Sydney Opera House, April 27, 2021 Does Counterpointe shine an illuminating light on the journey of classical dance from the 19th century to the 20th or is it a mighty clash of opposing forces? The Australian Ballet’s new artistic director, David Hallberg, sees it as the former. The Australian Ballet’s social media ads, on the other hand, frame Counterpointe as a…
Tag: William Forsythe
Daniel Gaudiello exits The Australian Ballet
When The Australian Ballet stages Stephen Baynes’s traditional Swan Lake in Sydney from April 1 for 21 performances it will field six couples in the leading roles of Odette-Odile and Siegfried. One of those couples was to have been senior artist Natasha Kusch with principal Daniel Gaudiello, a partnership that promised a great deal. Kusch,…
Vitesse
The Australian Ballet, State Theatre, Melbourne, March 11. VITESSE presents three certified hits from three of the biggest names in contemporary ballet and turns the dial up as the evening progresses. It starts with one of Jiří Kylián’s mysterious appeals to the heart, takes a charge through the cerebral and physical complexities of William Forsythe…
Royal New Zealand Ballet: Speed of Light
Auckland Arts Festival, March 2. Francesco Ventriglia was named artistic director of Royal New Zealand Ballet back in September 2014 but hasn’t been able to put his stamp on programming until now. Of necessity his predecessor, former American Ballet Theatre star Ethan Stiefel, was responsible for what was seen on stage in 2015. These things…
Thrills and spills: the year in dance
We’ll get to the year’s most interesting work and dancers shortly but 2015 was also notable for offstage developments, particularly at Australia’s three leading classical companies, The Australian Ballet, Queensland Ballet and West Australian Ballet. So let’s begin there. OFFSTAGE The national company At The Australian Ballet, David McAllister became the company’s longest-serving artistic director, surpassing…
Francesco Ventriglia and Royal New Zealand Ballet
A year into his artistic directorship, Francesco Ventriglia talks about his goals for Royal New Zealand Ballet and his first program for the company “My life is where I can have a theatre, where I can have dancers, where I can have a space to express my creativity. I don’t care if it’s Milan or…
Sylvie Guillem: Life in Progress
Sydney Opera House, August 19. LET’S not talk in the past tense about Sylvie Guillem. She may be on her farewell tour but she is still one of the greatest of the greats. Until December, when she calls it quits, she is still a dancer and still a superstar. At 50 she leaves the stage…
Quintett, Frame of Mind
Sydney Theatre, March 9 and 10. IT was a great coup for Rafael Bonachela to secure William Forsythe’s Quintett for Sydney Dance Company. It is a jewel of the contemporary repertoire with so many facets and colours it could be seen again and again without exhausting its possibilities. And to see it danced as was…
6000 miles away
Choreography by William Forsythe, Mats Ek and Jiri Kylian. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, March 8 MATS Ek’s Bye is the crowd-pleasing work in this rich, concentrated evening of dance but William Forsythe’s Rearray is where the real nourishment is. Forsythe and Sylvie Guillem go way back – nearly a quarter of a century –…
deborah jones: FollowSpot 