Love is love. If you want just three words to sum up Romeo and Juliet Suite, they’re the ones. Benjamin Millepied’s thrilling dance work, set to selections from Prokofiev’s mighty ballet score, is ultimately that basic and that profound. Who loves whom is a personal matter. That humans are capable of intense feeling and overwhelming…
Romeo and Juliet. BIG Live, Civic Theatre, Newcastle, June 1.
The name BIG Live doesn’t exactly scream ballet but that’s what the organisation does. BIG stands for Ballet International Gala, the arena in which BIG Live started operations in 2022. There were some pandemic-related bumps but the idea proved durable. The galas featured a formidable line-up of dancers for the first and subsequent presentations and…
Royal New Zealand Ballet artistic director Ty King-Wall
Ty King-Wall finished his ballet career at the top, retiring from The Australian Ballet as a principal artist. By the time he stopped dancing in 2022 he had two young children, one born just weeks before his final performance. His wife, former TAB principal Amber Scott, made her farewell to the stage last year. King-Wall…
SILENCE. Karul Projects, Sydney Opera House, May 8, 2024
Thomas E.S. Kelly’s SILENCE has been well travelled since its premiere at the Brisbane Festival in 2020. That’s a measure of how well it’s been received, which is excellent, and the enduring nature of its theme, which is not so good. SILENCE comes out swinging at the fact that Australia’s First Nations people are still waiting for a…
Swan Lake. Royal New Zealand Ballet, St James Theatre, Wellington, May 4 and 5, 2024
It was a memorable few days for Royal New Zealand Ballet dancers Ana Gallardo Lobaina and Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson. When they made their debuts as Odette/Odile and Siegfried at the May 2 evening performance of RNZB’s Swan Lake they were both soloists at the time. Not for long though. After the May 4 matinee – their second performance…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Scarlett). Queensland Ballet, Playhouse, Brisbane, April 16, 2024
There is a great deal of joy in Liam Scarlett’s deliciously funny, sensual A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And – always – a great deal of sadness that his life was so short. Yesterday, April 16, was the third anniversary of his death. He was just 35 and the maker of many one-act works for major companies…
Carmen. The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House, April 10, 2024
Johan Inger sees Carmen as a nightmare, which it is. In his darker-than-dark version of a story that just won’t go away, the Swedish choreographer gets inside the head of the woman’s murderer, Don Jose, and chillingly finds nothing there. Well, there’s a writhing, stuttering collection of destructive impulses but otherwise Inger’s Don Jose is…
La Bayadère. West Australian Ballet, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth. April 12, 2024
In 2018 Greg Horsman choreographed a version of La Bayadère for a trio of commissioners, Queensland Ballet, West Australian Ballet and Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet. His setting was mid-19th century India at the time of the British East India Company, set up as a trading entity but in effect a coloniser. The idea had merit. Petipa’s oriental fantasy…
West Side Story. Opera Australia. Fleet Steps, Mrs Macquaries Point, Sydney, March 22, 2024.
Speaking in 1985 at a symposium about the creation of West Side Story, Jerome Robbins said he had wanted to see how far he, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents could go in bringing their “crafts and talents”, as he put it, to a musical. “Why did we have to do it separately and elsewhere? Why did…
THREE, Australasian Dance Collective. Brisbane Powerhouse, March 20, 2024
Amber McCartney’s solo dance work Tiny Infinite Deaths was a big success when it premiered in 2022 in an artist development program called Pieces, presented by Melbourne’s Lucy Guerin Inc and The Substation. It was the kind of leg-up independent artists need if they are to be seen and Tiny Infinite Deaths was indeed seen by many influential…
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