British choreographer Cathy Marston has made literary adaptations a cornerstone of her work. My Brilliant Career, the closing work in Queensland Ballet’s latest triple bill, Trilogy, joins the illustrious company of Jane Eyre, Dangerous Liaisons, Of Mice and Men and Lady Chatterley’s Lover among others. Miles Franklin’s novel, published in 1901, has at its centre a loveable but maddening creature with outsized desires….
Category: Dance
The Australian Ballet at 60: Don Quixote, Identity, Jewels, April-May 2023
The way The Australian Ballet’s calendar works meant Sydney had a unique opportunity to assess the company’s form and direction at the halfway point of its 60th anniversary celebration year. The ballets came thick and fast in the harbour city. After opening in Melbourne – TAB’s home base – in March, Don Quixote moved on to Sydney in…
Three Giselles at Queensland Ballet, Brisbane, April 14 and 15, 2023
Li Cunxin first programmed Giselle a decade ago in his first year as artistic director of Queensland Ballet. He had three leading casts – enough, you would think. Then a spate of injuries, including one on opening night that led to replacement leads dancing the second act, found Li having to scramble to save another performance at…
KING. Shaun Parker & Company, Sydney, February 28, 2023
Shaun Parker & Company’s work never fails to lodge itself tenaciously in the memory. I think of This Show is About People from 2007, Am I (2016) and Happy as Larry (2013) in particular and KING will be another. It’s not a new piece, having premiered in 2019, but has returned to Sydney appositely as part of WorldPride. Next stop, Europe. First let’s…
Four Romeos and four Juliets at The Australian Ballet, October and December 2022
The return of John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet to The Australian Ballet after nearly 20 years is a reminder of how few narrative ballets surpass it for range and complexity. Cranko’s version of Shakespeare’s tragedy, made in 1962 for Stuttgart Ballet, has been in TAB’s repertoire since 1974 and until 2003 was staged relatively regularly. Not all…
Swan Lake. West Australian Ballet, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth. November 18 and 19, 2022
West Australian Ballet celebrates its 70th anniversary this year and at last has the numbers to enable a Swan Lake. The company decided not to go the safe route of staging a production that could belong anywhere. Instead it has taken inspiration from its location and the history of the place it calls home. The ballet’s familiar…
Instruments of Dance, The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House, November 10, 2022
Australian audiences know Wayne McGregor from Dyad 1929, made in 2009 as part of The Australian Ballet’s Ballets Russes celebration; Chroma, choreographed in 2006 and brought into the repertoire in 2014; and Infra, staged by TAB in 2017 but dating from 2008. Obsidian Tear, the opening work in the Instruments of Dance triple bill, is not that Wayne McGregor. Absent…
Three ballet companies, three distinctive looks in 2023
Australia’s three leading classical companies have released their 2023 programs, each with a distinctive flavour. The Australian Ballet has a deeply glamorous 60thanniversary season, West Australian Ballet’s line-up gratifyingly features a strong list of female choreographers and at Queensland Ballet the premiere of Cathy Marston’s My Brilliant Career will make Brisbane a must in June. Another must…
Romeo and Juliet, The Australian Ballet, Arts Centre Melbourne, October 7, 2022
The Australian Ballet is in a nostalgic mood. The company’s 60th birthday is just around the corner – its first performance was in Sydney on November 2, 1962 – so thoughts naturally go to the past. Next year has been designated a year of celebration with key planks of the program being a “reinvention” of former…
Manon, Queensland Ballet, QPAC, September 28 and 29, 2022
Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon premiered in 1974, not quite a decade after his Romeo and Juliet, and in some ways is the earlier ballet’s dark twin. Each has as its heart young lovers in a hostile environment whose instant attraction to one another ends in tragedy; each has hugely coveted leading roles of the kind that make reputations. Queensland…
