Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Brisbane Festival, September 26. MICHAEL Keegan-Dolan’s Rite of Spring does honour to the most unsettling dance score in history. The Fabulous Beast founder and choreographer doesn’t shrink from nature at its most primaI, red in tooth and claw, but understands that while a community can be full of darkness and harm,…
Category: Dance
Rising
Aakash Odedra Company, Brisbane Festival, September 27. IN Rising, young British dancer Aakash Odedra presents four solos, one by himself (exquisite) and the others from Akram Khan, Russell Maliphant and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. That towering trio of dance-makers says it all. The evening may be very brief – perhaps 45 minutes of dance in all…
Casus, Brisbane Festival
Knee Deep, Brisbane Powerhouse, September 24. THE four members of Casus, a small Brisbane contemporary circus troupe formed in 2011, have a slightly perverse way of claiming attention. They are, of course, ferociously talented. But so are very many others in this art form, which takes circus tricks and dresses them up with elements from…
Onegin, West Australian Ballet
West Australian Ballet, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, September 20 and 21 WEST Australian Ballet recently took to the streets of Perth with a camera to teach people how to pronounce the name of its latest production (no, it’s not One Gin). There’s a view that if people are wary they’ll get it wrong, they may…
Cinderella, the Australian Ballet
Choreography by Alexei Ratmansky. State Theatre, Melbourne, September 17 I CAN say one thing with absolute certainty about the Australian Ballet’s new Cinderella: it will take many viewings to reveal all its riches and intricacies. For that reason it’s likely to be a keeper for the AB and a rarity. A new full-length story ballet…
Happy as Larry
Shaun Parker & Company, Seymour Centre, Sydney, September 11 I FIRST saw Happy as Larry at the Sydney Festival in 2010 and reviewed it for The Australian. I liked it very much then, with a slight caveat, and liked it very much again yesterday. It’s been tweaked a little to advantage, if I recall correctly,…
When Time Stops
Expressions Dance Company Brisbane, September 10 IN Greek mythology the river Styx marks the point of no return. On one side is life, and on the other death; the ferryman Charon is the intermediary, transporting souls to the afterlife. Natalie Weir has taken this enduring story as the wellspring of When Time Stops, a new…
The Australian Ballet launches a new look
The Australian Ballet’s 2014 season introduces a few surprises IT used to be chiselled in stone. Every mainstage season of the Australian Ballet in Melbourne would have 11 or 12 performances and in Sydney, in the smaller Joan Sutherland Theatre, there would be 20 or thereabouts. It didn’t matter if it was Swan Lake or…
iTMOi, Les Illuminations
Akram Khan Company, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, August 28. Les Illuminations, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Dance Company and Katie Noonan, The Studio, Sydney Opera House, August 28 AKRAM Khan is a choreographer with a hugely inquiring and generous mind. The list of his collaborators is long, stellar and diverse. He’s not a man content…
Elegance, Queensland Ballet
Queensland Performing Arts Centre, August 2 EMMA Lippa is one of Australian ballet’s hidden treasures. She developed her formidable skills as an accompanist at the Bolshoi Ballet then used her gifts for two decades at the Australian Ballet. Lippa has retired from the AB but not from the piano or from ballet, as Queensland Ballet…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 