The stars were out and so was the moon. The audience gathered, as always, on the terraces at City Beach’s Quarry Amphitheatre with the traditional picnic baskets and wine to hand. The dancers of West Australian Ballet warmed up on the open-air stage and all was as it usually is. Except, that is, for the…
Tag: West Australian Ballet
Romeo & Juliet. West Australian Ballet, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, August 30 and 31, 2024
When announcing her 2023 season for Royal New Zealand Ballet, then-artistic director Patricia Barker described the returning Romeo & Juliet as “a glorious production made for the St James [Theatre] in 2017”. She was referring only to the sets and costumes designed by James Acheson. Barker added: “Andrea Schermoly is creating new choreography that will revive the classic…
Swan Lake. West Australian Ballet, His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth. November 18 and 19, 2022
West Australian Ballet celebrates its 70th anniversary this year and at last has the numbers to enable a Swan Lake. The company decided not to go the safe route of staging a production that could belong anywhere. Instead it has taken inspiration from its location and the history of the place it calls home. The ballet’s familiar…
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…
Ballet at the Quarry: Light and Shadow, West Australian Ballet
Quarry Amphitheatre, Perth, February 7 A woman climbs, higher and higher, on a path made by the bodies of other dancers. Later she will descend and fall, but her head will be caught by an enigmatic figure in black. Here, and at every point in Graeme Murphy’s deeply affecting Air and Other Invisible Forces, there are…
ALICE (in wonderland), West Australian Ballet
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, November 21. Septime Webre’s ALICE (in wonderland) was made in 2012 for Washington Ballet, where he was artistic director from 1999 to 2016, and shortly after was snapped up by a host of regional American ballet companies. Hong Kong Ballet, which Webre now leads, staged ALICE last year. Now West Australian…
Queensland and West Australian ballet companies of one mind in 2020
Queensland Ballet announced its 2020 season in mid-September; West Australian Ballet in this past week. The nation’s leading state ballet companies are different in scale and usually in repertoire but their seasons next year have some striking similarities. West Australian Ballet offers a repeat season of Krzysztof Pastor’s full-length Dracula in September 2020 after its…
Big dancer turnover at RNZB
Royal New Zealand Ballet artistic director Patricia Barker will preside over a significantly different group of dancers next year from those the American inherited when she was appointed to her role in June this year. Of the 36 dancers currently listed on the RNZB website, it appears that, in line with rumours doing the rounds…
The Great Gatsby, West Australian Ballet
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, September 14. Northern Ballet’s artistic director David Nixon is an old and highly successful hand at creating narrative ballets but he gave himself a tough assignment with this one. His 2013 dance translation of The Great Gatsby is entirely faithful to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s best novel while at the same time…
Don Quixote, West Australian Ballet
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, May 11 and 12. Don Quixote is all fluff and high spirits. Based glancingly on the Cervantes novel, the ballet foregrounds the romance between Kitri, an innkeeper’s daughter, and the impecunious barber Basilio. Kitri’s father would prefer her to marry money, which turns up in the form of Gamache, a fool….
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