A recent comment posted on this website spoke of the differences between the styles of three major ballet companies visiting Australia in the mid-decades of the twentieth century: de Basil’s Ballets Russes, Ballet Rambert and New York City Ballet. The comment went on to note that perhaps the most enthusiastic attendees at New York City [...]

When Stanton Welch’s Sleeping Beauty premiered in 2005 Amber Scott was a relatively new member of the Australian Ballet, having joined in 2001. In 2009, as a senior artist with the company, she danced the leading role of Aurora in the Australian Ballet’s revival of Welch’s work. Her appearance in this demanding role was something [...]

‘Mim’. A personal memoir of Marie Rambert: Brigitte Kelly (Alton: Dance Books, 2009). Available in Australia from Footprint Books or any good bookseller.
Marie Rambert, or Mim as she was familiarly known, brought her company, Ballet Rambert, to Australia in 1947. The company stayed until early 1949 and appeared in Adelaide, Brisbane, Broken Hill, Melbourne, Perth [...]

Dr Ewan Murray-Will (1899-1970) was by profession a dermatologist with a practice in Macquarie Street, Sydney. He studied medicine at Sydney University graduating in 1923 and followed that initial study with further work in Vienna and London. He was honorary dermatologist to a number of Sydney hospitals including Sydney Hospital, St Vincent’s Hospital and the [...]

The Australian Ballet’s triple bill Concord is currently in its Sydney season. It’s at the Opera House until 30 November.
Wayne McGregor’s Dyad 1929 is as startling as ever, although the cast I saw did not manage to achieve the same degree of technical precision and sense of purpose that made the opening night in Melbourne [...]

Robert Helpmann: a rare sense of the theatre: Kathrine Sorley Walker (Alton: Dance Books, 2009). Available in Australia from Footprint Books or any good bookseller.
Robert Helpmann is a popular subject for biographical and other writing. Apart from the fact that he was clearly a showman both on and off stage making his exploits a source [...]

Early in 1940 an article appeared in the magazine Australia. National Journal entitled ‘Ballet Business’. It was commissioned by the magazine’s editor Sydney Ure Smith, a great patron of Colonel de Basil’s touring Ballets Russes companies, and was written by Olga Philipoff. Philipoff came to Australia on the Ballets Russes tours as secretary to her [...]

When the Australian Ballet announced its 2010 season in September 2009, one of the most appealing aspects of the year long program was the prospect of a tribute season called Peggy! The ‘Peggy’ of the title is of course the Australian Ballet’s inaugural artistic director, Dame Peggy van Praagh. The program features works with which she [...]

Michel Fokine choreographed and rehearsed his ballet Paganini in Australasia during the 1938-1939 tour by the Covent Garden Russian Ballet. He did not succumb to the suggestion, however, that the ballet be performed in practice clothes so that its world premiere could occur in Australia. He set this decision out in a letter to his [...]

Spring Dance Season, Sydney Opera House, 16-20 October 2009
The Oracle, Meryl Tankard’s work set to Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, is a triumph. A solo work for Paul White, who dances with astonishing physicality and intensity, it is an example of how affecting a work can be when the creative team has a strongly shared [...]