Concourse Theatre, Sydney, March 12 Melbourne Ballet Company’s new triple bill Being & Time has lofty aspirations. It takes its title from Martin Heidegger and its themes from existentialism, or at least that is what one gathers from the program notes, which baffle more than they enlighten. In the case of MBC resident director Simon…
Author: Deborah
Calamity Jane reclaimed
One Eyed Man Productions in association with Neglected Musicals and Hayes Theatre Co, Sydney, March 10. The high-falutin’ way to describe director Richard Carroll’s Calamity Jane is to say its abundant meta-theatrics put a contemporary, ironic frame around an old-fashioned musical, revealing fresh insights. If that sounds deadly, fear not. The low-falutin’ truth is that…
Adelaide Festival opening weekend
Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy, who have signed on as joint artistic directors for three Adelaide festivals (this year, 2018 and 2019), set the bar high on their first opening weekend and floated over it with ease. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say it looked easy. It can’t be underestimated how much work went…
David Hallberg, The Sleeping Beauty
The Australian Ballet, Brisbane, February 25 When David Hallberg returned to the ballet stage in Sydney in November last year, in Coppélia with The Australian Ballet, he was coming out of a two-and-a-half year layoff due to injury, the last 12 months of which he spent in Melbourne working with TAB’s medical team. The choice…
Bespoke, Queensland Ballet
Brisbane Powerhouse, February 10. Bespoke is a new-choreography program that shows Queensland Ballet moving up yet another gear and broadening its horizons. So far in Li Cunxin’s artistic directorship new contemporary work on the schedule has either fallen into the annual triple bill, of which there is always only one (although none in 2015), or…
Sydney Festival dance 2017
A wrap of dance seen at the 2017 Sydney Festival … Spectra, Dancenorth, Seymour Centre, Sydney, January 11 The flick of a long rope sends energy snaking through it. It passes a man standing uneasily in the centre of the stage and his head recoils in response. Later, all seven performers in Spectra link arms…
Dancenorth’s Spectra
For the Sydney Festival, Seymour Centre, Sydney, January 11. The flick of a long rope sends energy snaking through it. It passes a man standing uneasily in the centre of the stage and his head recoils in response. Later, all seven performers in Spectra link arms and undulate them as if possessed of a single…
Hallberg’s date with Beauty
Just before Christmas David Hallberg made his debut as Franz in Coppélia with The Australian Ballet at the Sydney Opera House. It marked his return to the stage after a two-and-a-half year absence due to injury, a year of which was spent in rehabilitation with the AB’s medical team in Melbourne. He danced four performances…
Nude Live at the Sydney Festival
Sydney Dance Company in association with the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, January 7. There are a few housekeeping rules to absorb before going downstairs to view the dance work Nude Live among the Picassos, Bacons, J.M.W. Turners and Cindy Shermans that are part of the Nude: Art from the Tate collection show at the…
My 2016 Artists of the Year …
Last year I decided to institute my personal Artist of the Year award. There’s no money attached, of course, and I think we’d have to say it confers only a modest amount of fame. I was rather thrilled , however, to see that my inaugural winner, the multi-faceted mezzo Jacqui Dark, was subsequently featured in…
