Category contemporary

REVIEW: Stories: A Tap Dance Sensation

Reading Time: 2 minutesStories - The Tap Dance Sensation, is a show by the acclaimed RB Dance Company. The show initially premiered back in 2019 in St. Witz France, before opening in Paris in 2020 and winning a slew of awards in 2022 at the Trophees de la Comedie Musicale ceremony. There have been over a hundred performances of this show in Paris, and it is now in London. It tells the story of a young actor starring in a film, while dealing with an oppressive director as the line between fact and fiction becomes increasingly blurred. The show also just so happens to contain some of the best dancers that France has to offer.

REVIEW: Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby

Reading Time: 2 minutesPeaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby is currently touring around the UK and parts of Europe until August 2025. It is being performed at the New Theatre, Oxford from the 15-19th October. The show is a dance adaptation of the BBC series that has been choreographed by the insanely talented, Benoit Swan Pouffer. Rambert School of Dance initially explored classical ballet but then evolved into many other different dance styles including hip hop and more abstract dance forms. The companies training and work is located in the South Bank area in London. It is a breeding group of intensive and groundbreaking training that is developed into large scale touring productions. Themes that the play looks into include gang violence, grief, war and community. It tells the story of Thomas Shelby, the leader of the Peaky Blinders (a Birmingham based gang), who takes control of Birmingham in 1919 through violence and child trafficking. It was a deeply moving and thought-provoking piece of theatre. With huge dance numbers and a brilliant live band this show is not one to be missed.

REVIEW: Mamela Nyamza: Hatched Ensemble

Reading Time: 2 minutesDeveloped from her solo piece Hatched in 2007, Mamela Nyamza's Hatched Ensemble questions and confronts this legacy, eventually transformed into a celebration of South African culture and dance traditions.

REVIEW: Peaky Blinders: Rambert

Reading Time: 3 minutesThe doors leading into Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre are papered with advice of being “under new management, by order of the Peaky Blinders”, and inside, staff are wearing the unmistakable flat cap uniform immortalised in the eponymous BBC drama series. The Redemption of Thomas Shelby, a stage adaptation by Rambert Dance, leans heavy on the appeal of the source material from the outset.

REVIEW: Chicos Mambo: TUTU

Reading Time: 2 minutesThe dance world has a propensity to take itself perhaps a little too seriously. A typically stoic art form, whether it be ballet, contemporary, modern, or Graham, we revel in the sombre beauty of dance. While musical theatre itself succeeds in drawing out the joyful silliness of dance, through tap, Fosse, and so forth, more classical styles still find themselves wary of humour. TUTU arrives to turn this notion on its head.

In Conversation with Simone Damberg-Würtz

Reading Time: 3 minutesRambert dancer Simone Damberg-Würtz talks about performing in the daring and dynamic show, and embodying Peaky Blinder’s Polly Gray.