Northern Ballet: Beauty & The Beast – Leeds Grand Theatre
There have been countless versions of Beauty & The Beast over the years in film and the theatre, but David Nixon’s version for Northern Ballet is a million miles away from the saccharine Disney version delving deep into the darker elements of this love story that has its origins in Ancient Greece.
Northern Ballet’s former artistic director looks to Cocteau’s classic 1946 movie for his inspiration, which offers the dancers a much more challenging understanding of how if we fail to look beyond exteriors we will miss things like love, compassion and the inner demons that make us all human.
Although this is a far more subtle reading of this fable it retains all the key elements as a vain prince who is cursed by his narcissism to become a beast until he can find true love when someone...