Tatiana Stepanova, who arrived in Australia in December 1939 with the third of Colonel de Basil’s touring Ballets Russes companies — the Original Ballet Russe — died late last year in Florida. The company’s Australian debut was in Sydney on 30 December 1939 and on that night Stepanova danced in Les Sylphides and was partnered [...]

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 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 [...]

In a letter written on 11 May 1934 to his mother, Alice Essex, in London the dancer Harcourt Algeranoff wrote:
‘Nina Verchinina is engaged to an American. I believe a rich one’.
The letter was written from Barcelona where Algeranoff was performing with Colonel de Basil’s Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo.
Read the full letter at: http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.ms-ms2376-1-433
For earlier [...]

Merce Cunningham’s death on 26 July 2009 in Manhattan brings to a close an astonishing life in dance. Cunningham once said ‘I didn’t become a dancer, I have always been dancing’. His remarkable career is a testament to a man who has not only always been dancing, but who has always been pushing the boundaries of [...]

Jan Fabre - beyond choreography
The Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp has one room devoted to sculptures that mostly allude to the past, in many cases to classical antiquity.  At first glance the room appears to be simply that - a place where smooth, white marble pieces speak of a period long past.  But, suspended in [...]

Fred and Ginger building, Jiraskuv bridge, central Prague, designed and built between 1992 and 1996 Architects: Frank Gehry with Vlado Milunic

Familiarly called Fred and Ginger after that acclaimed dancing couple Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, or the Dancing House and sometimes the Drunken House, officially the Rasin building (Nationale-Nederlanden building, Rašínovo nábreží 80, 120 00 [...]

In early 2008 the Royal Cambodian Ballet was scheduled to tour Holland, France and Slovenia. This picture gallery briefly documents a ceremony held on 20 March 2008 in an open theatre space close to the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh at which offerings were made and blessings sought prior to this tour.
 
All photos by Michelle [...]

In March 2008 I was generously funded to travel to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to help set up a project to record the stories of older Cambodian classical dancers who had had major careers with the Royal Cambodian Ballet in the decades before the infamous regime of Pol Pot, who had survived that regime, and who [...]