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…
Author: Deborah
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…
The Australian Ballet in 2017
Next year the Sydney Opera House’s Joan Sutherland Theatre, home to both The Australian Ballet and Opera Australia when they are in Sydney, will close for seven months. It’s in a good cause, as theatre machinery that’s done sterling work but is now outdated will be replaced. It’s been there since the Opera House opened…
Rules of the Game: Jonah Bokaer at the Brisbane Festival
Brisbane Powerhouse, September 14. Labels are always tricky. Jonah Bokaer is essentially a dance-maker but his deep immersion in the visual arts pushes his work towards performance art. But let’s not worry about what to call it. In the trio of works he brought to the Brisbane Festival – his first visit to Australia –…
The Australian Ballet performs John Neumeier’s Nijinsky
Because The Australian Ballet’s Nijinsky opened in Melbourne I didn’t review it for The Australian – my colleague Eamonn Kelly did the honours. I did, however, travel from Sydney to be the opening – how not? – and wrote about it for arts magazine Limelight. You can read that review here. And below are a few…
Snow White: Ballet Preljocaj at the Brisbane Festival
Lyric Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane, September 2. Angelin Preljocaj’s Snow White oozes sex, glamour and fantasy in a visually ravishing production that juxtaposes a monumental, golden-hued court with the mysterious vibrations of the deep forest. It’s an extravagant world of abseiling dwarfs, luscious nymphs, huntsmen who look like tough mercenary soldiers, a dead mother who flies…
Brisbane Festival: En avant, marche!
NTGent and Les Ballets C de la B. Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, September 3. It was a stroke of genius to build this knotty, sometimes exasperating, always fascinating piece about mortality around the playing of a brass band. Breath. That’s the fundamental thing – breathe in, breathe out. If that is happening, we are still…
Horses in the Sky: Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company
Sydney Opera House, August 31. Israeli choreographer Rami Be’er wears his heart on his sleeve in Horses in the Sky. The name comes from a doleful song by Canadian band Silver Mt. Zion but inevitably summons thoughts of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the end of days, which are faced with defiance, fear, small…
Giselle: Royal New Zealand Ballet
Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch, August 23 Every traditional Giselle is drawn in the same broad strokes; it’s the myriad finer details that distinguish one production from another, making yet another Giselle not just another Giselle, but a vivid and immediate experience. At the end of the first act, for instance, Giselle lies dead, literally heartbroken…
