Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Auckland, December 5. It is no small thing to make a full-length narrative ballet that wins its place in a company’s repertoire. Many are attempted and many end up as red lines on a balance sheet unless sets and costumes can be sold or repurposed. Most happily, Loughlan Prior’s Hansel &…
Tag: Royal New Zealand Ballet
Amy Hollingsworth at Expressions Dance Company: warrior for the human condition
Amy Hollingsworth can’t be too specific about the first season she is curating as artistic director of Brisbane-based Expressions Dance Company – details for 2020 will be announced later this year – but she can talk about the philosophy that secured her the job. EDC may have a core of only half a dozen dancers…
Carmen & The Firebird, Queensland Ballet
Queensland Performing Arts Centre, May 26. You win some and you lose some. Queensland Ballet is a co-producer of Carlos Acosta’s Carmen with The Royal Ballet and Texas Ballet Theater, which means QB’s name is attached to it forever. I doubt I’ve seen a worse ballet from reputable companies in more than 40 years. I’m not…
A new year dawns at RNZB
Biographies of the new intake at Royal New Zealand Ballet are now on the website after last year’s bruising and very public exodus of a large number of dancers. There are currently 32 dancers pictured on the site, 22 of whom were still standing at the end of 2017. Now the dust has settled it…
RNZB and the numbers game
What possessed the Board of Royal New Zealand Ballet to assert in its statement of December 15 that 42% of the dancers are either New Zealanders or trained in New Zealand and that next year the goal is to have an even higher percentage? The main thrust of the statement is fine – the Board has…
Independent review of RNZB
Royal New Zealand Ballet today announced it has commissioned an independent review of its employment processes. This follows two weeks of intense scrutiny about dancer turnover, opportunities for New Zealand dancers and working conditions and practices. A welcome move is the undertaking to give company artists a say in decision-making. At the moment there is…
RNZB Board responds – finally
On Monday Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Board of Trustees chair Steven Fyfe put out a statement addressing concerns raised over the past two weeks about the company. In a lengthy official response (see below), the Board backs new artistic director Patricia Barker, stresses the company’s support for New Zealand talent and says it will seek…
Quakes and tremors at RNZB
The party to mark Royal New Zealand Ballet’s 60th anniversary was in full swing at Wellington’s St James Theatre when the earthquake struck. The special matinee performance of Swan Lake on July 21, 2013, had been attended by many former dancers, staff and friends and now it was time to raise a glass and reminisce….
Tsunami at Royal New Zealand Ballet
It’s always been Royal New Zealand Ballet’s fate to have a certain amount of churn. It’s a small country a long way from the big ballet centres of the world. When dancers leave, artistic directors hire other dancers who suit their tastes. When that artistic director leaves, dancers who came because of that person may…
RNZB exodus – an update
On Friday, when I wrote the piece below, it was understood that no 2017 graduates of the New Zealand School of Dance had been offered positions for 2018 with Royal New Zealand Ballet. The school is associated with RNZB and recently celebrated its half century with a gala concert that featured RNZB artists. As RNZB’s…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 