Benedicte Bemet (Swanilda) and Brett Chynoweth (Franz), Sydney Opera House, December 3 (matinee). There are no dancers in The Australian Ballet today that interest me more than Benedicte Bemet and Brett Chynoweth, she a soloist and he a senior artist. No matter where they are on stage or in what role, it’s as if there’s…
Author: Deborah
New Breed, Sydney Dance Company
Carriageworks, Sydney, November 29. Who knew gloom could come in so many shades? This year’s New Breed program must have tested the ingenuity of Benjamin Cisterne, Sydney Dance Company’s go-to man for lighting design, but he came up trumps, magnificently meeting the challenge of finding four different ways of illuminating darkness. The program is curated…
David Hallberg to return to the ballet stage in The Australian Ballet’s Coppélia
AFTER a long recuperation after injury, American danseur noble David Hallberg will return to the ballet stage in December – in a place and a part not many would have anticipated. Hallberg will appear with The Australian Ballet during its Sydney Opera House pre-Christmas season, dancing the sunny, wayward Franz in Coppélia. It will be…
Nijinsky: The Australian Ballet
State Theatre, Melbourne, September 7; Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House, November 11. JOHN Neumeier, the choreographer and longtime artistic director of Hamburg Ballet, has made a deep study of Vaslav Nijinsky and is a noted collector of material associated with the dancer. Neumeier’s ballet on the subject is a natural extension of that passion,…
Li Cunxin extends his Queensland Ballet tenure and Liam Scarlett joins as artistic associate
IN October Queensland Ballet announced that artistic director Li Cunxin had signed on for another four years, doubtless much to the relief of the QB board. Li succeeded François Klaus in July 2012 and in his first four years has transformed a lacklustre company into one of significant growth, steadily increasing artistic standards and apparently…
Liveworks: Chan, Gunn & Lloyd, Choy
Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art. The Performance Space at Carriageworks, Sydney, October 27, November 2. A pulsating, unforgiving light picks out Kristina Chan’s forehead and underscores her cheekbones, sculpting her face into an eerie mask. A lone figure in the gloom, she rises to the balls of her feet then drives her heels into the…
Untamed: Sydney Dance Company
Wildebeest and Anima. Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay, Sydney, October 20. In the double bill Untamed, Gabrielle Nankivell’s Wildebeest and Rafael Bonachela’s Anima come at the same question – what is our true, essential nature? – from quite different perspectives. Nankivell sets humankind’s most primal impulses against the slick, guarded sophistications of modern life. The…
Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2017
Royal New Zealand Ballet’s search for a choreographer to make a new Romeo and Juliet for the company in 2017 was a short one. After the sell-out success of artistic director Francesco Ventriglia’s The Wizard of Oz in May this year, the ballet company’s board asked Ventriglia to take the job himself. In a big…
Giselle: The Australian Ballet Regional Tour
Concourse Theatre, Chatswood, Sydney, October 4 The Australian Ballet’s regional touring program has undergone a quiet change. It was created about 35 years ago as The Dancers Company but since earlier this year has gone by an even more prosaic name: The Australian Ballet Regional Tour. Why the change? Presumably so the AB’s ownership is…
Hidden Sydney and other current theatre
Poor old Kings Cross. It used to have a bit of glamour back in the day, what with its famous crims, flamboyant, unconventional characters and nightclubs that could attract international performers. Now a stroll up Darlinghurst Road of an evening is an exercise in swerving around backpackers and wondering how the small businesses manage to…
