Queensland Ballet, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, April 5 QUEENSLAND Ballet’s ambitious Cinderella has much to say about what new artistic director Li Cunxin wants for his company and a little something to say about Li himself. Li’s story is well known. He was plucked from deepest obscurity in rural China to be trained in ballet…
Category: Dance
Ty King-Wall
The Australian Ballet has a new principal artist WHEN David McAllister walks onstage at the end of an Australian Ballet performance it usually means just one thing, and so it was the afternoon of April 6 in Sydney. McAllister named Ty King-Wall, 26, the AB’s newest principal artist after his performance as Basilio in Don…
Don Quixote, The Australian Ballet
Melbourne, March 16. With guest stars Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev IF you were looking for a well-balanced Don Quixote, the Australian Ballet’s opening night in Melbourne on March 15 was probably the go, as Eamonn Kelly’s excellent review in The Australian on March 18 indicated. The following night was when star-power ruled, with Russian…
6000 miles away
Choreography by William Forsythe, Mats Ek and Jiri Kylian. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, March 8 MATS Ek’s Bye is the crowd-pleasing work in this rich, concentrated evening of dance but William Forsythe’s Rearray is where the real nourishment is. Forsythe and Sylvie Guillem go way back – nearly a quarter of a century –…
De Novo
Sydney Dance Company. Choreography by Rafael Bonachela, Alexander Ekman and Larissa McGowan. IF Alexander Ekman is true to his program note he won’t read this review, or any other. It’s a shame, because I’d like to let him know how much I enjoyed Cacti. Perhaps someone at Sydney Dance Company will pass the word on,…
The Kreutzer Sonata: all of a Twitter
ON February 22 The Australian published an interview with Barry Otto about his role in The Kreutzer Sonata, a State Theatre Company of South Australia production due to open the following week as part of the Adelaide Festival. It would be new STCSA artistic director Geordie Brookman’s first production in his new role. So, a…
La Cucina dell’Arte, Perth Festival
Circus Ronaldo, Russell Square, Northbridge, Perth, February 10 SO there we all were, crammed tightly together in a small tent, perched on narrow, bum-numbing benches, laughing as if there were no tomorrow. It was instantaneous, delirious transport, the kind that sweeps away every thought except one: I’m here and I’m happy; there is no other…
The Truth 25 Times a Second, Perth Festival
Ballet National de Marseille, Heath Ledger Theatre, Perth, February 9 WITH inspiration from Italo Calvino – his 1957 novel The Baron in the Trees – and set design by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, The Truth 25 Times a Second comes bearing impeccable intellectual credentials. To what purpose is harder to discern. The not…
Dorothee Gilbert, Ludmila Pagliero, Myriam Ould-Braham: three Giselles
Paris Opera Ballet, Capitol Theatre, Sydney: January 29, February 4, February 5 IT’S always something of an occasion when a dancer takes on a big role for the first time, particularly in one of the small handful of works in which ballerinas cement their reputation. I remember being thrilled to discover that Alina Cojocaru, then…
Giselle, Paris Opera Ballet
Capitol Theatre, Sydney, January 29 GISELLE may be seen as a ballet of two contrasting halves, the world of the living giving way to the realm of the spirit. It is usually played in that manner, with Giselle’s death at the end of Act I the bridge from reality to the fantastical world of the…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 