Code of Conduct is pungently sited on the 20th floor of a Brisbane office block. Look out the windows and a shiny city full of possibilities beckons; inside it’s all concrete, low ceilings and regrettably basic equipment. If not for the smart suits worn by the Code of Conduct dancers you could easily imagine this as a prison rec…
Tag: Jack Lister
Bad Nature, Australasian Dance Collective, Club Guy & Roni, Studio Boris Acket and HIIIT, Brisbane Powerhouse, September 3, 2025
Two years ago I was at the 2023 Brisbane Festival to see Salamander, the astonishing dance-theatre-visual arts piece by British choreographer and director Maxine Doyle with an extraordinary design by superstar Es Devlin. The dancers were from Brisbane-based Australasian Dance Collective, an organisation that may be small in size but huge in aspiration and achievement….
Bespoke. Queensland Ballet, Talbot Theatre, Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane, July 25
Queensland Ballet’s commitment to its Bespoke program is important and necessary for the company, for choreographers and for the QB dancers. Bespoke isn’t the only place where new work happens but it is specifically and only for the new, and a place where boundaries can be stretched a bit. This year’s Bespoke opened with the…
Salamander, Brisbane Festival, September 2, 2023
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…
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…
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….
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…
THREE, Australasian Dance Collective, Brisbane
Playhouse Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, May 26, 2021 Amy Hollingsworth’s relief was palpable and profound. THREE had finally arrived. It was 14 months late, but it was here. The triple bill of two new works and an important Australian premiere was to have introduced Hollingsworth’s Australasian Dance Collective to the Brisbane public last year on April…
New Breed, Sydney Dance Company
Carriageworks, Sydney, December 6 The mysteries of dance and dancemaking are great. What drives the need to watch this person closely and not that one? Why does a work speak to something deep within while another is superficially entertaining? How is it that one is engaged intellectually and emotionally with one piece of dance while…
Expressions Dance Company becomes Australian Dance Collective
Brisbane’s Expressions Dance Company has a new name to go with its new leadership. Amy Hollingsworth, who became artistic director of EDC at the beginning of 2019, announced at her 2020 season launch that the 35-year-old contemporary company will be known as Australian Dance Collective. Hollingsworth is the third artistic director in the company’s history,…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 