Hilary Trotter (1933–2024)

Hilary Trotter, whose influence on the role of dance in society, especially in Australia, is almost without measure, has died in Canberra in her 91st year. From a personal point of view, she helped me for several years with the establishment of Brolga. An Australian Journal About Dance. And from the point of view of the growth of professional dance in the ACT, her input was remarkable. Below is an outline of Hilary’s career in dance written by her close colleague Julie Dyson, and published here with her permission.

Hilary Trotter, dance writer, advocate and activist
b. 13 June 1933; d. 18 February 2024

Hilary and her family moved to Canberra in the 1960s, where she was dance critic for the Canberra Times from 1972–90. She was an early advocate for dance in the ACT as a writer and parent of young children at the then Bryan Lawrence School of Ballet where she herself—determined to learn the intricacies of ballet—joined the classes as an adult beginner. In 1977 she became a founding member of the Australian Association for Dance Education (now the Australian Dance Council—Ausdance), and was its first ACT President from 1977–1981, and National President from 1981–84. 

Hilary helped to draft Ausdance’s first Constitution in 1978, wrote its monthly newsletter Dance Action, managed ACT dance projects such as Sunday in the Park, initiated the annual ACT Summer School of Dance, the ACT Dance Festival, and then successfully lobbied for the establishment of the ACT’s first professional dance company, Human Veins Dance Theatre (HVDT). 

In the early 1980s she was elected to the Gorman House establishment committee, ensuring that there would be workable and accessible dance spaces there with sprung floors, high ceilings and adequate office and green room spaces. Since then there have been permanent professional dance companies in residence in Gorman House [now Gorman Arts Centre]: HVDT, the Meryl Tankard Company, Sue Healey’s Vis-à-vis Dance Canberra, the Australian Choreographic Centre, and now QL2.

Funding for all Ausdance ACT projects were the direct result of Hilary’s skills as a grant application writer and advocate. When Ausdance National received its first Australia Council funding in 1984,  Hilary became its co-director until her retirement in 1991, co-managing many projects for Ausdance National including the establishment of a national dance database, partnerships with the Media Arts & Entertainment Alliance (MEAA) to produce the Dancers’ Transition Report (1989), and the National Arts Industry Training Council to produce the first Safe Dance Report (1990) as its skilled project designer and editor, and inventing the now internationally-recognised term ‘Safe Dance’, with implications for dance practice world-wide. She also designed Brolga—an Australian Journal About Dance and Asia-Pacific Channels for many years, and was the writer, editor and designer of all Ausdance National publications throughout the 1990s.

Hilary’s vision for Ausdance was to see a network of funded Ausdance organisations throughout the country, and her work to realise that vision led to a real growth in Australians’ understanding of dance as an art form, as a vital part of every child’s education, as a health imperative and as a serious area of tertiary study. The national coordinators toured the country every year throughout the 1980s and early ’90s, visiting each Ausdance office, holding meetings with companies, studio teachers, students, tertiary institutions, local arts councils and funding bodies, and endeavouring to link all their activities to meaningfully connect the industry with a voice that would be heard by decisions makers at all levels, but most particularly in the federal Parliament.

Hilary’s passing sees the end of an advocacy era, where leadership that provides action and a national overview is respected, validated and acted upon by all in the greater interest of dance across political and state boundaries. Recent national and state funding decisions have greatly undermined this effort, a situation that saddened Hilary in her later years.

Hilary’s approach was gently persuasive, always backed by written evidence and supported by others with whom she worked. Hilary was made an Honorary Life Member of Ausdance in 1991, and was further honoured at the 2018 Australian Dance Awards for Services to Dance.

Vale Hilary! 

—Julie Dyson, 18/2/24

Julie Dyson has reminded me also of an oral history that Hilary Trotter recorded in 1988 with Don Asker director of Human Veins Dance Theatre at the time, which is part of the oral history collection of the National Library of Australia. She also reminded me of a series of articles (five to be exact) regarding a 1982 tour made by Adelaide-based Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), then led by Jonathan Taylor. The articles, with the title ‘Dustbins and Taffeta’, appeared in Brolga, issues 10–14 (1999–2001). Looking back at them they provide an exceptional record of that tour, which started at Sadler’s Wells in London and then continued at a range of festivals in Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. I randomly opened up the first article and read the following paragraph, which concerns Taylor’s work While we watched:

The deep impression made by the high energy level of the dancing is a hallmark of the piece. But the rake and small size of the Sadler’s Wells stage have caused problems of pace and timing in rehearsal. In Adelaide the dancers had to run at full speed to make their stage crossings in time, but here people keep finding themselves arriving at designated points in the pattern too early. Nevertheless I hear the stagehands behind me talking in low voices, ‘See the energyit’s staggeringpeople zipping about all over the place—God, what stamina!

All five articles are well worth reading. (Brolga is unfortunately no longer in production but it is held in print form in most major state libraries around Australia.)

Vale Hilary indeed!

Michelle Potter, 19 February 2024

Featured image: Hilary Trotter receiving her Honorary Life Membership from Ausdance President Keith Bain in Perth in 1991. Photographer not identified

Joan Acocella (1945–2024)

Tributes from Michelle Potter and Jennifer Shennan

From Michelle:
It is with immense sadness that I pass on the news that esteemed dance writer, Joan Acocella, has died in New York City aged 78. She was one of the best dance writers I have come across. Why? Her writing style was always eloquent, elegant and engaging. Her research for her writing seemed to know no bounds. And her way of thinking about dance was profoundly different from most dance writers.

In the introduction to her book, Twenty-eight artists and two saints, a collection of essays written initially for other printed sources (largely but not exclusively for The New Yorker), she explains her point of view in relation to the essays included in the book. Her approach addresses what she calls ‘the pain that came with the art-making, interfering with it, and how the artist dealt with this’ rather than what she sees as a common belief that artists endure ‘a miserable childhood and then, in their adult work, to weave that straw into gold’.1

Her 1993 publication Mark Morris also has a beautiful slant on the idea of biography. In her Author’s Note that precedes the biography itself she writes:

My goal was to provide an account of [Morris’] life and a guide to his work, but what I wanted most was to give a portrait of his imagination—an idea of how he thinks, or how he thinks the thoughts that lead to his dances.2

Elsewhere on this site I have written about Mark Morris with the words:

Acocella knew Morris’ background, sexual, emotional, family and otherwise, but didn’t dwell on it as such. Instead she showed us so clearly how that background could give us an insight into his works. I especially enjoyed her chapter on Morris’ time in Brussels. True, she mentioned the dramas, but also the successes so that it became a balanced account of that time. She also set it within a context of European approaches to viewing dance and contrasted these approaches with those she thought were more typical of American thoughts. Her biography of Morris is so worth reading.

Then there is her fabulous editing of Nijinsky’s diaries in which she gives us the real thing, not an expurgated version as did Nijinsky’s wife, Romola.

But I have one personal memory that has always stayed, and always will stay with me. While working in New York I was giving a media introduction to a New York Public Library Dance Division exhibition INVENTION. Merce Cunningham and collaborators. I was about to use a quote from an article by Acocella on the Cunningham production Split Sides. As I looked up and out to the audience, there was Joan Acocella smiling beatifically as her name was mentioned and somehow seeming to stand out from the others in the auditorium. A shining moment and a special memory of an exceptional lover of dance.

From Jennifer:
In 2000 Wellington’s International Festival of the Arts proposed an Arts Writing initiative in which the British High Commission brought out Michael Billington, long-time theatre critic for The Guardian, and Fulbright New Zealand brought Joan Acocella, dance critic from New York.

 (At first the invitation had gone Deborah Jowitt but, as the deadline for her book on Antony Tudor was approaching, she declined. Jenny Gill of Fulbright asked me to suggest an alternative. I had met Joan Acocella in 1980s while studying in New York and many of us were delighted when she accepted the invitation).

I requested that Joan first be taken to Dunedin where RNZBallet were performing a season including halo by Douglas Wright, and Mark Morris’ Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, and her resulting review was full of interest. Then in Wellington Joan conducted a weekend dance-writing workshop—some dozen of us attended NDT’s Mozart program, wrote a review overnight, delivered those to Joan at her hotel before breakfast then met mid-morning to hear her comments on our various reviews. It was a fascinating experience and I stlll use my notes from that weekend.

I also arranged for Joan to give a lecture at NZSchool of Dance where she spoke about Nijinksy. (Joan’s edition of Nijinsky’s Diary reinstates all that his wife Romola had omitted from her early publication of it. Her biography of Mark Morris is also an insightful study of an iconoclastic artist).

In the years of Joan’s sparkling dance and literature writings for the NY Review of Books, and for The New Yorker, there are many classic pieces, but her trip with Baryshnikov on his first return to Riga is probably the most indelibly etched of them all.

A very great dance writer indeed. It was a privilege to have known and worked with her.

Joan Acocella: born San Francisco, 13 April 1945; died New York City, 7 January 2024

Michelle Potter and Jennifer Shennan, 11 January 2024

Featured Image: Joan Acocella photographed in New York. Photo from The New York Review of Books.


1. Twenty-eight artists and two saints (New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House) 2007), p. xiii. Not all the subjects in this book are dance artists but those who are include Lucia Joyce, Vaslav Nijinsky, Lincoln Kirstein, Frederick Ashton, Jerome Robbins, Suzanne Farrell, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Martha Graham, Bob Fosse and Twyla Tharp.

2. Mark Morris (New York: Farrer Straus Giroux, 1993), unpaginated.

Various obituaries are available on the internet.

Jon Charles Trimmer—KNZM, MBE

by Jennifer Shennan 

It is just a week since Jon Trimmer died, but his dancing life had been the stuff of legend for decades already. He was the country’s premier ballet dancer, joining New Zealand Ballet in 1959. With only a few short periods abroad, and with Russell Kerr at the Auckland Dance Centre in the early 1970s, he remained with the Company till the age of 79. That has to be a career of unprecedented longevity in the ballet world. We’re not just talking quantity though, it’s the quality that counts.

Jon was knighted in 1999 for his outstanding career, but he nevertheless remained the kind, trusted and modest mentor and friend to many a young or mid-career dancer who ever needed advice or deserved encouragement along the way. Jon chose not to take on the role of Artistic Director, even though there was a vacancy several times, rightly sensing that such positions have a finite term, and he was committed to this company for life.

Early images of Jon Trimmer. Courtesy of Royal New Zealand Ballet

The splendid classical technique and intrinsic musicality in Jon’s early years saw him dance all the noble roles with finesse and sensitivity. He was an intuitive actor as well, so his reading of Albrecht in Giselle, for example, could cover the complex emotions in that role not always explored by everyone who dances it. He was the poet personified in Les Sylphides, a fine prince in Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, and a deeply moving James in La Syphide. Poul Gnatt of course had infused that distinctive and vivacious Bournonville style in which the company he founded excelled under his direction.        

Jonty, as he became affectionately known, partnered many fine dancers during his long career. Patricia Rianne who danced Giselle, La Sylphide and Sleeping Beauty with him, has written from London:

It is with great sadness that news of Jonty’s passing has reached me. He was a true creature of the theatre giving decades of his artistry to the audiences of New Zealand during his stoic membership of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. We danced together many times but most memorable were our performances of Giselle under Russell Kerr ‘s Directorship for RNZBallet in early 1970. Jon was an attentive, caring, musical and supportive partner but most of all he was fun to share the stage with.      
Fond memories. RIP dear Jonty.

Patricia Rianne and Jon Trimmer in The Sleeping Beauty, 1978. Photo: © John Ashton. Courtesy Royal New Zealand Ballet


Patricia in later years would win the London Critics Award for Performer of the Year for her Giselle—and she always credited the pedigree that Russell Kerr brought to his stagings of the classics (which he had learned from Nicholas Beriosov and Stansilaw Idzikowski in his years with Festival Ballet). Russell and Jon could both have followed stellar international careers but instead they opted to dance at home, settling for miniscule incomes maybe, but nonetheless finding deep satisfaction in making calibre productions right here. Jon danced both Petrouchka and the Charlatan across several seasons of Russell’s staging of Petrouchka, which was recognised as good as anywhere in the world. The sense of gratitude I have in writing about these past seven decades is not easy to paraphrase.

When it came time to step back from the highly demanding danseur noble roles, Jon had the dramatic and comedic strengths already in place to draw on for character roles. He gave a masterful reading to the title role in André Prokovsky’s Königsmark; his Royal Swan in Bernard Hourseau’s Carmina Burana involved a stunning performance (a long solo he danced while suspended upside down on a pole). The roles created for him by Gray Veredon—the Entertainer in Ragtime Dance Company, the brooding settler in Tell Me A Tale, the ridiculous Dr Pantalone in A Servant of Two Masters were beyond description and compare. The madcap Widow Simone in La Fille Mal Gardee, the Rake in The Rake’s Progress, the grotesque Matron in Gary Harris Nutcracker, the swashbuckling Captain Hook in Russell Kerr’s fabulous Peter Pan—it’s a very long list of indelible memories for which many are grateful.

They’re all my favourites, but a particular recurring memory is of Christopher Hampson’s stunning Romeo & Juliet. Jonty played both the Friar (a bit doddery but basically a morally flawed figure who should have known better) as well as the Duke of Verona, who strode into the corpse-filled square, trampling on Prokofiev as though the score was carpet, glared down at the Montagues then at the Capulets, wordlessly telling them to stop their futile feuding. Jonty made those dual roles into the centrifugal aspect of what R&J is all about and I’ve never forgotten it. 

Jon Trimmer as Friar Laurence, Joseph Skelton as Romeo and Madeleine Graham as Juliet. Romeo & Juliet, 2017. Photo: © Stephen A’Court. Courtesy Royal New Zealand Ballet

Some years back I took a friend’s child to a matinée of Petrouchka. Part way through, a fire alarm stopped the show and audience and dancers alike were tipped out of the Opera House. We sat in the sunshine of Pigeon Park opposite the theatre and waited, some half hour as I recall, for the all-clear. It so happened that Jonty was playing Charlatan fully costumed in his finery and made up to the max, he strolled across and sat down beside us, chatting quietly about this and that, the weather as it were … and letting us peer at the make-up on his hands, transformed into those of a 1,000-year-old charlatan. It was spooky and amazing, to the very cuticle, and I’ve never forgotten it—as we will never forget him.     

Dani the librarian at Paekakariki, Jon’s home village just north of Wellington, told me yesterday that everyone there knew and loved Jonty. ‘We would vie to offer him a ride home from The Deli after he’d sat there for morning coffee and cake … we would purposely drive very slowly so as to get more stories out of him,’ she confessed. That was Jonty.

Jon Charles Trimmer, KNZM, MBE

born 18 September, 1939, Petone

died 26 October, 2023, Paekakariki

Image courtesy of Royal New Zealand Ballet

Sources: Coral Trimmer, Anne Rowse, Turid Revfeim, Patricia Rianne, Dani the Librarian. 

Jennifer Shennan, 2 November 2023

Featured image: Jon Trimmer as the Charlatan in Petrouchka. Photo: © Evan Li. Courtesy Evan Li

Sir Jon Trimmer (1939–2023)

Jon Trimmer, KNZM, MBE, dancer with Royal New Zealand Ballet from its earliest days, who also performed with the Australian Ballet in the 1960s, has died on 26 October aged 84. An obituary from Jennifer Shennan will be posted on this website a little later. In the meantime Jennifer has sent this brief statement:

Jon Trimmer, New Zealand’s leading ballet dancer, joined Poul Gnatt’s New Zealand Ballet company in 1959. He performed in every subsequent artistic director’s term for decades, and his artistic contribution to dance and theatre in this country is close to incalculable. In numerous roles he portrayed the full range of noble through to naughty, mysterious, magical, marvellous, musical and more.  He was not just a mighty totara, he was a forest of mighty totara. We will not see his like again. The New Zealand, and indeed the wider dance world, is in mourning at the loss of a very great artist. E te rangatira,haere, haere atu. Moi mai rā.

I have a very clear memory of meeting Jonty, as he was familiarly called, at a cafe in Wellington in 2019 to talk to him about his memories of working with New Zealand born designer Kristian Fredrikson. Some of what we talked about subsequently appeared in my book Kristian Fredrikson. Designer. I remember in particular his words about the costume made for Captain Hook, Trimmer’s role in the 1999 Russell Kerr production of Peter Pan. The costume, which he is wearing in the featured image on this post, had to be remade because (as was sometimes the case with Fredrikson’s work) it was a little too heavy in which to perform well. Trimmer said, ‘The jacket was very heavy and the choreography quite demanding. After the first tour Kris made a new jacket. It looked the same but was made from lighter material so I was able to move more easily.’

I also have fond memories of seeing him perform, along with William Fitzgerald, in Loughlan Prior’s short work Lark in 2018 when I delivered the inaugural Russell Kerr lecture. In the brief footage below Trimmer talks about that work.

Vale Jon Trimmer. As well as being a remarkable dancer he was, from my brief encounters with him, a kind and generous man and his death is deeply felt by many. I look forward to posting an obituary from Jennifer Shennan in due course.

Update: Jennifer Shennan’s obituary of Jon Trimmer is now posted. See this link.

Michelle Potter, 29 October 2023

For more about Jon Trimmer on this website see this tag.

Featured image: Jon Trimmer as Captain Hook in Royal New Zealand Ballet’s 1999 production of Russell Kerr’s Peter Pan. Photo: © Maarten Holl. Courtesy Royal New Zealand Ballet

Dance diary. June 2023

This month’s dance diary has, unexpectedly, a focus on dance books. One book is quite new and is due to be released on 1 August. The others have already been published and their mention is a result of other, related news received during the month.

  • The Art and Science of Ballet Dancing and Teaching. A new book by Janet Karin

A new book by Janet Karin OAM, The Art and Science of Ballet Dancing and Teaching, will be released by Routledge on 1 August 2023. Karin has had an extraordinarily diverse dance career including as a performer, teacher and researcher. Her book has the subtitle ‘Integrating Mind, Brain and Body’ and examines an approach to ballet that is holistic in outlook rather than being seen and understood as a collection of steps joined together.

In her introduction, Karin has shared her thoughts about writing the book:

I have written this book for all those who, like me, have wondered what is ‘inside’ the visible reality of the dancing body. How does the miracle of beautiful, expressive dancing happen? This question has mesmerised me from my earliest ballet classes. Now, after many decades as a dancer, teacher and dance science researcher, I offer my understanding of the mystery within dance to all those who share my wonder. The book is written primarily for dancers, company ballet staff, ballet teachers, and vocational and under-graduate dance students but I hope it may be of interest to parents, audience members, health practitioners and anyone else who wishes to know more about the inner workings of the dancer’s mind and body.

(left) front cover for The Art and Science of Ballet Dancing and Teaching; (right) the author, Janet Karin. Photo: © David Cartier, David Cartier Photography

The image that graces the front cover shows Robyn Hendricks and Robert Curran from the Australia Ballet in a moment from Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain. The photo was taken by Jess Bialek.

Here is the link to information about the book and how to purchase it from the publisher.

  • Stanton Welch’s Swan Lake

Stanton Welch’s Swan Lake, made for Houston Ballet and first seen in 2006 has just recently been restaged. I found the production, which I have only seen on DVD, quite absorbing from many points of view. It was of course especially notable for me as it was designed by Kristian Fredrikson. Fredrikson was the subject of my book Kristian Fredrikson. Designer, published by Melbourne Books in 2020. He created the designs for Swan Lake in 2005, the year of his death. It was his last commission.

Houston Ballet is still using those original designs after 17 or so years and the Texan lifestyle magazine Papercity included a review of the recent restaging in its edition of 13 June 2023. The review included the following:

Swan Lake’s Costume Power

Adding to the dark atmosphere are costumes and sets by Kristian Fredrikson, who borrows from the mood and palette of pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse. The ballet’s opening scene at the lake is inspired by Waterhouse’s painting The Lady of Shalott, 1888, based on Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1832 poem of the same name. Set in Arthurian times, the poem depicts the mythological tale of a female figure who, like Odette, gives her life for love and a moment of freedom, and thereby breaks a curse.

That the Pre-Raphaelites were also inspired by the Ottoman Empire likely explains Fredrikson’s Byzantinesque ballroom in Act II, ominously lit by designer Lisa J. Pinkham, where the Queen is entertaining. The impressive set has been widely praised since its inception.

I have fond memories of travelling to Houston during research for my book. Especially generous to me on that occasion was wardrobe manager Laura Lynch and, as a result of Lynch’s input, and that of others in Houston, I was able to include a reasonably extensive account of the design work for Welch’s Swan Lake. My book features a number of illustrations of aspects of the production, including one showing the set and costumes for the ballroom scene mentioned above. The genesis of the tutus for the swans is also discussed.

My book is still available from Melbourne Books and is currently being offered at a special price. Follow this link.

  • Philippa Cullen. Some little known footage

Evelyn Juers, author The Dancer. A Biography for Philippa Cullen, alerted me to some footage of Cullen, which she described as ‘rare’ noting that she had never seen it before. It was shot in 1975 by Stephen Raoul Jones when Cullen appeared in ‘Australia 75: Computers and Electronics in the Arts’ in the ballroom of the Lakeside Hotel in Canberra in March 1975.

More information about the footage and Jones’ recording of it is available in the text attached to the video link below.

My review of Juers’ book is at this link. Copies are available from the publisher, Giramondo, at this link.

  • Derek Denton (1924–2022)

Somewhat belatedly I discovered that Emeritus Professor Derek ‘Dick’ Denton AC had died, aged 98, in Melbourne late last year. Quite rightly the obituaries I have since read focus on Denton’s extraordinary career as a research physiologist. But Denton married Margaret Scott, later Dame Margaret Scott, in Cambridge, England, in 1953, and his support of Scott throughout her diverse dance career is exceptional. In particular, he was active in the many discussions with H. C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs and others, which took place in the Denton/Scott home in Melbourne and which eventually led to the establishment of the Australian Ballet and later the Australian Ballet School of which Scott was founding director.

I had much admiration for Denton, in particular for his knowledge and generosity as I set to work on my biography of Scott, Dame Maggie Scott. A life in dance, which was published in 2014 by Text Publishing. The book includes many references to Denton’s role in the growth of ballet in Australia. Some are highly surprising, such as his involvement in an operation undergone by Scott in 1951. The book is still available from the publisher. Follow this link.

Michelle Potter, 30 June 2023

Featured image: Cover for Janet Karin’s book The Art and Science of Ballet Dancing and Teaching

Dance diary. April 2023

  • International Dance Day, 2023

Every year a message from an outstanding dance artist is circulated throughout the world by the International Theatre Institute and the World Dance Alliance. In 2023 those organisations have chosen dancer and choreographer YANG Liping from China to write this annual message. YANG Liping is a member of the Bai ethnic group from Dali, Yunnan Province. She is a National First-class Dancer and the Vice Chairperson of China Dancers Association. YANG Liping’s message is available to read at this link.

In the ACT International Dance Day was celebrated with a gathering hosted by Ausdance ACT. The event featured a speech from the ACT’s Minister for the Arts, Tara Cheyne, and performances by Grace Peng, with a brief appearance by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman, and by the multi-cultural youth group, Passion and Purpose.

Elizabeth Dalman and Grace Peng at the International Dance Day celebration. Canberra 2023
  • Clanship. Stephen Page

Stephen Page gave the 2023 Andrew Sayers Lecture, which he called Clanship, at the National Portrait Gallery on 27 April 2023. The lecture included information on, stories about, and photographs of his extended family, as well as information about the works he made over a thirty-year period as artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre. Page was hugely popular with the audience and the more they laughed and clapped the more he responded in a theatrical way!

Stephen Page, 2021 Photo Daniel Boud
Stephen Page, 2021. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Page was welcomed by the new director of the National Portrait Gallery, Bree Pickering. Pickering was appointed to the position in February 2023 and, hopefully, will continue to offer dance performances in conjunction with exhibitions (as has happened frequently in the past).

  • .Pierre Lacotte (1932-2023)

I was sorry to hear of the recent death of Pierre Lacotte, French dancer, choreographer and director. It sent me back to my collection of programs for productions by the Paris Opera Ballet, specifically to that for Paquita, which I saw in Paris back in 2002, a full-length production that Lacotte restaged (as far as was possible) from the original production of 1846. The program gives a fascinating account of the history of Paquita, which is most commonly seen, including in Australia, in an abbreviated version of Act III only. While I have to admit I did not find the full-length production immensely appealing, I was lucky to have seen it as a complete work.

An obituary by Laura Capelle, as published in the Financial Times, is at this link. Unfortunately, like most of the obituaries I accessed, this one probably requires payment to read. I’ll keep looking for others that are free and that make worthwhile reading.

  • Lucy Guerin

News from Lucy Guerin Inc is that the company will be appearing at the Venice Biennnale in a program curated by Wayne McGregor. Lucy Guerin Inc will be presenting PENDULUM (commissioned by RISING) and Split alongside a suite of other programming activities including artist talks, film screening, and a masterclass with Guerin. Other dance artists/companies who will be presenting include Simone Forte, Tao Dance Theater, Rachid Ouramdane, Xie Xin, Michael Keegan-Dolan, Oona Doherty, Acosta Danza, and William Forsythe.

A terrific opportunity for Lucy Guerin Inc.

Michelle Potter, 30 April 2023

Featured image: Promotional image for International Dance Day 2023. Photo credit: Yunnan Yang Liping, Art & Culture Company

Shirley McKechnie (1926–2022)

Shirley McKechnie, who has died in Melbourne at the age of 96, was one of Australia’s most influential dance educators. Born Shirley Elizabeth Gorham, she was educated at Albion State School and Williamstown High School. After matriculating from secondary school, and with the prospect of a career in science, began work in Melbourne in the research laboratories of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works.Ivey Wawn and David Huggins in a scene from Explicit Contents. Photo: Lucy Parakhina

But her interest in dance and movement had begun when she was very young and, while engaged with the Board of Works, she continued her interest by taking dance and composition classes with Hanny Exiner and Daisy Pirnitzer, both of whom were exponents of the European modern dance technique as brought to Australia by Gertrud Bodenwieser. Exiner and Pirnitzer were associated with the Melbourne-based Studio of Creative Dance and McKechnie also began dancing with the performance group attached to that Studio.

In 1945 McKechnie began teaching dance at a small school she established with the encouragement and support of the Ferntree Gully Arts Society. She continued to teach at this school until her marriage to Ken McKechnie in 1948. After the birth of her second child, she established a second school in Beaumaris, Melbourne, in 1955. This school became the foundation for her long career as a teacher, choreographer and dance director.

In 1963 McKechnie founded the Australian Contemporary Dance Theatre, whose dancers were drawn from the older students of her school. McKechnie was the company’s director and main choreographer between 1963 and 1973. During this time she choreographed a number of works for the company including Sketches on Themes of Paul Klee (1964), Earth Song (1965), Vision of Bones (1966), Sea Interludes (1966), Hymn of Jesus (1967), Of Spiralling Why (1967), The Other Generation (1968), Landscape of Dream and Memory (1970), The Finding of the Moon (1972), and Canon for Four Dancers (1973). During this period she also wrote and choreographed a lecture and performance titled The Dancer, the Dance and the Audience.

In the 1970s she worked closely with English dance advocate and educator Peter Brinson on two of the four momentous summer schools that took place at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW, between 1967 and 1976. The summer schools were initially an initiative of Dame Peggy van Praagh and the first two had a focus on classical ballet and audience development, and had broadly speaking a lecture/discussion-style emphasis. Those in which McKechnie and Brinson were closely involved highlighted choreography and creativity. More about the Armidale summer schools is at this link.

After graduating from Monash University with an honours degree in English literature in 1974 McKechnie founded and directed the first degree course in dance studies at an Australian tertiary institution at Rusden College, now Deakin University, in 1975. In her role as dance educator and advocate for dance she was also a co-founder of the Australian Association for Dance Education (AADE), now Ausdance, founding chair of the Tertiary Dance Council of Australia, founder of the Green Mill Dance Project, and a member of the research team for Conceiving Connections, a three year-study (2002-2004) building on the research project Unspoken Knowledges. Conceiving Connections aimed to increase an understanding of dance audiences by addressing problems that had been identified by the dance industry as critical to its viability among the contemporary performing arts in Australia.

McKechnie went on to have an acclaimed academic career and received many awards and accolades. Her awards included a Kenneth Myer Medallion for the Performing Arts in 1993, the Ausdance 21 Award for outstanding and distinguished service, and two Australian Dance Awards, including that for lifetime achievement in 2001. She was made an honorary fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1998, and an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2013. For a more detailed view of her academic career and her awards see Vale Shirley McKechnie AO on the Ausdance National website at this link.

Perhaps what I admired most about McKechnie’s career was her ’never give up’ approach. Dance is an art form in which so many possibilities are available as one moves through life. McKechnie found and explored so many of them. I mentioned this aspect of her life in relation to a film made by Sue Healey in 2015 when I wrote:

McKechnie has influenced many people working in the area of contemporary dance in Australia and, when a stroke left her unable to continue her own practice, she turned to writing, largely in the field of cognition. As a result, this short film is not so much about how to continue to drive the body physically as one ages, but about how to reinvent oneself in order to remain active within the field of dance.

Shirley McKechnie in a still from Sue Healey's short film 'Shirley McKechnie'
Still from Sue Healy’s short film Shirley McKechnie, 2015

McKechnie spent her final years at Mayflower Brighton Aged Care and I recall that she was thinking of donating her dance library to Mayflower when she entered that centre. That way she would continue to have access to what had been written about the art form that she loved so much.

Shirley McKechnie is survived by her two sons, Garry and Graeme, and their families.

Shirley Elizabeth McKechnie, AO: born Melbourne 18 June 1926; died Melbourne 5 September 2022

Michelle Potter, 8 September 2022

Featured image: Portrait of Shirley McKechnie, 2006. Photo: © Julie Dyson

Note on source materials for this obituary: Much of the material in this obituary comes from items held by the National Library of Australia in Canberra, including Papers of Shirley McKechnie (MS 9553), and a short biography from the website Australia Dancing (which was established at the National Library in ca. 2002 but which has not been active since 2012). I have directly taken sections from this biography, which I wrote in 2005. The Library’s material also includes oral histories with McKechnie as interviewee, and many oral histories that she recorded with contemporary dancers and choreographers for various projects in which she was involved, or which she initiated.

Russell Kerr (1930–2022) Scripting the Dreams

This is an expanded version of an obituary written by Jennifer Shennan and published in The Dominion Post online on 2 April 2022.

Russell Kerr, leading light of ballet in New Zealand, has died in Christchurch aged 92. The legendary dancer, teacher, choreographer and producer influenced generations of New Zealand dancers. Kerr’s hallmark talent was to absorb music so as to draw out character, narrative, human interest, emotion, poetry and comedy that ballet in the theatre can offer. Thrusting your leg high in the air, or even behind your head, just because you can, is the empty gesture of perfunctory performance that he found exasperating. Shouting and sneering at dancers, telling them they are not good enough, was anathema to him. One dancer commented, ‘Mr Kerr always treated you as an artist so you behaved like one.’

Born in Auckland in 1930, the younger of two sons, Russell was already learning piano from his mother, a qualified teacher, when a doctor recommended dance classes to strengthen against the rheumatoid arthritis that ailed the child. Did that doctor follow the remarkable career that ensued from his advice?  Years later Russell was asked if it was difficult, back then, to be the only boy in a ballet school of girl pupils? He chuckled, ‘Oh no, it was marvellous—there I was in a room full of girls and no competition for their attention. It was great fun.’

Kerr made impressive progress both in dancing and piano, achieving LTCL level, then starting to teach. He could have been a musician, but dancing won out when in 1951 he was awarded a Government bursary to study abroad. In London he trained at Sadler’s Wells, with Stanislaw Idzikowski (a dancer in both Pavlova’s and Diaghilev’s companies), and also Spanish dance with Elsa Brunelleschi. Upon her advice and just for the experience, he went to an audition at the leading flamenco company of José Greco. Flamenco would be one of the world’s most demanding dance forms, both technically and musically. Remarkably, he was offered the job, providing he changed his name to Rubio Caro! How fitting that Kerr’s first contract was as a dancing musician. When asked later how he’d managed it he replied, ‘Oh, I just followed the others.’

Russell Kerr in 1951 shortly before leaving for England

After a time, Sadler’s Wells’ leading choreographer, Frederick Ashton, declared Russell’s body not suitably shaped for ballet. ‘I’ll show you’ he muttered to himself, and so he did. In a performance of Alice in Wonderland, he scored recognition in a review (‘Kerr’s performance as a snail was so lifelike you could almost see the slimy trail he left behind as he crossed the stage.’ As he later pointed out, ‘not many dancers are complimented in review for their slimy trails’). A sense of humour and irony was always hovering.

Kerr danced with Ballet Rambert, and was encouraged towards choreography by director Marie Rambert. Later he joined Festival Ballet, rising to the rank of soloist, earning recognition for his performances in Schéhérazade, Prince Igor, Coppélia, Petrouchka among others. Nicholas Beriosov had been regisseur to choreographer Fokine in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Kerr’s work with him at Festival Ballet lent a pedigree to his later productions from that repertoire as attuned and authentic as any in the world.

The investment of his Government bursary was exponentially repaid when Russell, now married to dancer June Greenhalgh, returned to New Zealand in 1957. He told me he spent the ship’s entire journey sitting in a deck chair planning how to establish a ballet company that might in time become a national one. Upon arrival he was astonished to learn that Poul Gnatt, formerly with Royal Danish Ballet, had already formed the New Zealand Ballet and, thanks to Community Arts Service and Friends of the Ballet since 1953, ‘…they were touring to places in my country I’d never even heard of. So I ditched my plans and Poul and I found a way to work together.’

Kerr became partner and later director of Nettleton-Edwards-Kerr school of ballet in Auckland. (I was an 11 year old pupil there. It was obvious that Mr Kerr was a fine teacher, encouraging aspiration though not competition. We became friends for life). Auckland Ballet Theatre had existed for some years but Kerr built up its size and reputation, staging over 30 productions. Perhaps the highlight of these was a season of Swan Lake on a stage on Western Springs lake. He produced a series, Background to Ballet, for Television New Zealand in its first year of broadcasting, and also choreographed many productions for Frank Poore’s Light Opera Company.

In 1959, New Zealand Ballet and Auckland Ballet Theatre combined in the United Ballet Season, involving dancers June Greenhalgh, Rowena Jackson, Philip Chatfield, Sara Neil and others. The program included Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor to Borodin’s sensuous score, and Prismatic Variations, co-choreographed by Kerr and Gnatt, to Brahms’ glorious St Anthony Chorale. Music as well as dance audiences in Auckland were astonished, and the triumphant season was repeated with equal success the following year in Wellington, when Anne Rowse joined the cast.

June Greenhalgh & Russell Kerr in Prismatic Variations.Choreographed by Russell Kerr and Poul Gnatt. New Zealand Ballet 1960
June Greenhalgh and Russell Kerr in Prismatic Variations, 1960. Photo: © John Ashton

In 1960 a trust to oversee the New Zealand Ballet’s future was formed, and by 1962 Kerr was appointed Artistic Director. His stagings of classics—Giselle, Swan Lake, La Sylphide, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Coppélia, Les Sylphides, Schéhérazade—were balanced with new works, including the mysterious Charade, and whimsical One in Five. Kerr used compositions by Greig, Prokofiev, Liszt, Saint-Saens and Copland for his own prolific choreographic output—Concerto, Alice in Wonderland, Carnival of the Animals, Peter and the Wolf, The Alchemist, The Stranger. In 1964 he invited New Zealander Alexander Grant who had an established reputation as a character dancer with England’s Royal Ballet, to perform the lead role in Petrouchka, a superb production that alone would have earned Kerr worldwide recognition.

A fire at the company headquarters in 1967 meant a disastrous loss of sets and costumes that only added to the colossal demands of running the company on close to a shoestring budget. Kerr’s health was in an extremely parlous state. In 1969 Gnatt returned from Australia and as interim director, with the redoubtable Beatrice Ashton as manager, kept the company on the road.

Russell had worked closely with Jon Trimmer, the country’s leading dancer, and his wife Jacqui Oswald, dancer and ballet mistress. They later joined him at the New Zealand Dance Centre he had established in Auckland, developing an interesting new repertoire. The Trimmers remember, ‘…Russell would send us out into the park, the street or the zoo, to watch people and animals, study their gait and gestures, to bring character to our roles.’ Kerr also mentored and choreographed for Limbs Dance Company. The NZDC operated until 1977, though these were impecunious and difficult years for the Kerr family. But courage and the sticking place were found, and Russell, as always, let music be his guide.

In 1978 he was appointed director at Southern Ballet Theatre, which proved lucky for Christchurch as he stayed there until 1990, later working with Sherilyn Kennedy and Carl Myers. In 1983 Harry Haythorne as NZB’s artistic director invited all previous directors to contribute to a gala season to mark the company’s 30th anniversary. Kerr’s satirical Salute, to Ibert, had Jon Trimmer cavorting as a high and heady Louis XIV.

His two lively ballets for children, based on stories by author-illustrator Gavin Bishop—Terrible Tom and Te Maia and the Sea Devil—proved highly successful, but there was a whole new chapter in Kerr’s career awaiting. After Scripting the Dreams, with composer Philip Norman, he made the full-length ballet, A Christmas Carol, a poignant staging alive with characters from Dickens’ novel, with design by Peter Lees-Jeffries. (The later production at RNZB had new design by Kristian Fredrikson).

Possibly the triumph of Kerr’s choreographies, and certainly one of RNZB’s best, was Peter Pan, again with Norman and Fredrikson, with memorable performances by Jon Trimmer as an alluring Captain Hook, Shannon Dawson as the dim-witted Pirate Smee, and Jane Turner an exquisite mercurial Tinkerbell.

Study for Captain Hook in Russell Kerr's 'Peter Pan', 1999. © 1998 Kristian Fredrikson
Study for Captain Hook and Peter Pan in Russell Kerr’s Peter Pan, 1999. © 1998 Kristian Fredrikson

His sensitively nuanced productions of Swan Lake became benchmarks of the ever-renewing classic that deals with mortality and grief.

Russell Kerr rehearsing 'Swan Lake'. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 1997. Photo: © Maarten Holl
Russell Kerr rehearsing ‘Swan Lake’. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 1997. Photo: © Maarten Holl

Leading New Zealand dancers who credit Russell for his formative mentoring include Patricia Rianne, whose Nutcracker and Bliss, after Katherine Mansfield, are evidence of her claim, ‘I never worked with a better or more musical dance mind.’ Among many others are Rosemary Johnston, Kerry-Anne Gilberd, Dawn Sanders, Martin James, Geordan Wilcox, Jane Turner, Diana Shand, Turid Revfeim, Shannon Dawson, Toby Behan—through to Abigail Boyle and Loughlan Prior.

An unprecedented season happened in 1993 when Russell cast Douglas Wright, the country’s leading contemporary dancer, in the title role of Petrouchka. He claimed Wright’s performances challenged the legendary Nijinsky.

An annual series named in his honour, The Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts, saw the 2021 session about his own life and career movingly delivered by his lifelong colleague and friend, Anne Rowse. The lecture was graced by a dance, Journey, that Russell had choreographed for two Japanese students who came to study with him. It would be the last performance of his work, the more poignant for that.

Russell was writing his memoirs in the last few years, admitting the struggle but determined to keep going. He said, ‘Writing about my problem with drink is going to be a very difficult chapter.’ Russell had told Brian Edwards in a memorable radio interview decades back, of the exhausting time when his colossal work commitments had driven him ‘to think that the solution to every problem lay in the bottom of the bottle.’  He eventually managed to turn that around and thereafter remained teetotal for life—but by admitting it on national radio, he was offering hope to anyone with a similar burden, himself proof that there is a way out of darkness.

He viewed the sunrise as an invitation to do something with the day. He would bring June a cup of tea but not let her drink it till she had greeted the sun. Recently he took great joy in seeing photos of my baby granddaughter, rejoicing to be reminded of the hope a new life brings to a family.

Russell concurred with the sentiment expressed in Jo Thorpe’s fine poem, The dance writer’s dilemma (reproduced in Royal New Zealand Ballet at 60):

… the thing…
which has nothing to do with epitaph
which has nothing to do with stone.
I just know I walk differently
out into  air
because of what dance does sometimes.

Russell Kerr was a good and decent family man, loyal friend, master teacher and choreographer, proud of his work but modest by nature, resourceful and determined by personality, honest in communication, distressed by unkindness, a leader by example. A phenomenal and irreplaceable talent, he was a very great New Zealander. 

He is survived by son David, daughter Yvette and their families.

Russell Kerr photographed in 2007

Russell Ian Kerr, QSM, ONZM, Arts Foundation Icon
Born Auckland 10 February 1930
Married June, née Greenhalgh, one son (David), one daughter(Yvette)
Died.Christchurch 28 March, 2022

Sources: David Kerr, Anne Rowse, Jon Trimmer, Patricia Rianne, Rosemary Buchanan, Martin James, Mary-Jane O’Reilly, Ou Lu.

Jennifer Shennan, 3 April 2022

Featured image: Russell Kerr as director of Southern Ballet in 1983

Dance diary. March 2022

  • Anna Karenina. The Australian Ballet

During March I watched a streamed showing of Anna Karenina from the Australian Ballet. Choreographed by Ukrainian-born choreographer (currently resident in the United States) Yuri Possokhov, this production of Anna Karenina premiered in 2021 in Adelaide with just a few performances, but its presentation in other States had to be cancelled, and cancelled, until March 2022 when it opened in Melbourne.

I was struck more than anything by the spectacular set design (Tom Pye), which for the most part was quite minimal but nevertheless evocative, and which frequently moved seamlessly to new features as locations changed. But I found the lighting (David Finn) quite dark for most of the production, with the major exception being the peasant-style ending, which I’m not sure was an essential part of the story to tell the truth. I’m not sure either if the consuming darkness was more a result of the streaming situation or part of the overall production. But the darkness was annoying.

There were some strong performances from Robyn Hendricks as Anna and Callum Linnane as Vronsky but perhaps the strongest characterisations came from Benedicte Bemet as Kitty and Brett Chynoweth as Levin. But I am not sure that this production is ideal for streaming and I am looking forward to seeing it live in Sydney in April.

Bendicte Bemet and Brett Chynoweth in Anna Karenina. The Australia Ballet, 2022. Photo: © Jeff Busby

But on the issue of the history of productions based on the Tolstoy novel Anna Karenina, I recently came across a ’Stage Direction’ article by Stephen A. Russell published on the website of the Sydney Opera House. It gave an interesting, short introduction to the variety of ways in which the novel has been used in a theatrical manner. The article is currently available at this link, although may not be there for the long term.

  • Henry Danton (1919-2022)

The death of leading dance personality Henry Danton was announced back in February. Read the obituary by Jane Pritchard published in The Guardian at this link.

Henry Danton also played a significant role in the growth of professional ballet in Australia. He was a guest artist with the Melbourne-based National Theatre Ballet over several years and during that time consistently partnered Lynne Golding, including in the National’s full-length production of Swan Lake and in Protée, staged for the company by Ballets Russes dancer Kira Bousloff before she moved to Perth to establish West Australian Ballet.

  • Bangarra Dance Theatre

Bangarra Dance Theatre recently announced the departure from the company of three dancers, wonderful artists who have given audiences so much pleasure in recent productions. Baden Hitchcock, Rika Hamaguchi and Bradley Smith have left the company to pursue other options. All three are beautiful dancers and I’m sure their future careers will continue to give us pleasure.

Rika Hamaguchi in the final scene from SandSong. Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2021. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Other news from Bangarra is that the company’s children’s show Waru—journey of the small turtle, cancelled last year due to COVID, will be coming to the stage later this year. Conceived and created by Stephen Page and Hunter Page-Lochard, along with former Bangarra dancers and choreographers Sani Townson and Elma Kris, Waru tells the story of Migi the turtle who navigates her way back to the island where she was born. Waru is on in Sydney from 24 September to 9 October 2022 in the Studio Theatre at Bangarra’s premises at Walsh Bay.

  • Russell Kerr (1930-2022)

Prominent New Zealand dance personality Russell Kerr died in Christchurch earlier this month. Read an obituary with a great range of images at this link. I am expecting an obituary from his close friend and colleague Jennifer Shennan shortly and will publish it on this site when received. For further material on Russell Kerr and his activities on this website follow this tag.

Michelle Potter, 31 March 2022

Featured image: Robyn Hendricks as Anna and Callum Linnane as Vronsky in Anna Karenina. The Australian Ballet, 2022. Photo: © Jeff Busby

Louis Solino (1941–2022)

by Jennifer Shennan

Louis Solino was for years a member of the celebrated José Limón Dance Company of New York. He later staged many works from that company’s talisman repertoire when a tutor at New Zealand School of Dance. Louis was partner of New Zealander Paul Jenden, both of them major contributors to Wellington’s theatre life.

Early drawn to dance, Louis performed in American Bandstand, Philadelphia’s hugely popular tv music and dance show. After studies in New York, he joined the Limón Dance Company in 1968, staying for 11 years. The company toured widely, including South America, Poland and Soviet Russia, encountering interesting audience reactions to the ‘new’ art.

In 1981 Anne Rowse, director of New Zealand School of Dance, on a study tour to establish connections for possible development at the school, had a fruitful and far-reaching meeting with Louis and Paul (who was studying dance and design in New York).  

Choreographies by Mexican-born Limón and fellow-artist Doris Humphrey are classics of American modern dance, timeless works of thematic power and intrinsic musicality. Anne understood the importance of that heritage, and upon learning that Paul was returning home, invited Louis to tutor at NZSD. She recalls, ‘He taught and staged wonderful repertoire, influencing many students into their subsequent careers … Carolyn Lambourn, Kate O’Rourke, Ursula Robb, Daniel Belton, Sarah Lawrey, Alannah Eliot, Alexandra Blair are only a few who come to mind.’

Louis worked at NZSD from 1982 to 1998. Sue Nicholls on the faculty recalls, ’I have a distinct vision of Louis with a very straight back, chin slightly dropped and direct focus. I really admired his care in presenting these works, and the students showed a deep respect for him and this heritage.’ Louis, a disciplined task-master, never handed out praise before it was earned, even if then, but guarded accuracy and integrity of each choreography. These included There is a Time, The Unsung, La Malinche, Concerto Grosso, Choreographic Offering, Dances for Isadora, The Shakers, Day on Earth, Two Ecstatic Themes, Air for the G String. It was phenomenal that Louis had memorised all those works. While the notated dance scores sent from New York were interesting, he scarcely needed to consult them.  Everything was in his head and heart.

Dance studies seminars in Victoria University of Wellington’s Continuing Education program offered studio showings of The Moor’s Pavane—(Louis reprised the role of Iago he had played opposite Limón’s and also Erik Bruhn’s Othello. Jenden danced The Moor, Carolyn Lambourn Desdemona, Claire Martin Emilia) allowing us insight into the jewel in the crown of Limón’s repertoire. (Years later another student Daniel Belton would dance Iago to Irek Mukhamedov’s Othello in Kim Brandstrup’s European company. This is dance lineage of the highest order). 

Equally memorable was Louis’ staging of Limón’s solo Chaconne, impeccably danced by Paul Jenden, the Bach/Busoni music stunningly played by pianist Richard Mapp. Jenden in slimline dark trousers and soft silk shirt, in Adam Concert Room, at a Music Teachers’ symposium and in the Lutheran church in Newtown, filled these bound spaces with consummate control and a noble dance quality. They rank among the most exquisite performances I have witnessed. 

A graduand dancer may never perform professionally again, but from Solino’s stagings they would carry memories for life. Limón’s choreographic style and aesthetic is minimalist, finely honed and paced, character embedded within the choreography, needing no embellishment, strain or added emotion. Just the moves as set. 

Louis and many of his colleagues were devastated when his teaching tenure at NZSD ended. He continued free-lance teaching, working with Fleur de Thier’s Rebound dance company in Christchurch and in a number of films, but his talents were absurdly under-used.

Jenden’s theatrical output was prolific, and he made roles for Louis wherever possible—in the Hairy Maclary shows, The Gay Fandango, musicals and pantomimes at Circa or Bats, seasons of Fairy Stories (with Jon Trimmer also in the cast)—shows laced with biting satire and high-camp naughtiness. Jenden’s legendary Swan Lake and Giselle, 20 minute one-man shows, hilariously mocking perfunctory ballet productions, with Bill Sheat claiming these were the funniest things he’d seen in the theatre.

In 2013, after serious illness with cancer, Jenden created C— The Musical at Circa. Louis played the silent role of Carcinoma and musician Sue Alexander recalls him as ‘an eerie, gaunt, elegant baroque figure, dressed in a long cape which I had to pass as it lay on the floor backstage, the only position from which Louis could put it on. It was about 20 feet long and spread along the floor like a dark, densely textured Venetian corpse.’

Voluminous sky-blue silk capes are worn in Doris Humphrey’s elegaic Air for the G String (Louis left the costumes here when he returned to America, trusting us to choose the appropriate celebratory or commemorative occasions to dance it). One of the costume labels reads ‘Renata’. Renata Donovan subsequently studied nursing, and I happened to meet her in ICU of Wellington Hospital, nursing the dying Paul Jenden. She did her work with care and compassion, sat with Louis in the waiting room, then went back to nurse the patient. Just the moves as set.

Louis returned to America in 2014. Our farewell to him included Air, and a striking rendition of Two Ecstatic Themes danced by Lucy Marinkovich. Grateful students gifted him a pounamu pendant which he wore constantly, ‘a piece of Aotearoa to take with me’ so no surprise to see it still at his throat when former students, led by Michael Long, enterprisingly fund-raised to bring Louis back to Wellington for the school’s 50th anniversary in 2017.  I took him to visit revered kuia, Tiahuia Gray (whose daughter Merenia and son Tanemahuta had both been Louis’ students) to bless the pounamu with a karakia. Tiahuia asked Louis his favourite word so as to name the taonga.  He answered ‘Paul’.

Louis lived his last years with family in New Jersey, and died after a long illness. He is survived by his sisters, Marysue Palen, Joann Fry and their families.

Louis Solino, born 7 February 1941, Philadelphia; died 5 January 2022, New Jersey

An edited version of this obituary first appeared in New Zealand in Stuff Entertainment on 22 January 2022.
Sources: Anne Rowse, Felicity Hamill, Daniel Belton, Sarah Lawrey, Jane Woodhall,  Richard Mapp, Carolyn Lambourn, Sue Nicholls, Sue Alexander

Jennifer Shennan, 29 January 2022

Featured image: Louis Solino in The Nero Show. Circa Theatre, Wellington, 2010. Photo: © Stephen A’Court. Courtesy Circa Theatre photo archive