In 2019 Brisbane Festival artistic director Louise Bezzina, then new in her role, travelled the substantial width of Australia to attend the Perth Festival, as you do. There she met British chorographer and director Maxine Doyle, who was in Perth to work on a dance piece called Sunset with local choreographic centre STRUT Dance. And, as you…
Ty King-Wall is Royal New Zealand Ballet’s new artistic director
There should be much rejoicing in New Zealand dance circles today with the announcement that Ty King-Wall is to be Royal New Zealand Ballet’s next artistic director. It’s a homecoming for King-Wall, who made his dance career with The Australian Ballet but was born in New Zealand and started his dance studies there. His appointment…
The Australian Ballet in 2024
A new ballet by Christopher Wheeldon, Oscar, is the centrepiece of David Hallberg’s 2024 program for The Australian Ballet. It is being made on the company in what is Hallberg’s first full-length commission since taking over as TAB artistic director in 2021. The ballet will interweave aspects of the tumultuous life of legendary wit, playwright, novelist…
echoes of VAN GOGH, West Australian Ballet, Perth, September 8, 2023
Wubkje Kuindersma’s new echoes of VAN GOGH for West Australian Ballet looks wonderful. The artist’s work is everywhere in Tatyana van Walsum’s designs, almost overwhelmingly so. Intense colours flood the eye as sweeping brush strokes are projected on a wide curved wall, some of Vincent van Gogh’s most famous paintings are reproduced on a grand scale and…
The Australian Ballet On Tour. Glasshouse Port Macquarie, August 19, 2023
The Australian Ballet’s recent appearances at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden got plenty of attention here and in the UK. Travelling somewhat under the radar was another touring venture, a triple bill taken to eight cities in Victoria and NSW. Think Geelong, Albury, Griffith, Dubbo and so on. (Other states are visited in alternate…
precipice and Cry Baby, INDance, Neilson Studio, Sydney Dance Company, August 17, 2023
Sydney Dance Company’s generous outreach to contemporary choreographers, INDance, opened its second season last night with works from two West Australian choreographers. Founded last year, the venture offers SDC audiences the chance to see a curated program of already existing works by independent Australian dancer-makers. It’s a brilliant idea, although there’s an element of blink…
Bespoke. Queensland Ballet, Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane, July 27, 2023
When choreographers are asked to make new work for Queensland Ballet’s Bespoke the result can be a program of great diversity, as happened last year, or one that inadvertently seems to have a theme, as was the case this year. If you were going to give Bespoke 2023 one of those overarching titles given to…
Lucie in the Sky. Australasian Dance Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre, July 14, 2023
Australasian Dance Collective is a small company that thinks big. Very big indeed when it comes to Lucie in the Sky, a piece for six dancers and five drones. The title has nothing to do with the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds although that song’s “girl with kaleidoscope eyes” wouldn’t be out of place in the…
Yuldea. Bangarra Dance Theatre, Sydney Opera House, June 15, 2023
Bangarra Dance Theatre lives and breathes stories of the great southern land. Roaming through time and space it offers a different way of looking at history and place. It opens hearts. It expands minds. New artistic director Frances Rings continues this great work with Yuldea. It takes us beyond the Nullarbor to that most precious of…
Trilogy. Queensland Ballet, Brisbane, June 16, 2023
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….
deborah jones: FollowSpot 