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…
Category: Dance
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…
The Winter’s Tale, The Royal Ballet
Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, July 5. The Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s wondrously strange, knotty late works. The pitfalls are many but so are the rewards. Compassion, contrition, forgiveness for great wrongs and reconciliation are its towering themes. Dance gives direct access to such heart-stirring emotions, or does at its best….
Bennelong, Bangarra Dance Theatre
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, July 1. In Mathinna (2008) and Patyegarang (2014), Bangarra Dance Theatre’s artistic director, Stephen Page, shone a light on individual First Nations stories that may otherwise have stayed hidden from general view and certainly been seen only from a colonial perspective. Bennelong adds another important work to this growing body…
Woolf Works, The Royal Ballet
Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, June 29. Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works is a monumental act of artistic daring, claiming for dance the right, and the ability, to bring one of the great voices in English literature to the stage. The translation from printed word to wordless movement is of necessity very free but…
Patricia Barker to lead RNZB
Royal New Zealand Ballet has appointed American Patricia Barker as its new artistic director. She leaves Michigan’s Grand Rapids Ballet to take up the position and starts in Wellington later this month. Barker succeeds Francesco Ventriglia, who announced his resignation in November, well short of the end of his first contract with the company. Ventriglia…
Don Quixote, West Australian Ballet
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, May 11 and 12. Don Quixote is all fluff and high spirits. Based glancingly on the Cervantes novel, the ballet foregrounds the romance between Kitri, an innkeeper’s daughter, and the impecunious barber Basilio. Kitri’s father would prefer her to marry money, which turns up in the form of Gamache, a fool….
Swan Lake, Queensland Ballet
Queensland Performing Arts Centre, May 5. Queensland Ballet’s Swan Lake had a 42nd Street quality on opening night as junior company member Joel Woellner was chosen to dance Prince Siegfried alongside the seasoned Odette-Odile of QB principal artist – and former top-ranked star at the National Ballet of Cuba – Yanela Piñera. Piñera has presence…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 