Almudena Izquierdo – Landgraf on Dance

“Wonderland” (“Alice in Wonderland”/“Through the Looking-Glass”)
Hamburg Ballet
Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg, Germany
June 20, 2026

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2026 by Ilona Landgraf

Compared to Alexei Ratmansky’s recent choreography, Callirhoe, for the Vienna State Ballet, his new creation, Wonderland, for the Hamburg Ballet feels empty. It combines two dance adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s most notable novels, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871), each of which is presented in a one-hour act.

No doubt, the production is ambitious and elaborate. Ratmansky and his son, Vasyl, assembled different music for each of the no fewer than twenty-eight scenes, which Philip Feeney merged into a score. Erik Satie’s Three Gnossiennes, no.3, for example, lulls Alice (Olivia Betteridge) into her dream journey down the rabbit hole. Percy Grainger’s Molly on the Shore (amended by a cock-crow) gives the cackling animals at the Caucus race—among them a crab, mouse, dodo, and eaglet—a voice, Continue reading “Ambitious but Not Gripping”

“Creare Crescere”
Stuttgart Ballet / Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey
Stuttgart, Germany / Monterrey, Mexico
September 25, 2021

Rocío Alemán, principal dancer of the Stuttgart Ballet, started her dance education in 2003 at the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey in her hometown of Monterrey, Mexico. In 2008, she moved to Stuttgart, where she finished her studies at the John Cranko School. After carving out a successful career for herself, she thought it time to thank her school in Monterrey for what it has given her. Her plan was to invite ten graduate students from Monterrey to visit the Stuttgart Ballet and work with dancers-cum-choreographers (of which the Stuttgart company, thanks to their annual choreographic workshops, has many) – but the plan was thwarted by COVID-19. Still, Alemán didn’t give up, adjusting her project to the new circumstances. If students and choreographers couldn’t meet in person, Continue reading “Giving Back”