Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A frantic week for Sadler\u2019s Wells, where the opening of its east London branch coincided with the play-offs for the newly inaugurated Rose Prize taking place at the main Islington theatre. The handsome new space is a welcome creative hub for its neighbourhood and the \u00a340,000 prize is a thrilling boost for the sector. But the dance itself? Strangely underwhelming.Sadler\u2019s Wells East is sited on the riverside in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, a short retail stroll from Stratford Tube station. The auditorium at the airy building\u2019s core is an adaptable 550-seater space with great sightlines and (for now, at least) the sexy, just-decorated smell of freshly planed timber and industrial adhesives.Grand openings are not really Sadler\u2019s Wells\u2019 style. Back in 1998, when the 300-year-old Islington theatre unveiled its sixth incarnation, the VIP audience was treated to a no-frills mixed bill of sugar-free contemporary choreography. The same business-as-usual mindset has prevailed for the latest christening. Rather than dazzle with work from one of the theatre\u2019s associate artists (Matthew Bourne, Kate Prince, Akram Khan and Crystal Pite among them), director Alistair Spalding is stressing the venue\u2019s commitment to its local community: a show, certainly, but also a mission statement.Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu\u2019s Our Mighty Groove premiered at the Wells\u2019s tiny Lilian Baylis studio in 2013. Originally made with just five performers, it now has a cast of 19, including a dozen local teenage girls. The first 30 minutes introduced the regulars of a basement nightclub, establishing relationships and rivalries. The 12 amateurs worked hard and the unison routines were snappy but the applause was all for east London hip-hop virtuoso Cache Thake as the club\u2019s rubber-legged doorman.After a buzzy interval, the packed house filed back in to find the space transformed, seating magicked back to the rear wall to create a huge dance floor dotted with mini-stages. The well-refreshed audience slotted delightedly into the groove, taking their cues from the \u201ccaller\u201d and creating their own pop-up club.Meanwhile, back at Islington HQ, the Rose Prize judges were about to bestow \u00a340k to the best 60-minute dance piece on the planet plus a further \u00a315k on one of three relative newcomers. The seven finalists (four \u201cRoses\u201d, three \u201cBlooms\u201d) had been selected from a pool of 42 by a screening panel who had viewed most of the material on film \u2013 possibly more flattering than the wide, unforgiving proscenium stage of the Wells. To be fair, the judges (musician PJ Harvey, writer Karthika Na\u00efr and Arlene Phillips, chaired by choreographer and academic Christopher Bannerman) could only work with the shortlist they\u2019d been given, but their choices for the two prizes were downright perverse.The three \u201cBlooms\u201d were Stav Struz Boutrous (Israel); Le\u00efla Ka (France) and Wang Yeu-Kwn (Taiwan). Ka\u2019s quintet was a frock-swapping, precision-drilled hen night exploring female solidarity. Wang\u2019s duet\/gallery installation offered slo-mo grapplings using a king-size sheet of paper and a magic marker. Both pieces were mildly beguiling but the trophy went to Stav Struz Boutros for her one-woman take on Georgian folk dance.Works so diverse in character are almost impossible to grade. As Bannerman said in his speech at Saturday\u2019s award ceremony, \u201cThe judges were asked to compare not just an apple and an orange but a star fruit, a mango and a kiwi fruit.\u201d There is a way of overriding these cultural and stylistic differences: simply ask yourself, \u201cDo I want to see this again? Will new qualities emerge if the cast changes? Do I itch to see whatever they make next?\u201d For me, only one of the \u00a340k Rose Prize candidates passed this test.Portugal\u2019s Marco da Silva Ferreira brought Carca\u00e7a, a 10-man clubland ensemble energised by a terrific live drummer, Jo\u00e3o Pais Filipe, hammering away in the pit. Brazil\u2019s Lia Rodrigues offered Encantado, in which a naked cast of nine sloow-ly unfurled a stage-wide roll of multicoloured bedspreads which they used to create turbans, sarongs and loincloths as they capered rhythmically to the (taped) chant of a Guaran\u00ed tribal ritual.The weakest of the four finalists was Larsen C, by Athens-based Christos Papadopoulos, which consisted of six black-clad dancers on a black stage lit with obvious reluctance by what may have been an old bicycle lamp. The key movement motif was a clever gliding step borrowed from folk dance that made the performers seem to float in the space. A nice effect but not really enough to sustain our interest for 60 soul-sapping minutes. I\u2019ve been reviewing dance for nearly 40 years but I\u2019ve never heard a grown critic boo before (his guest, in some distress, was literally bored to tears).Kyle Abraham, whose Untitled Love had opened the season, had flown back to London for Saturday\u2019s prizegiving. Fingers were crossed but his fans were quietly confident that this playful, dance-rich, characterful piece would get its reward. The judges thought otherwise, giving the \u00a340k to Papadopoulos\u2019s Larsen C. Do I want to see it again? I didn\u2019t want to sit through it in the first place. Best in the world? I don\u2019t think so. Boo.sadlerswells.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A frantic week for Sadler\u2019s Wells, where the opening of its east London branch coincided with the play-offs for the newly inaugurated Rose Prize taking place<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201046,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201044\/revisions\/201046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}