The Sleeping Beauty. The Australian Ballet, Capitol Theatre, Sydney, November 22. With her unstinting advocacy for greater diversity in ballet, Misty Copeland’s fame extends well beyond the stage. She is a drawcard no matter what the repertoire. Copeland’s appearances in Sydney aren’t her first in Australia. Three years ago she danced in Brisbane with her…
Author: Deborah
2 One Another, Sydney Dance Company
Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney. October 5. Sydney Dance Company artistic director Rafael Bonachela clearly adores 2 One Another. Made in 2012, it was revived in 2013, 2014 and 2015, is much travelled and this season celebrates its 100th performance by making its first reappearance in Sydney. Next stop is Shanghai. Audiences love it too, and…
Under Siege
Yang Liping Contemporary Dance. Brisbane Festival, September 27. Melbourne Festival until October 8. Yang Liping’s exquisite Under Siege is like the richest of sauces, distilled and reduced until only the essentials remain. The setting is China about 2000 years ago as one dynasty, the Han, bloodily replaces another. Yang’s episodic, impressionistic work strips away the immensely…
Together Live 2017
Sydney City Youth Ballet with the SYO Philharmonic. The Concourse, Chatswood, Sydney. September 23. The room is always full of hope and desire when student performers take to the stage, particularly if they are dancers or classical musicians. Some will have started as young as four or five and certainly by eight or nine. In…
Assassins, Hayes Theatre Co
Hayes Theatre Co, Sydney, September 19. “I shall be remembered,” cries Charlie Guiteau as he dances his way to the scaffold, singing a plaintive hymn of his own devising. Charlie who? History can be cruel to those who seek to make their mark by whatever means possible. We may remember the effect of their actions…
The Great Gatsby, West Australian Ballet
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, September 14. Northern Ballet’s artistic director David Nixon is an old and highly successful hand at creating narrative ballets but he gave himself a tough assignment with this one. His 2013 dance translation of The Great Gatsby is entirely faithful to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s best novel while at the same time…
Swan Lake/Loch na hEala
Teac Damsa, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, August 30. Michael Keegan-Dolan’s Swan Lake is unsparingly black in so many ways, starting with its indelible image of a near-naked, bleating man tethered to a block of concrete. The people in this midlands Irish community are damaged, the humour plentiful but grim and the prospects grimmer. “Nature…
New era at RNZB
The question had to be asked. Is Patricia Barker at Royal New Zealand Ballet for the long haul? Her predecessor but one as artistic director, fellow American Ethan Stiefel, saw out his three-year contract but decided not to renew. Barker’s immediate predecessor, Francesco Ventriglia, announced his resignation last November only two years into his tenure…
Romeo and Juliet, RNZB
St James Theatre, Wellington, August 16. Francesco Ventriglia was artistic director of Royal New Zealand Ballet when he proposed making a new Romeo and Juliet to replace Christopher Hampson’s highly regarded version, made in 2003 to mark RNZB’s 50th anniversary and revived for four more seasons. Ventriglia’s tenure didn’t quite work out as planned and…
Jacqueline Dark: Pinning Clouds
Anyone expecting a conventional crossover disc from mezzo Jacqueline Dark hasn’t been paying attention. In recent years Dark’s career has ranged far and wide. Few singers, one ventures, would have followed a year as the Abbess in The Sound of Music with Fricka in Opera Australia’s Melbourne Ring cycle and then, just to mix things…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 