American Ballet Theatre, Lyric Theatre, Brisbane, September 3 IT’S always a big deal when a dancer makes her debut as Odette-Odile in Swan Lake. It’s a bigger deal when that dancer is Misty Copeland, the first African-American in American Ballet Theatre’s 75-year history to be cast as Odette. It shouldn’t be so, but it is….
Category: Dance
Heart untouched; soul unshaken
Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, August 28. KEVIN McKenzie’s version of Swan Lake for American Ballet Theatre is a medieval fairy tale of transformation. A woman is turned into a swan. An evil lake-dwelling sorcerer becomes a devastatingly attractive nobleman in the blink of an eye. Two lovers die by drowning but moments…
The persistence of memory
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, August 27 HOFESH Shechter’s Sun has toured extensively since its world premiere at the Melbourne Festival about 10 months ago. It’s now briefly in Sydney for five performances only. I had quite a few reservations on first seeing Sun – my initial review is below – and some remain, but…
Inaccessible glamour
Choreographed by Narelle Benjamin. Performance Space, Sydney, August 22. HIDING in Plain Sight is like a remote beauty, a super-something with abundant personal assets who glides through the world as if not quite of it – cool, guarded, cocooned, separate. Lesser mortals may look but not touch. They may admire, but not presume to approach….
‘She makes you laugh then makes you cry’
Hayes Theatre Co, August 20 IT’S little wonder so many former child stars go off piste spectacularly, particularly those who started very young. Right from the get-go they learned that to be a success they would have to know how to please. To please Mommy, who took her to all those dance lessons. To please…
‘I cannot wait to see what we create together’
THEY work quickly at Louisville Ballet. In April Robert Curran applied for the role of artistic director, he was interviewed twice in June and by early July he learned he was the successful candidate. His appointment was announced in Louisville yesterday and he starts in Kentucky possibly as early as next week once his visa…
Incredibly virtuosic, highly expressive
Director and choreographer Antony Hamilton. The Performance Space, Carriageworks, Sydney, August 13. WITH a bit of Einstein on the Beach over here, a spot of 2001: A Space Odyssey over there, a suggestion of wonky 1950s sci-fi film, images of sleek robotics and a sliver or two of domestic life, Keep Everything is both an…
Daring smoke-and-mirrors act
Queensland Ballet, Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane, August 1. ONE masterwork, a party piece and two relatively new dances that look far better than they are provide an entertaining but creatively uneven program at Queensland Ballet. Very much on the plus side is that the company looks energised despite the rigours of the Romeo and Juliet season…
Complexities of human existence
Ken Unsworth Studio, Alexandria, Sydney, July 16 THE accepted wisdom is that dance careers are brutally short and in many – probably most – cases they are. The performers who break that barrier should be cherished. They may not have the effortless flexibility and super-human extensions they once had, but since when did elasticity equal…
Rojo, McRae, Acosta at QB
Queensland Ballet, Brisbane, June 27, July 1,2,3 ROMEO and Juliet was a success in every possible way for Queensland Ballet, starting with the very fact of its presence in Brisbane. Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet is the gold standard for dance versions of Shakespeare’s play and is monumental, needing much larger forces than QB can ordinarily summon….
