Ashton Celebrated review – Royal Ballet turns traditional into timeless
The Royal Ballet: Ashton Celebrated review – a world where everything is just delightful
February 2024
Manon review – Kenneth MacMillan’s 50-year-old masterpiece still bewitches
The Royal Ballet revisits the choreographer’s timeless rags-to-riches work, putting assorted casts through its finely tuned emotional wringer
March 2023
Cinderella review – Royal Ballet fairytale is a shiny sugar-rush
Ashton’s three-act ballet combines escapism, clever classicism and panto, and this new version gets better as it goes along
January 2022
The best original photographs from the Observer
Original Observer photography
Christmas fashion, food and quizzes – the best photographs commissioned by the Observer in December 2021
December 2021
The Observer's faces of 2021
Marianela Núñez: ‘What lockdown taught me, one more time, is that dance is my true passion’
The Royal Ballet’s phenomenal principal dancer was the fixed star at the heart of an extraordinary year for the company
June 2021
Royal Ballet: Beauty Mixed Programme review – rose petals and a lust for water
A wild variety of pas de deux fuel this mixed bill, from kitschy Strauss to a duet with a table, plus part of Sleeping Beauty
December 2020
The Nutcracker review – a glimmer of pure Christmas joy
Despite fewer dancers and musicians, Peter Wright’s production is a gorgeous spectacle at Covent Garden
August 2020
Lockdown culture
No standing still: the best of lockdown dance
From an elegant ode to San Francisco to Japanese hip-hop in a park, here’s how dancers are tackling our new normal
January 2020
Observer New Review Q&A
Marianela Núñez: ‘Ballet isn’t elitist – it’s our responsibility to make people get it’
The Royal Ballet principal on her changing roles, how she dances through difficult emotions, and being ‘a complete bunhead’
February 2019
Don Quixote; Since She review – Nuñez and Muntagirov dazzle
The two principals inspire a blazing revival of Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote. And Dimitris Papaioannou pays loving homage to Pina Bausch
December 2018
Les Patineurs / Winter Dreams / The Concert review – festive cheer and tears at the Royal Ballet
Best culture 2018
Top 10 dance shows of 2018
November 2018
La Bayadère review – moonlit heights from Nuñez and co
La Bayadère review – Marianela Núñez dances with heart-rending beauty
May 2018
Rambert: Life Is a Dream; Swan Lake – review
Kim Brandstrup conjures dreamlike precision for Rambert, while Royal Ballet’s brand new Swan Lake deserves to be a cherished work in progress
April 2018
Manon review – touching greatness, three times over
the Royal Ballet’s Francesca Hayward, Natalia Osipova and Marianela Nuñez all touch greatness in the coveted role of Kenneth MacMillan’s tragic heroine
January 2018
Giselle review – uncontestable greatness from Marianela Núñez
The Royal Ballet star is transcendent in the title role – with seven more principal ballerinas about to step into her shoes
December 2017
Sylvia review – lustful hunters and weapons-grade dancing
Marianela Nuñez and Natalia Osipova take turns playing one of classical dance’s most unconventional heroines, in the Royal Ballet’s opulent Arcadian fantasy
May 2017
Royal Ballet mixed bill; Rambert review – Liam Scarlett's new ballet was worth the wait
Scarlett’s Symphonic Dances is a fitting centrepiece to a top night at the Royal
