http://michellepotter.org Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:22:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The dance interests of Harcourt Algernon Essex, better known simply as Algeranoff, were extraordinarily diverse. In the earlier years of his career, as he toured the world with companies that included that of Anna Pavlova, the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes companies of Colonel de Basil, he was ... http://michellepotter.org/articles/algeranoff-in-melbourne The first part of Peggy!, the Australian Ballet's tribute to the company's founding director Dame Peggy van Praagh, may well have delighted her. Mark Annear's Birthday Celebration, a work made originally to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Australian Ballet School in 2004, was a joyous offering. Dame Peggy, who ... http://michellepotter.org/reviews/peggy-the-australian-ballet Kaguyahime is Jiri Kylian's poetic, choreographic reflection on an ancient Japanese prose text, The Bamboo Cutter's Daughter. This story tells of Kaguyahime, the moon princess who comes to earth — she is discovered inside a stalk of bamboo — and astounds everyone with her radiant beauty. Many vie for her attention ... http://michellepotter.org/reviews/kaguyahime-paris-opera-ballet The recent triple bill from the Rambert Dance Company performing at Sadler's Wells was certainly diverse. It spanned four decades of modern dance making with a mid career work from Siobhan Davies, The Art of Touch; a classic from Merce Cunningham, RainForest; and a show stopper, A Linha Curva, from ... http://michellepotter.org/reviews/the-art-of-touch-rainforest-a-linha-curva-rambert-dance-company If the Royal Ballet's recent triple bill of Chroma, Tryst and Symphony in C did anything, it showed quite clearly that ballet is not dead, dying or even momentarily dormant as has occasionally been debated on this site. It is in full swing, vibrant, growing gloriously and proudly relishing both ... http://michellepotter.org/reviews/chroma-tryst-symphony-in-c-the-royal-ballet A Sydney tabloid recently described the Australian Ballet's current production of Coppélia as 'One for all the Betty Ballerinas' and noted that it emphasised 'sugary narrative and formal technique'. The review was spot on — unfortunately, I have to say. Coppélia can actually be quite a moving experience. It certainly ... http://michellepotter.org/reviews/coppelia-the-australian-ballet Elsewhere on this website I made a comment that referred to Graeme Murphy's The Silver Rose, which I saw just recently towards the end of its Sydney season by the Australian Ballet. My comment was in response to what I thought was an excellent argument about the new magazine Fjord ... http://michellepotter.org/reviews/the-silver-rose In 1951 Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, later to become Jacqueline Kennedy, won Vogue magazine's Prix de Paris for a short essay entitled 'People I wish I had known'.  She wrote about three men, one of whom was Serge Diaghilev. She described him as an 'alchemist unique in art history'.  Kennedy is ... http://michellepotter.org/reviews/diaghilev-a-life-sjeng-scheijen Last week a group of dancers from Sydney Dance Company (SDC) made a brief guest appearance on So you think you can dance Australia. They performed a short excerpt from 6 Breaths, the most recent work created on them by their artistic director Rafael Bonachela. Without wishing to detract from ... http://michellepotter.org/news/rafael-bonachelas-dancers For two months in early 2007 I worked with Anne Bass on the early stages of what would eventually become Dancing across borders, a documentary film on the career to date of Sokvannara Sar, a dancer who grew up in Cambodia and who is now dancing with Pacific Northwest Ballet. ... http://michellepotter.org/news/dancing-across-borders-a-film-by-anne-bass