Birmingham Royal Ballet Celebrates Shakespeare With Unique Triple Bill

In observance of the 400 years since the death of legendary playwright William Shakespeare, the Birmingham Royal Ballet staged a unique triple bill of work inspired by the Bard on Saturday.

Featuring José Limón's The Moor's Pavane, a singular distillation of Othello into a one-act drama, the lineup also included The Shakespeare Suite by David Bintley -- an opera featuring an alternate universe of various Shakespearean characters dancing to Duke Ellington.

Rounding out the bill is Wink by Tesseracts of Time creator Jessica Lang. The piece's world premiere, Wink is based Shakespeare's famous sonnets, producing a multilayered modern dance routine that traces the curves of the revered poet's flowing odes:

"[T]his fine triple bill shows how inexhaustible a fount [Shakespeare's] writing continues to be. Wink, by the American choreographer Jessica Lang, takes its inspiration from the sonnets. The title is taken from the first line of Sonnet 43, 'When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see.' The piece sees two couples duetting to a composition by Jakub Ciupinski."

Receiving rave reviews for his performance as Hamlet in Bintley's Shakespeare Suite, dancer Mathias Dingman is reported to be just one of many highlights of the trio of acts:

"When you think of Hamlet, you don't think of jazzy head rolls. So when Dingman returned to the stage, this could have been an awkward display from one of fiction's most notorious characters. However, this sequence brought out the inner conflict, with the character swinging between moods along with the jazz score."

As mentioned above, the Birmingham bill continues this year's cavalcade of Shakespeare performances and Shakespeare-related projects in honor of the 400th anniversary of his death.

Birmingham Royal Ballet's Shakespeare triple bill will show again on Monday, Oct. 10 and twice on Tuesday, Oct. 11. Tickets are available at www.brb.org.uk.

Below, watch some of Birmingham's fellow U.K. ballet company The Royal Ballet in a recent Shakespeare performance:

We want to hear from you. Let us know your favorite Shakespeare work in the comments section.

TagsBirmingham Royal Ballet, Shakespeare Triple Bill, William Shakespeare, Mathias Dingman, Jessica Lang, Jakub Ciupinski