Articles by Stephanie Green

By Stephanie Green @.

Joined 2017
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Reviews 84
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Stephanie Green has reviewed Theatre and Dance in Edinburgh since 2011 but previously travelled widely, mainly in Eastern Europe and Russia, writing about puppetry and in Bali, shadow puppetry and sacred dance. In the 1970s, she trained as a puppeteer at the Little Angel, London and later worked at the alternative In the Heart of the Beast Mask and Puppet Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. After training at the Place, the London School of Contemporary Dance, in her 20s she then gave up dancing until starting again in her 60s just for fun. She has recently danced in a community group with Barrowland Ballet (at the Edinburgh Fringe, 2013), Oceanallover and at the South Bank, London as part of the Festival of the Silver Age. She is also a novelist, playwright and poet. www.stephaniegreen.org.uk/

NDT2: The Big Crying, Simple Things, Impasse

The convulsive pain of grief, a languorous classical quartet and an exuberant party piece undercut with darkness; these three pieces superbly contrast each other in mood and style,…

The Great Gatsby

Review
★★★★
Stephanie Green
UK Regional & Tours
Edinburgh Festival Theatre / Milton Keynes Theatre / New Theatre Cardiff
23rd Apr, 2022

Manic parties and manic dance, glorious swirls of colour, Chanel-inspired floating dresses and jazz from the Roaring Twenties, contrasted with the green light throbbing in the dist…

Kontakthof: Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch

Disconcerting, both humourous and visceral, Kontakthof performed by Tanztheater Wuppertal continues to shock.

Carmen

Review
★★★★★
Stephanie Green
Scotland
EICC
20th Dec, 2021

A love triangle, passion, jealousy, the colour of red roses and bull-fighter capes: just what you would expect in this stunning contemporary dance version of Bizet’s Carmen, re-i…

Christmas Dinner

A heart-warming show of joy and magic at Christmas time, Catherine Wheels’ Christmas Dinner, written by Robert Alan Evans and directed by Gill Robertson, is particularly welcome …

Scottish Ballet’s The Nutcracker

Snow falling, Christmas baubles, glitz and magic - Scottish Ballet’s The Nutcracker to Tchaikovsky performed by the company’s live orchestra is like a box of chocolate treats.

Starstruck: Scottish Ballet

Glitz and glamour, fun and frolics, Scottish Ballet’s Starstruck is a delight, just what we need after 18 months of closed theatres.

Starting From First Position

Mercurial, subtle and rousing Starting from First Position is a blend of dance and poetry performed by Nigerian born poet Ben Okri (also 1991 Booker prize winner for his novel, The…

Iconnotations

Music-theatre with solo cello plus dance, Iconnotations is extraordinary: surreal, wry, expressionistic, at times baffling, profoundly sad but at the end joyous.

Opia

How do we interpret the world through our senses, particularly through sight? A mesmerically beautiful triptych of two solos and one duet, choreographed by Finnish Johanna Nuutinen…

Grin

Challenging, daring, with longeurs but also explosive moments, this makes for uncomfortable viewing but is a much-needed and to be applauded show.

BOBBY WINNER

Family Portrait

A charming, funny and touching interactive video installation, Family Portrait by Natasha Gilmore’s Barrowland Ballet features Natasha herself as mother and single parent and her…

Fugue in Two Colors

If Carl Knif’s Fugue in Two Voices is a joke, then it’s a dud.

Amina Khayyam Dance – Catch the Bird Who Won't Fly

Amina Khayyam’s Catch the Bird Who Won’t Fly, a Kathak dance piece using animation and green screen is beautiful, subtle and moving despite its grim subject matter: domestic vi…

Taiwan Season: Fighters

We need heroes in these strange times is the thesis of this show, and Les Petites Choses’ Fighters brings us five.

Taiwan Season: Touchdown

A man falls from the side of the screen onto the floor.

Taiwan Season: ai-sa-sa

Ai~sa~sa meaning ‘Get over yourself’ is brilliant.

Taiwan Season: The Back of Beyond

Tai Gu Tales was created by Hsiu Wei Lin, formerly a principal dancer with the iconic Taiwanese Cloud Gate company.

The Secret Theatre

Where is the glitter and magic, our annual Christmas treat, without the Sugar Plum Fairy or the Snow Queen? With theatre doors closed during these sad times, Scottish Ballet have c…

Antigone, Interrupted

Experimental, inventive and hugely daring, Antigone, Interrupted is Sophocles re-imagined, the first production by Joan Clevillé since becoming Artistic Director of Sc…

Scottish Ballet: The Snow Queen

A wintry tale of fire and ice where selfless love wins, The Snow Queen, choreographed by Christopher Hampson, is a dangerous journey encountering bandits and snow creatures.

An Edinburgh Christmas Carol

Full of good cheer, fun and jokes, carols under falling snow, spooky ghosts and glitter, what better way to get into the Christmas spirit than go to An Edinburgh Christmas Carol, D…

Rite of Spring

Luscious colours, hypnotic dance, the exotic (to westerners) Chinese/Tibetan interpretation of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring should make Yang Liping’s Peacock Contemporary Dance …

Juliet & Romeo

Both humourous and sad, Juliet and Romeo by Lost Dog company, presented by The Place, written with sensitive forensic analysis and directed by Ben Duke, is a subversion of Shakespe…

Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True

"Hear Word!" is how Nigerians start a story, a sort of town crier’s call and Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True co-written and directed by Ifeoma Fafunwa is definitely at…

Hard to Be Soft: A Belfast Prayer

Hard to be Soft: A Belfast Prayer choreographed and directed by Oona Doherty is at times an explosive, visceral and overwhelming experience.

The Hospital

A brilliant Scandi noir of the psyche, spoken in gibberish in a surreal world, Norwegian Jo Strømgren Kompani’s The Hospital, is gripping; moving from bizarre, black humour to d…

Looping: Scotland Overdub

Billed as part Brazilian street dance and part Scottish ceilidhe with everyone invited to share the dance floor and a whisky, this suggested a rather more joyful, carnivalesque exp…

Body Language by David Bolger and Christopher Ash

If you have ever wondered how contemporary dance choreography is created (as opposed to classical ballet) this fascinating show, CoisCéim Dance Theatre’s Body Language directed …

Red Dust Road

Jackie Kay’s memoir Red Dust Road, adapted for the stage by Tanika Gupta, is a huge disappointment.

Oedipus

White hot, stripped down to its essentials, this searing version of Sophocles’ Oedipus, adapted and directed by Robert Icke may well be the defining drama for our times, where f…

Heroes

What a delight to hear the giggles and laughter, sometimes hysterical, of children, aged four and up in the audience throughout Heroes, a circus, acrobatics and aerial dance show a…

The Secret River

Who owns the land? What if the land you think is yours already ‘belongs’ to someone else? The tragedy that is Australian history, the encounter between the ‘savages’ and th…

Kalakuta Republik

Kalakuta Republik will stay with you, for good or bad.

The Chosen

How do we face dying if we know we have a terminal illness? And also how do we live in the face of death, imminent or not? Losing several friends in the same year, Kally Lloyd-Jo…

From the Top

A delight, witty but profound exploration of the power relationship between choreographer and dancers, From the Top, choreographed by Hong Kong-based Victor Fung, is a send-up of a…

And the Birds Did Sing

Christine Devaney’s And the Birds Did Sing is a gentle, moving meditation on the loss of her father, expressed through story-telling and some expressive physical movement to an e…

Taiwan Season: Monster

Monster choreographed and performed by Yen-Cheng Liu of Dua Shin Te Production is a show about the monster within us but the trouble with alienation is that it alienates the audien…

Blizzard

Breath-taking, Blizzard produced by Flip Fabrique from Quebec, is so much more than a circus show.

Another

Another is a quadruple selection of dance pieces by the fledgling company Ballet-works founded by a former soloist of Stuttgart Ballet, Robert Robertson and comprises both contempo…

Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools

Kiinalik, in the Inuktitut language, means when a knife is sharp.

The Crucible

Stunning, visceral and heart-breaking, pitting light against dark, superstition and hysteria against the steady flame of truth and love, Scottish Ballet’s The Crucible choreograp…

Steve Reich Project

If this was billed as Music and took place in a concert hall, the MP4 Quartet’s perfomance of three pieces by Steve Reich, Pendulum Music, Different Trains and WC 9/11 would earn…

BOBBY WINNER

Taiwan Season: Floating Flowers

Floating Flowers by B.

She Persisted - [ENB]

A landmark for female empowerment, She Persisted is a trilogy by three female choreographers celebrating female icons.

Scottish Ballet Cinderella

Review
★★★★
Stephanie Green
Scotland
Multiple Venues
11th Dec, 2018

Stylish, elegant and magical, Scottish Ballet's Cinderella, choreographed by Christopher Hampson, at times takes one's breath away.

Wendy and Peter Pan

Rumbustious, fast, furious and funny, yet full of magic and fairy dust, Wendy and Peter Pan will delight all ages: an awfully big adventure and the perfect Christmas show.

Autobiography

Blinding with science comes to mind in Autobiography, choreographed by Wayne McGregor.

Love Cycle: Love Chapter 2

Love Chapter 2 by L-E-V, choreographed by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, is a twin-piece to OCD Love, both part of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Love Cycle: OCD Love

A profoundly disturbing show, OCD Love (part one of Love Cycle) is produced by Israeli L-E-V dance company with original and technically difficult choreography by Sharon Eyal in c…

Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus, by the Philippe Saire company, didn't live up to its initial promise.

Taiwan Season: Once Upon a Daydream

Once Upon a Daydream, produced by Sun Son Theatre, bursts with life and colour.

Tibetan Monks Sacred Dance

Tibetan Monks Sacred Dance is a special experience, not quite a religious rite and not quite a performance show as five Tibetan monks from the Tashi Lunpo Monastery in South India …

Single Life

Every now and then a sparkling gem comes bubbling to the surface of the Fringe.

WRoNGHEADED

WRoNGHEADED is a collaborative dance, poetry and film piece produced by Liz Roche Company about the devastating effects of a repressive society in Ireland, particularly on women.

Jungle

Jungle by the Bernese company Pink Mama under the direction of Slawek Bendraf and Dominik Krawiecki, purports to be about post-colonialism and in particular who survives but how do…

Giselle

This version of Giselle, re-imagined by Ballet Ireland in modern dress is bound to cause controversy between traditionalists and modernists.

Taiwan Season: Bon 4 Bon

This exquisite, delightful show by Chang Dance Theatre riffs on the childhood memories of four boys growing up together and, surprisingly, mangoes.

This Is the Title

A dazzling white floor space sets off Nigerian/Finnish Ima Iduozee’s black skin and his grey and black outfit perfectly in This Is The Title, a production in association with Fro…

The Spinners

The Spinners is a collaboration between Lina Limosani of Limosani Projekts as choreographer and Al Seed as director.

It’s Not Over Yet... and How to Survive the Future

It’s Not Over Yet… choreographed and performed by Emma Jayne Park (aka Cultured Mongrel) is a heart-stopping autobiographical show about cancer.

Taiwan Season: Varhung – Heart to Heart

Varhung- Heart to Heart will touch your heart.

To Be Me

To Be Me pairs a recording of Kate Tempest’s poetry and live dance choreographed by Julie Cunningham; it’s a risky undertaking which is both fascinating but, at times, teeters …

Lear

It is brave to reimagine Shakespeare, in particular arguably his greatest tragedy but Lear by John Scott Dance is a deeply moving, subtle and superbly performed interpretation of …

Here Comes Trouble

Keira Martin’s Here Comes Trouble contains some impressively executed Irish dancing to music which is a meld of Irish melodies and Jamaican beats in a memorable piece about ident…

Profundis

Profundis choreographed by Israeli-born Roy Assaf, is amusingly and slickly performed by the National Dance Company Wales but is more of a ‘five-finger exercise’ for dance stud…

Folk

Folk is Caroline Finn’s first piece for the Cardiff-based National Dance Company Wales since becoming its Artistic Director two years ago.

Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus

A double-bill of extraordinary power and originality, Hope Hunt & The Ascension into Lazarus performed by Belfast-based Oona Doherty, gets beneath the hard exterior of disaffected …

Mind-Goblin

Review
★
Stephanie Green
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
20th Aug, 2017

Thisis a solo show where the Korean dancer and choreographer Lee Kyung-eun, inspired by the shamanic gut or rite to expel ‘goblins’ or evil spirits, aims to turn this around an…

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