AS I foreshadowed on December 15 on my Diary page, Queensland Ballet has lost one of its principal artists, Natasha Kusch, to The Australian Ballet. Kusch was with QB for less than 18 months after leaving the Vienna State Opera Ballet. She joins the AB as a senior artist. In a press statement released today…
Tag: Meng Ningning
Naming names: looking back on 2014
I’VE avoided making neat lists of 10 of this and 10 of that in my survey of 2014, which is good when it comes to the individuals who made the deepest impression on me. I decided not to divide the names by art form or vocation. There are dancers, opera singers, actors, actresses, directors and…
Daring smoke-and-mirrors act
Queensland Ballet, Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane, August 1. ONE masterwork, a party piece and two relatively new dances that look far better than they are provide an entertaining but creatively uneven program at Queensland Ballet. Very much on the plus side is that the company looks energised despite the rigours of the Romeo and Juliet season…
Rojo, McRae, Acosta at QB
Queensland Ballet, Brisbane, June 27, July 1,2,3 ROMEO and Juliet was a success in every possible way for Queensland Ballet, starting with the very fact of its presence in Brisbane. Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet is the gold standard for dance versions of Shakespeare’s play and is monumental, needing much larger forces than QB can ordinarily summon….
Affecting ardour
Queensland Ballet, Lyric Theatre, Brisbane, June 27 KENNETH MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet is big in every way. At street level testosterone-fuelled gangs jostle and fight in the marketplace, revelling in their ancient grudge, as Shakespeare called it. Inside the great house of Lord Capulet the tumult is even greater, but is within the hearts of…
QB Nutcracker; David Hallberg at the AB
The Nutcracker, Queensland Ballet, Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane, December 7 Cinderella, The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, December 14 IN many places in the northern hemisphere, but particularly in the US, seeing The Nutcracker at Christmas is as necessary as having gifts and dressing a tree. There’s another necessity too: so popular has The Nutcracker…
Li Cunxin and Queensland Ballet, one year on
LI Cunxin arrived at Queensland Ballet as artistic director-designate on July 16, 2012. He took full control of the company’s reins this year and has made significant changes already with more in store. When I was in Brisbane to review QB’s Giselle, which closes this weekend, I took the opportunity to talk to Li about…
Giselle
Queensland Ballet, Playhouse Theatre, Brisbane, June 21 and 22 BRISBANE is turning into quite the ballet town. All performances of the Bolshoi Ballet’s Le Corsaire and The Bright Stream were sold out and one might have expected the visit from such a starry company to have diverted dollars from the Queensland Ballet. Far from it….
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…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 