The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House, April 29. LET’S start with the very best bit first. The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra had a particularly good night on Tuesday under Australian Ballet music director Nicolette Fraillon’s leadership. The quadruple bill Chroma covers a lot of ground: Mozart for Jiri Kylian’s Petite Mort and Sechs Tanze,…
Tag: Lana Jones
Imperial Suite
The Australian Ballet, Brisbane, February 26 THE men of The Australian Ballet get an occasional look-in but the double bill Imperial Suite is really all about the women. In Serge Lifar’s Suite en blanc there is a flurry of white tutus and only one male dance of any substance. In George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial a…
Manon
The Australian Ballet, Brisbane, February 21 MANON, which premiered 40 years ago next month (March 7, 1974), is in an exclusive club, the handful of full-length 20th century ballets that have insinuated themselves firmly into the repertoire. The Australian Ballet doesn’t exactly have it on high rotation but, including this year, Manon has shown up…
La Sylphide
The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House, November 7 WHAT to do about a ballet as dreamily brief as La Sylphide? In the middle of this year West Australian Ballet took the minimalist approach and added nothing to fill out the evening. Over the years the Australian Ballet has taken several paths. In 1996, under Maina…
Symmetries
Monument, The Four Temperaments, After the Rain pas de deux. The Australian Ballet, Canberra Theatre, May 23. MANY a distinguished artist has come a cropper when asked to create something to order for a special occasion, whether they be a poet laureate, a painter or, in this case, a choreographer. Being handed weighty, worthy subject…
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…
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…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 