National Ballet of Canada Alice reviews - Washington Kennedy Center

Both these reviews feel the need to sneak in a  Downton Abbey reference, one saying the ballet is set at an English country house, the other calling it a "manse" (I think she meant "mansion", a manse being a vicarage). The backdrop for the first scene of Alice is in fact a faithful painting of the deanery at Christ Church College, Oxford, where Lewis Caroll was employed.

"Wheeldon’s account of the beloved Lewis Carroll story is eventful and beautifully designed. But it is curiously light on the human dimension, because the dancing is the least interesting part of it. Who are these eccentric characters who parade by? What emotions move them? These are questions the dancing ought to answer, but though there is plenty of action onstage during the ballet’s two-and-a-half hours, it rarely leads us inside the heart.
Yet while the choreography is workaday, from a theatrical perspective “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” explodes with bright ideas.
Hodgkinson’s Mother/Queen of Hearts is in her glory. You have to wait until late in the ballet for her big scene, but it’s worth it.
When Wheeldon is good, he is very, very good indeed."
Sarah Kaufman, Washington Post

Carolyn Kelemen, DC Metro The Arts
http://www.dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2013/01/19/national-ballet-of-canadas-alices-adventures-in-wonderland-at-the-kennedy-center-by-carolyn-kelemen/ 

Robert Greskovic, Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323485704578255963706101082.html?mod=wsj_share_tweethttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323485704578255963706101082.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

Wendy Perron, Dance Magazine
http://www.dancemagazine.com/blogs/dance-glance/4905

Alexandra Tomolonis, danceviewtimes:
http://www.danceviewtimes.com/2013/01/an-imaginative-alice.html 
 

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