... Ballet Gulbenkian at 'The Wells' THE REPERTOIRE of Ballet Gulbenkian, which plays a season at Sadler's Wells Theatre from July to 14. will be Handel's Messiah, cho reography by Lar Lubovitch: Milko Sparemblek's Passa- caglia, music by Webem; Ar chipelago III, choreography by Carlos Trincheiras. music by Andre Boucourechliev, scenery and costumes by Artur Casais; Symphony of Psalms, cho ...

... DANCE THEATRE COMMUNE THE MAIN trouble with the Dance Theatre Commune, as far as can be judged from their week's season at The Howff on their way to the World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin, is that they woffle unbearably. Woffle choreographically, theatrically and artistically, for they display good intentions by the stepful, but never a finished product, and two hours is at ...

... Blair's farewell to dancing NOSTALGIA was the dominant emotion at Covent Garden on June 25 when David Blair danced Colas in La Fille mal gardge as his farewell performance with the Royal Ballet. This is the part he created in 1960 and was an ideal choice to round off a re warding dancing career, during which he has given a great deal of pleasure, from his early Sad ler's Wells days in ...

... Indian Festival THE THIRD Festival of Arts of India opened at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this week. It will also be seen in Manchester, Bristol. Bath. Cheltenham and Corby and at the Queen Eliza beth Hall again on July 14 and 15. The Festival features song, music, dance and drums from the North and South of India and features sixteen artists in solos and ensembles. They are Sitltleshwan Devi, ...

... Markova presents Award THE MARKOVA AWARD, a silver salver presented annually to an outstanding student of the Arts Educational Schools, was won this year by Deirdre Allen, one of the eight girls who were adjudicated by Dame Alicia herself at the Golden Lane Theatre on June 26. This time there were no male students free to compete, as they had all taken up profes sional engagements imme ...

... Ballet at Horsham GALA BALLETS, under the artistic direction of Rovi Pavi- noff and Catherine Weeuelin. have enlarged their repertoire and this Friday and Saturday at t)ie Capitol, Horsham are in cluding Act II of Swan Lake, with Rovi Pavinoff as Prince Siegfried and Wendy Lewin as Odette. Mela Carter has choreographed a new bal let, Pied Piper with Clive Lewin in the title role, and Va ...

... Good spoofs I LIKE MY SHERRY DRY, but found Bristol Cream, the Bristol University revue which uncorked itself in the Little after several libations on the Edinburgh Festival fringe, very much to mv taste. It is sophisticated, in the best possible sense, slick and polished to a fine professional gloss. Best of all, the lesson keep it short has been well and truly taken to heart, then put into ...

... Brilliant Chinese acrobats WHEN THE CHINESE Acrobatic Theatre from Shanghai opened their all too short season of eleven nights at the Coliseum on July 3 it seemed that every Chinese man and woman, not to mention a lot of their children, were in the dience and one wondered at the fate of anybody fancying a Chinese meal in town that night. But there were plenty of British natives present as ...

... o'Casey masterpiece Sean o'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, one of the greatest plays of the century, has a somewhat subdued yet deeply moving production at the Mermaid, the wonderful woman of the title being portrayed with rare understanding and depth quite without the aid of spec tacular show, by Siobhan McKenna. The production was to have been directed by Sean Kenny; when he died shortly ...

... Brecht 'Mother' ANYONE UNCONVINCED of the genius of Bertolt Brecht should go and see The Mother, which opened at the Round House on July 2. Certainly not as sophisticated or as celebrated as his later plays, it's deliberately a very limited piece of Communist pro paganda. celebrating the ef forts of certain small-town Russian agitators in the period leading up to the 1917 revolu tion not, ...

... Jets and Sharks again THE REVIVAL of West Side Story, produced and directed by Bill Kenwright at the Collegiate on July 3, is a worthy effort in several ways. It is alive with enthusiasm; the dancing is very good indeed; the orchestra, under Ed Coleman, plays well. But the tragic story of the New York slums, where the natives, in the form of the Jets, and the interloping Sharks, battle ...

... Durrenmatt Strindberg THERE'S A PROVERB about rolling stones gathering no moss, and a poem with a phrase about a green thought in a green shade. Bernard Culshaw's designs for the Tyneside Theatre Company's production of Friedrich Dilrrenmatt's Play Strindberg at the Hampstead Theatre Club on July 3 were as sylvan as the play is urbane. It is a gloss on The Dance of Death, but Ga- reth ...