Sydney Opera House, June 16. Bangarra Dance Theatre, 30 years old next year, has spent its existence opening doors to this country’s ancient past. The audience – a wildly enthusiastic one each time I’ve attended during those three decades – has its knowledge of our First Nations history and culture enlarged on every occasion. I…
Author: Deborah
The Australian Ballet and its long dance with The Merry Widow
In her biography of Robert Helpmann, Robert Helpmann: A Servant of Art, Anna Bemrose describes how Helpmann, then artistic director of The Australian Ballet, was grilled by the Industries Assistance Commission in 1975. The IAC had been asked by the prime minister of the time, Gough Whitlam, to examine government arts funding and clearly some…
Carmen & The Firebird, Queensland Ballet
Queensland Performing Arts Centre, May 26. You win some and you lose some. Queensland Ballet is a co-producer of Carlos Acosta’s Carmen with The Royal Ballet and Texas Ballet Theater, which means QB’s name is attached to it forever. I doubt I’ve seen a worse ballet from reputable companies in more than 40 years. I’m not…
ab [intra], Sydney Dance Company
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney, May 15. This one is all about the dancers. It’s about how, to the audience, they look, feel and taste. How astonishing they are in form and function. How magnificent the human body can be and how powerful its effects on an observer. On the dancers’ side of the fourth wall…
Murphy: The Australian Ballet
Sydney Opera House, April 6 (evening) and 11 (matinee). It would have been the easiest thing in the world to give Graeme Murphy a conventional gala to celebrate his 50 years of association with The Australian Ballet, the company he joined as a member of the corps de ballet in 1968. The idea for the…
La Bayadère, Queensland Ballet
Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, March 16. La Bayadère is a difficult ballet to take seriously in the 21st century and Queensland Ballet’s new production does it few favours. Despite some fine dancing the abiding impression is of a narrative in sore need of stringent dramaturgical intervention. Greg Horsman’s revision invites – no, demands –…
Adelaide Festival: Split and Memorial
Split, Lucy Guerin Inc. AC Main Arts Theatre, Adelaide. March 3. Memorial, Brink Productions, Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide, March 3. The opening weekend of this year’s Adelaide Festival, the second under the co-artistic directorship of Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy, had brilliance and breadth in equal measure. The marquee work was Australian composer Brett Dean’s opera…
A new year dawns at RNZB
Biographies of the new intake at Royal New Zealand Ballet are now on the website after last year’s bruising and very public exodus of a large number of dancers. There are currently 32 dancers pictured on the site, 22 of whom were still standing at the end of 2017. Now the dust has settled it…
to a simple, rock’n’roll … song
Michael Clark Company, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, January 30. In the first part of Michael Clark’s gorgeous triptych of dances there’s an image of quiet, deep reverence enacted by two men, their hands spread and their heads bowed. It could stand for the whole work really, which pays homage to choreographers, musicians and artists…
New short films about dance-makers
Ghenoa Gela won the biennial Keir Choreographic Award in 2016 with a work infused with her Torres Strait Islander heritage while posing resonant questions about meanings inherent in or imposed on Indigenous dance. Fragments of Malungoka – Women of the Sea also won the people’s vote – a result that didn’t surprise at all. Gela’s work…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 