasons…set to Max Richter’s reworking of Vivaldi, greatly enhanced by Andrew Ellis’ lighting and April Dalton’s costumes, it’s a work with which the company is familiar and performs with gusto.” John O’Dwyer
Seeing Dance Read the full review
“The UK does not have junior ballet ensembles which are so much a feature of European ballet companies and NEBT serves a vital role in filling this gap.
It was apposite to present this programme in line with the Remembrance weekend when we recall the human loss suffered through the madness of war … Director, Karen Pilkington-Miksa, delivered a programme of quality classical works danced with passion and sincerity. ‘War Women Waiting’ [sic], an excerpt from Wayne Eagling’s Remembrance…centres on a poignant duet where Natalia Kerner dances with the ghost of her lost lover, Dylan Springer. Springer’s confident partnering was impressive and Kerner gave a deeply moving performance. The young artists made a powerful impact.” Maggie Foyer
South London Press Read the full review
“Cycles of Loss & Love was a showcase of the brightest and the best…Particularly in The Four Seasons, choreographed by Jenna Lee to Vivaldi’s music of the same title. Jenna wanted to show life persists through hardship and turmoil and she certainly made the youths work for their breaks. The costumes by April Dalton were very inventive. New talents Dylan Springer stood out in Summer, and Xholindi Muci in Winter…” Christopher Walker
Summer Season – Into the Spotlight
Seeing Dance
“…the company look in fine fettle, maybe as good as I’ve ever seen them. It was an evening of varying colours, from emotionally intense and thoughtful to fizzing like the best English sparkling wine…” David Mead
Seen & Heard International
“NEBT’s bright-eyed dancers demonstrate their nascent talents across a range of dance styles and endear themselves to the audience along the way … ‘Very nice’ a man in the row behind me said when this opening piece (Ruth Brill’s ‘Domino’) had come to its logical and satisfying conclusion.” John O’Dwyer
Dance for You Magazine
“Daniela Cardim’s Nocturne was a deeply expressive pas de deux to Chopin’s Nocturne No.13 in C Minor. Camino Llonch and Daniel Corthorn absolutely captured the underlying current of experiencing grief and the choreography echoed the music in all its light and shade in a series of beautifully crafted passages.”
Press 2020
Streaming of Remembrance:
The Guardian*** Read the full review
‘Eagling’s decades of experience and choreographic pedigree are clear in movement that sings. Nimble choreography is in fluent motion, dancing on the semiquavers of the score, Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day. There’s clarity of storytelling and setting, from the dance studio where Rambert corrects her students, joining in with her dancers to make an intricate little pas de trois, to the atmospheric photographic backdrop of a train station where soldiers say their stoic farewells, and the stained glass of a church interior where Rambert’s longing and prayers take physical form – designer Nina Kobiashvili brings class on a presumably modest budget.‘ Lyndsey Winship
Seeing Dance Read the full review
‘When death once again separates and threatens to separate lovers across the globe, Remembrance provides us with a lesson from the past, a mirror of our fears and the hope that one day, all will again return to the predictable and familiar.’ Charlotte Kasner
Seen and Heard International Read the full review
‘The choreography is always at the service of the emotion: the bravado of soldiers, one in front of the other in second position plié, before the reality of war is brought home to them on two stretchers; Rambert’s fretful imaginings. […] It is not only Alessia Lugoboni (Marie Rambert) and Alexander Nuttall (Ashley Dukes) who show an investment in the piece. As an ensemble, the dancers of New English Ballet Theatre appear committed to the movement through their bodies and their faces.’
Dance for You Magazine Read the full review
‘Wayne Eagling’s Remembrance, created in 2018 for New English Ballet Theatre, is a little gem.’ Deborah Weiss
Press 2019
Dancetabs
“New English Ballet Theatre is a small scale company that is packed with burgeoning talent, diverse offerings and plenty of pluck.” Deborah Weiss
Press 2018
The Times
‘this one is a pretty impressive achievement…Eagling makes a good fist of a familiar enough narrative, which shifts from a Chelsea dance studio to the battlefield and back to London for an Armistice reunion. He is abetted by the contributions of a fine creative team, especially the set designer Nina Kobiashvili, and a spirited rendering of Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day played live by the English Concert, with stirring solo vocals from Fflur Wyn and Joshua Ellicott. The choreography for the principals and the ensemble is adept. As Rambert, the lithe Alessia Lugoboni is at her most expressive in duets partnered by the strapping Alexander Nuttall’s stalwart Dukes.’ Donald Hutera
The Stage
‘Bright and elegant, great assurance and maturity. Jenna Lee’s The Four Seasons captures all the lightness and drama of Vivaldi’s famous compositions… this is a bright and elegant work danced with precision.’ Rachel Elderkin
The FT
‘Slickly staged, eagerly danced’
Entertainment Focus
‘The exquisite ebb and flow of Alexander Nuttall and Alessia Lugoboni’s syncronised movements take us through the excitement, passion and pain of their love story as she sorrowfully waves him off to war at Waterloo station… Remembrance is a moving, fitting and reflective piece of theatre to honour 100 years since the end of World War One.’
Seeing Dance
‘Set and lighting were excellent. Nina Kobiashvili creates a stunning evocation of both the interiors and the theatre of war. Andrew Ellis’ lighting is used to full effect, subtle changes in the station projection creating the impression of those agonising farewells and reuniting of a century ago.
The use of Handel’s Ode for St Cecelia’s Day is inspired… Handel provides the perfect lesson and solace for the war-weary hearts. So good to hear the live performance too.’
British Theatre Guide
‘A well-balanced double bill, an abstract ballet coupled with a narrative work, for NEBT young dancers to show their range. Only in its seventh season, NEBT is punching above its weight. It has come a long way since Karen Pilkington-Miksa founded it in 2011…My teenage escort comes away wanting to be more involved in dance—if that isn’t a result for NEBT… This world-weary reviewer is energised by his response. Isn’t it all about captivating and capturing the next generation?’
Theatre Weekly
5*
‘I highly recommend this double bill to all fans of neoclassic ballet and modern choreography, and I would say that it can be a great starting point for those who want to explore the modern dance culture and see one of the best examples of dancing performance. One abstract and one historical, two pieces work together at both emotional and intellectual level, making you feel, think and analyse the action on stage every single moment.’
Press 2017
Exeunt Magazine
‘Bold and stylish, The Four Seasons is a work driven by its music (a re-composition by Max Richter) and in that lies its strength. The choreography is full and varied, shifting from full-cast to pas-de-deux to carefully designed group work. Lee exhibits a flair for structuring group sections, with some intricate patterning and shifting partnerships.’
LondonTheatre1.com
‘The most thrilling parts of the evening were the first and second movements of The Four Seasons, choreographed by Jenna Lee, where there was a freshness and flow to the choreography. The pas de deux in the Summer section were poised and tender indeed.’
Press 2016
Feature: The female side (A Younger Theatre)
“Feminism and female empowerment are buzz words in the press at the minute, and we have noticed a definite change in the way our ballets are received because of this,” observes Karen Pilkington-Miksa, the company’s Founding and Artistic Director, when talking about her focus on female choreographers. “We are always striving to include and promote those people who might not have any other opportunity to get themselves, or their work, noticed and the work of female choreographers definitely fits that bill!”
Broadwayworld.com
“NEBT is uniquely defined in the world of competitive ballet: founded by its artistic director, the visionary Karen Pilkington-Miksa in 2011, NEBT has commissioned and produced 16 new ballets deploying the exciting talents of dancers, choreographers, musicians and designers.”
David Meade – Seeingdance
“SeeingDance editor David Mead spends a day with New English Ballet Theatre, looking ahead to their new Quintessential programme, and even learning a short section of one ballet.
When the invitation dropped into the Inbox, it was impossible to turn down. Come along and join in with New English Ballet Theatre’s (NEBT) ‘ballet boot camp’ for web-based writers. Meet the company, watch rehearsal of some ballets from the company’s forthcoming programme of five new ballets, and the biggie, learn part of one of those ballets.”
Londondance.com – In the studio with New English Ballet Theatre
“Dancing in a programme that consists of a number of works, each created by a different choreographer, can be a challenging process. The dancers have to learn to switch between styles, to go from the grounded movements of contemporary to neoclassical and traditional ballet technique. “It’s hard,” dancer Riccardo Rodighiero admits, “but it’s interesting to challenge yourself across different styles.”
London Theatre 1 – Marian Kennedy
“What a gorgeous jewel box of a dance event is this. Five new ballets choreographed by five brilliant choreographers, describing stories and sensibility through movement, not found before.
Everything about this show is very fine. From the production and lighting values. creating tone and atmosphere, to the live music and the nuanced dancing by the talented performers of the New English National Ballet Theatre.”
Bachtrack – Christopher Curtis
“This evening was a rich menu of thoughtful and engaging choreography, very well performed by consistently excellent emerging dancers and musicians: fulfilling the company’s mission perfectly.”
London West End Theatre tickets
“5-star Quint-Essential Five New Ballets at The Peacock Theatre.
The vibrancy of the London Arts scene is well illustrated by the success of the “New English Ballet Theatre”.”
Dancing Review
“It’s great to see that the standard of dancing is increasing year by year, especially regarding partnering. This year’s crop looked assured, confident and completely at home on the London stage.”
Press 2015
Philippa Newis – London Dance
“New English Ballet Theatre offers a unique platform for emerging dancers and choreographers to hone their craft and mature as performers in a professional setting. Watching the company for the first time, I’m sold on the vision and impressed with the breadth of creative opportunities that Artistic Director Karen Pilkington-Miksa is giving her young artists. It’s a project which looks set to go from strength to strength.”
Debroah Weiss – Dance Europe
“Wonderfully constructed, the sequences are circular, undulating, scintillating in construction and exceptionally well executed. Chloé Lopes Gomes and Ivan Delgado del Rio led the rest of the cats of four couples with such authority it was hard to believe they were not already established principals. She has a sensuous allure, an ability to make her back ‘speak’ as she moves from one beautiful shape to another. He is an accomplished dancer and partner who understands innately how to communicate with the audience. The central pas de deux was luscious, liquid, absolutely captivating. The third and final movement was a swirling mass of curves and shapes that expressed the music exactly.”
Margaret Willis – Bachtrack
“NEBT may be a small and relatively new company — created in 2010 —but its young dancers show prodigious talent, displaying sound technical ability, musicality, inner passion, and outward joy of dancing.”
Barbara Newman – Country Life
“Sustained only by live music, sensitive costuming and their creativity, these artists proved beyond doubt that choreography doesn’t need costly production values to succeed. In ways no other artform duplicates, it can effectively explore space, time and human experience all by itself.”
Charlotte Kasner – Critical Dance
“Toca by Erico Montes is a tantalising pas de deux set to Villa-Lobos. Perfectly suited to the sultry July night, it sizzled with passion only to be extinguished like a flame between pinched fingers. At one point Paul Oliver faces the audience and Arinana Marchiori stands by his side facing backwards. A simple device that they manage to make incredibly telling. It is epitomised by less is more and works like the best of appetisers to pique the interest.”
Vikki Jane Vile – London Theatre 1
“Another enjoyable but brief highlight was Wundarra, a unique duet featuring classical choreography to aboriginal music. Alexandra Cameron-Martin has an infectious grin throughout and the music is so rhythmical the choreography seems to fit in effortlessly. It would have been nice to see this piece extended and developed a little more. This was the kind of duet that makes dance accessible and exciting for all.”
Daniel Perks – A Younger Theatre
“This programme of work brings together showcase pieces of contemporary ballet in a variety of different styles and with different musical inspirations. In two hours the audience is exposed to the Russian romanticism of Mussorgsky, the Brazilian folk music of Heitor Villa-Lobos before rushing around the world to some traditional aboriginal compositions with the guttural tones of the didgeridoo. Each and every piece is intrinsically linked with the choreography and the movement of the dancers, with each step striving to reflect and imitate the emotion within the music itself.”
Press 2014
Sarah Frater – The Stage
“All five of the new works demonstrate the commitment of their dancers and choreographers.”
Christina de Lucas – Bachtrack
“For its second season at the Peacock Theatre, NEBT has chosen a programme with five interesting works. With two of them performed to live music, admirably played by young gifted musicians, the pieces on the bill proved the founder of the company right. Daniela Cardim Fonteyne’s choreography for Tangents stresses the classic vocabulary in building graceful harmonious sequences that are dynamically combined in a rich variety of formations. The work was well performed with clear, fast, and clean movements.”
Judith Mackrell – Guardian
“Mad Women, Kristin McNally’s new work is funny, surprising and sharp in almost every detail…it elicits alert, intelligent performances from its cast. There’s so much to applaud about NEBT, a young company determined to present new choreography and to incorporate live music and original design.”
Lynette Halewood – DanceTabs
“If you are keen on seeing new work, this is an attractive package of five pieces which is very well presented.”
Louise Levene – Financial Times
“Kristin McNally’s larky, post-feminist romp, Mad Women, danced by five babes in watermelon Capri pants, made an excellent first-act closer.”
Charlotte Kasner – Critical Dance
“(In Kreutzer Sonata) Hayley Blackburn portrayed vividly the dilemmas and hopeless situation of the wife trapped in an unhappy marriage, torn between her children and husband and her liking for a violinist…the ballet has more than a hint of Onegin about it, in look and in the way McNichol tackles the narrative with clarity, the dance and drama melding as one. Barely a step is wasted in moving the story along. Also impressive is the way the choreography hints at a hidden and less pleasant side to the married couple’s relationship a long time before it bubbles into the open. The final fight between the couple was powerful and hard-hitting.”
Graham Watts – Londondance
“It is essential to give credit and support to everything that NEBT stands for: perseverance, passion and providing opportunity. These are qualities possessed in spades by the company’s redoubtable founder and director, Karen Pilkington-Miksa, a former dancer who spotted a gap for a company to provide opportunities for emerging dancers, designers and choreographers and set out – in 2010 – with a lot of help from patrons and sponsors. It has certainly grown from strength to strength since then. The programme was presented to high professional standards and made for an enjoyable evening. I hope that there will be many more to come from this outstanding and very worthwhile initiative.”
Brian Penn – Everything Theatre
“The auditorium of the Peacock Theatre is an impressive setting for New English Ballet Theatre’s five part programme combining visual art, music and dance…overall it was a highly competent, polished production. The NEBT deserves great credit for nurturing and promoting young talent.”
Vera Liber – British Theatre Guide
“Founded by Karen Pilkington-Miksa with the intention of promoting young talent and preparing it for the competitive world by giving it more stage time, NEBT’s debut in 2012 garnered warm reviews. This is its equivalent of the second novel…will it deliver on its early promise? Deliver it does!”
Press 2012
Edward Thorpe – Ham&High
“…the company contains a body of talented young artists technically equipped to cope with tremendous varied choreography…Lonesome Gun by Kristen McNally is a perfect example of movement, mood and music in artistic unity. NEBT fulfils an important need, long may it continue.”
Judith Mackrell – Guardian
“…outstanding, too, is Kristen McNally’s Lonesome Gun, a raunchy, occasionally piercing cowboy – girl ballet that manages to flaunt every lasso-twirling, gun-toting cliche while evoking the lonely emotional landscape within. Dance is a crowded marketplace, and if NEBT has a future, as I hope it does, it will be in the cherry-picking of new and original work like this.”
Sarah Frater – The Stage
“Given the limited opportunities available to classical dancers, any new ballet company is good news. Debuting in 2012, New English Ballet Theatre’s aim is to stage new works with art-grade designs and live music – ably provided by the Westminster Festival Orchestra. Founded by the dancer and teacher Karen Pilkington-Miksa, it boasts an impressive team of teachers, advisers and patrons – not least Carlos Acosta, Darcey Bussell, Anya Sainsbury and Doreen Wells. Its first London’s season was staged at the Peacock Theatre, and the short run had many promising features. Foremost are the young dancers, whose commitment and focus are considerable. ”
Jeffery Taylor – Sunday Express
“In today’s bankrupt financial atmosphere what a brave and brilliant adventure to find a ballet company encouraging young, untried dancers and designers.”
Jonathan Gray – Dancing Times
“Jenna Lee’s Classical Symphony, a brisk, neo-classical work set to music by Prokofiev that included much fast dancing. It put both male and female dancers through their paces and Ryoko Yagyu took the leading role with flair.”
Zoe Anderson – Independent
“Legends, a new duet by Michael Corder, is the strongest on this programme. Chiaki Korematsu and Iván Delgado del Rio dance a fluent, pretty pas de deux. Corner gives them flowing steps with individual touches…the performance is smooth and spontaneous with bright footwork from Korematsu.”
Laura Dodge – Londondance.com
“Performers showed an exceptional level of technique and potential throughout…New English Ballet Theatre has shown what a wealth of young talent we have in the UK and the company itself, as well as all of its emerging dancers and artists, are richly deserving of further opportunities to shine.”
Liz Hoggard – Evening Standard
“Youth brings freshness; Rebecca Wilson’s Joy punks up Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik with Kentish farmers in micro-denim shorts while choreographer Wayne Eagling’s Resolution (created for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy sufferers, many of whom don’t live beyond 30) is heartbreaking when performed by lithe twentysomethings.”
Graham Watts – DanceTabs.com
“With a couple of exceptions, the choreography was composed by the bright young things and all of it was broadly akin to seeing a promising choreographic workshop…Jenna Lee and George Williamson are prodigiously talented young dancemakers, coming from very different places in the neoclassical spectrum and there was an interesting mutuality in the pairing of their work…”
“This was a programme that delivered what Karen Pilkington-Miksa and her team set out to achieve for which she (and they) deserve our considerable applause. NEBT provides a stepping stone for young people to acquire the experience of participating in a professional show. Given the significant disparity between the number of graduates from our dance schools and the number of professional jobs available to them, any opportunity for paid work must be applauded.”
Liz Hoggard – Evening Standard
“Youth brings freshness; Rebecca Wilson’s Joy punks up Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik with Kentish farmers in micro-denim shorts while choreographer Wayne Eagling’s Resolution (created for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy sufferers, many of whom don’t live beyond 30) is heartbreaking when performed by lithe twentysomethings.”