This is the second in an occasional series of in-depth conversations with people in the arts CABARET is Kurt Weill and it’s the Moulin Rouge, it’s Barbara Cook at Café Carlyle, it’s the glamorous Ute Lemper, it’s the kamikaze stylings of Meow Meow and it’s Michael Feinstein at the piano singing from the great American…
Vanguard
The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House, April 30 GEORGE Balanchine was indisputably a game-changer, to use the Australian Ballet’s phrase in explaining the ethos behind Vanguard, the triple bill that opened in Sydney on April 30. The game-changer tag is somewhat less cut and dried in the case of Jiri Kylian and Wayne McGregor, who…
The Bull, the Moon and the Coronet of Stars
Merrigong Theatre Company, Wollongong, April 23 FOR a little piece – two-hander, 75 minutes, minimal set, few props – The Bull, the Moon and the Coronet of Stars gets a lot done. Like those traveller’s towels that mop up the lord knows how many times their weight in water, Van Badham’s new play has a…
Forget Me Not
Belvoir, Sydney, April 24. IT was all for the best, apparently, the practice of rounding up children and sending them as far away as possible to conditions of near slavery. Not being in any position to consent to the arrangement, the more than 3000 youngsters who came to Australia from the UK formed a second…
Don Quixote x 6
The Australian Ballet, six performances in March and April 2013 BALLET’S reliance on and reverence for its history is powerful in so many ways. In the Australian Ballet’s 2013 Melbourne and Sydney seasons of Don Quixote the women dancing Kitri were coached by former American Ballet Theatre principal Cynthia Harvey; the leading men prepared under…
Fury, Stories I Want to Tell You in Person
Fury Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 1, April 19 JOANNA Murray-Smith recently spoke on radio of the seductive power of argument, of recalling the sound of her parents and their friends talking passionately long into the night. Those long-evaporated murmurs are the wellspring of Fury, Murray-Smith’s absorbing new play. Alice (Sarah Peirse) is a neuroscientist at…
Dance Better at Parties
Sydney Theatre Company, April 9 DAVE would appear to have come to the wrong place. The ugly suburban dance school with its poo-brown floor and unforgiving fluoros offers private lessons in the rumba, tango, paso doble and other glittering ballroom arts. You buy a block of 10, sign here for direct debit, initial the injury…
Robert Curran
In the first of an occasional conversation and discussion series, former Australian Ballet principal artist Robert Curran talks about his sometimes frustrating, not yet achieved but deeply considered and tenaciously sought transition from dancing to an artistic directorship ROBERT Curran gave his last performance with The Australian Ballet on November 26, 2011 – as Danilo…
Cinderella
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…
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…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 