Possum Magic. The Ballet. The Australian Ballet School

8 December 2023. The Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne

I was more than curious when I heard that Loughlan Prior was preparing a ballet based on the much-loved children’s book by Mem Fox, Possum Magic. I mean how on earth was he going to manage the invisibility of Hush, the possum character on whom Grandma Poss casts a spell making Hush disappear from sight in order to save her from danger in the bush? Despite the invisibility, Hush continues to play an ongoing, major role as her visibility slowly reappears. She rarely leaves the stage.

Well I need not have worried. It all happened with cleverly introduced costume changes and terrific input from the other characters who acted beautifully throughout to stage a pretence that they couldn’t see Hush while she was under the spell of invisibility.

Grandma Poss has forgotten the magic that will return Hush to a state of visibility and, as the story progresses, the invisible Hush and Grandma Poss hop on a bike and travel through the Australian countryside and the country’s major cities, nicely shown through snippets of film, looking for human food that might restore Hush’s visibility. After eating some typical Australian delicacies at various stops, including Pavlova, Lamingtons, Vegemite, Minties, Anzac biscuits and others, Hush returns slowly to a visible state. The critical items are Pavlova, Vegemite and Lamingtons and the return to visibility, and arrival back in the bush where the characters live, is warmly welcomed by everyone.

Milana Gould as Hush danced beautifully. Her finely boned body and her long and flexible limbs brought out the best in Prior’s choreography, which shows not only classical steps and combinations, but some more contemporary movements as well. Kit Thompson as Grandma Poss gave an outstanding performance with excellent stage presence and I especially enjoyed watching two sparring kangaroos (Thomas Boddington and Tadgh Robinson) and an impressive and quite dominant koala (Ethan Mrmacovski).

Possum Magic. The Ballet showed Loughlan Prior at his theatrical best. His insertion of film was exceptional as was his varied choreography to suit the characters, especially for the Pavlova ladies whose dancing was very classical indeed. His collaborators worked beautifully with him with a very danceable score from Claire Cowan, costumes and set from Emma Kingsbury (I especially loved the Pavlova tutus—red skirts trimmed with white Pavlova slices around the edges); and lighting from Jon Buswell. The ballet is a delight to watch and encapsulates beautifully the Mem Fox book on which it is based. It deserves further showings.

Grandma Poss and Hush (foreground) with Palova ladies in Perth. Photo: © Sergey Konstantinov

The second half of the program consisted of three short items, Degas dances from Paul Knobloch and largely danced by Level 4 students of the School with some outstanding solo sections from Ruito Takabatake; Nexus from Stephen Baynes for Level 7 students; and Techno Requiem from Lucas Jervies showing a contemporary dance style and strongly performed by Level 8 students. I was particularly thrilled to see Nexus as Baynes’ choreography is not often on show these days. Nexus, danced to Capriccio for Piano and String Orchestra by Graeme Koehne, shows Baynes’ innate musicality, his beautiful and sometimes surprising use of space, and his unique choreographic style and structure. But in all this second part showed off the range of dance that is taught at the Australian Ballet School.

Michelle Potter, 13 December 2023

Featured image: The characters in Possum Magic. The Ballet with Milana Gould as Hush (centre, held aloft by Koala). Photo: © Sergey Konstantinov


Lucette Aldous, AC (1938-2021)

One of Australia’s best known and most admired ballerinas, Lucette Aldous, has died in Perth at the age of 82.

New Zealand-born, Lucette Aldous trained in Brisbane with Phyllis Danaher and then in Sydney at the Scully-Borovansky School where her main teacher was Kathleen Danetree. She was awarded the Frances Scully Scholarship to continue her training overseas and entered the Royal Ballet School in London in 1955.

In 1957 she began her professional career with Ballet Rambert where she danced not only the classics like Giselle and Coppélia and but also early works by Antony Tudor, Frederick Ashton, Walter Gore, John Cranko and Kenneth MacMillan. Her time with Rambert also included a 1957 tour to China.

Following her time with Rambert she danced with London Festival Ballet and then with the Royal Ballet (second company). It was while working with the Royal Ballet that she first performed with Rudolf Nureyev, partnering him in Nutcracker during a European tour.

Her partnership with Nureyev blossomed after she returned to Australia in 1970. She joined the Australian Ballet that year and danced the role of Kitri to Nureyev’s Basilio in Don Quixote, jointly directed by Nureyev and Robert Helpmann. The role of Kitri particularly suited Aldous’ vivacious and effervescent personality. She also performed with extraordinary technical accomplishment both on stage and in the film version, which premiered in 1973, when she truly gave Nureyev a ‘run for his money’ —no easy feat. Over her career she did, however, dance the role with others.

Lucette Aldous and Robert Helpmann in rehearsal for the film, 'Don Quixote', the Australian Ballet 1972. Photo: Don Edwards
Lucette Aldous and Robert Helpmann in rehearsal for the film production of Don Quixote. The Australian Ballet 1972. Photo: Don Edwards. National Library of Australia

Aldous danced a wide variety of roles while with the Australian Ballet and another milestone in her career occurred in 1975 when Ronald Hynd created the role of Valencienne on her in his production of The Merry Widow. During the 1970s Aldous continued to guest with companies in England, America and Europe and had a featured role with Fernando Bujones in the film The Turning Point.

Kelvin Coe and Lucette Aldous in Frederick Ashton’s The Two Pigeons. The Australian Ballet, 1975. Photo: Walter Stringer. National Library of Australia

After retiring from full-time performing in the mid 1970s Aldous taught at the Australian Ballet School and then in 1982 joined the faculty of the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), Edith Cowan University, Perth. She and husband Alan Alder, whom Aldous had married in 1972, also spent a number of months in St Petersburg studying the teaching methods and philosophy behind the Vaganova system of training as espoused by the Kirov ballet school. Aldous has also been an advocate of Boris Kniaseff’s floor barre as a system of training.

After retiring from full-time work at WAAPA, Aldous continued to live in Perth and to coach, adjudicate and teach.

In 1999 Aldous received an honorary doctorate from Edith Cowan University while at the Australian Dance Awards she received the award for Services to Dance in 2001 and Lifetime Achievement in 2009. In the Australia Day Honours List of 2018 she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

Lucette Aldous is survived by her daughter, Floeur Alder.

Lucette Aldous: born Auckland, New Zealand, 26 September 1938; died Perth, Australia, 5 June 2021

Michelle Potter, 6 June 2021

Some resources:
Lucette Aldous was interviewed for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program in 1999. The interview is available online and is full of information about her background as well as containing many fascinating anecdotes about those she worked with during her extensive career. Listen at this link.

Aldous has also featured in a 2001 film by Michelle Mahrer, The Three Ballerinas. She appears along with Marilyn Rowe and Marilyn Jones in the trailer below.

She also appears in Sue Healey’s On View Series. Read a little about it at this link.

Lucette Aldous in a sitll from Sue Healey's short film 'Lucette Aldous'.
Lucette Aldous in stills from Sue Healey’s short film Lucette Aldous

Featured image: Portrait of Lucette Aldous as Kitri in Don Quixote. The Australian Ballet, 1970. Photo: Walter Stringer. National Library of Australia

Memorial for Dame Margaret Scott

15 March 2019. State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne

Dame Margaret Scott was farewelled with style and grace, and more than a little bit of emotion, in a memorial event arranged by the Australian Ballet and the Australian Ballet School and presented in Melbourne on 15 March 2019.

It began with an initial surprise as we entered the auditorium of the State Theatre. I wondered why we were asked to enter through the door at the back of the auditoriun. Well, it was so that we would properly enjoy the guard of honour made by two rows of young dancers from the Australian Ballet School, the girls dressed in simple white tutus and the boys in black tights and white shirts. They were lined up on each side of the auditorium stretching pretty much from the last row of the stalls down to the stage. On the stage a giant screen had been lowered and we saw an image of a smiling Maggie, full of the joy of life. And standing in the middle of a row close to the front was Maggie’s husband, Professor Derek Denton, watching as we entered.

Following an introduction from Steven Heathcote and an opening tribute from Maggie’s younger son, Angus Denton, reminiscences were given by several of Maggie’s former students and colleagues including Colin Peasley, David McAllister, Graeme Murphy, Marilyn Rowe and Lisa Pavane. Those who auditioned for her as young and hopeful dancers all admitted to being in awe of Maggie at first, but all continued to say how much they had grown to love and respect her.

Interspersed among the spoken tributes were three short performances. The first was Embrace, created by Paulina Quinteros, which was accompanied on the printed program by the phrase ‘For Dick, Matthew and Angus’, to which was added the words ‘Lucky are those who have experienced the sweetness of loving’. It was danced by Chloe Reynolds and Daniel Savetta (with Steven Heathcote playing a small role). Embrace was followed by the Act II pas de deux from Nutcracker. The Story of Clara, danced by Benedicte Bemet and Jarryd Madden. Level 8 students of the Australian Ballet School gave the third performance, a movement from Stephen Baynes’ Ballo Barocco.

But the most moving moments were left till last when a series of images of Maggie, covering the gamut of her life and career, were flashed across the screen.

The end seemed to have been reached when Jim McFarlane’s iconic image from Nutcracker (above left) appeared and all went dark. But no, Earl Carter’s equally iconic Nutcracker image appeared of Maggie rejoicing in the pleasures she experienced in Act I of Nutcracker (above right). Then, from each side of the stage a procession of students, former dancers and others entered and, in single file, moved to the centre of the stage where each placed a single white rose on the floor in front of Maggie’s image before making a slow exit. A beautiful tribute to an exceptional woman.

A State Memorial for Dame Margaret will be held on 22 March at the National Gallery of Victoria International commencing at 10:00 am. My obituary for her is at this link.

Michelle Potter, 17 March 2019

Featured image: Maggie Scott in Gala Performance (detail with text added). From the Ballet Rambert souvenir program for its 1947–1949 Australian tour

Dancers from the Australian Ballet School in 'Alegrias'. Photo Sergey Konstantinov

Showcase 2018. The Australian Ballet School

22 September 2018. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre

The Australian Ballet School’s annual Showcase came to Canberra this year, and what a treat it was. It is, of course, what it says it is, a showcase of dancing by students of different levels studying at the Australian Ballet School. But it was such an interesting and pleasurable experience to see these students, emerging professional dancers, in a program of eight very different items from seven different choreographers.

Showcase 2018 opened with Alegrias, a feisty flamenco item choreographed by Areti Boyaci, teacher of Spanish dance to Australian Ballet School’s senior students. It was danced by the graduating class (Level 8) to a live accompaniment by guitarist Werner Neumann. Then followed  Mark Annear’s Waltz from Birthday Celebration, danced by youthful, tutu-clad dancers largely from Level 5; the Dryad scene from Don Quixote Act II; a charming new creation, Wolfgang Dance, from Simon Dow, again performed by Level 5 students; Paul Knobloch’s Valetta for the graduating class, which Knobloch choreographed in memory of his grandmother whose name was Valetta; another new creation, Ballo Barocco, from Stephen Baynes made on Level 7 dancers; Heart Strings, also new, from contemporary teacher Margaret Wilson for Level 6 students; and finally a tango-flavoured item from Simon Dow, Danza de la Vida, for the graduating class.

Two items stood out for me: Ballo Barocco and Heart Strings. Ballo Barocco, danced to four excerpts from different concerti by J. S. Bach, showed Baynes, currently resident choreographer with the Australian Ballet, at his musical best.  The cast of 16 moved smoothly and fluidly from one sculptural pose to another. In between these poses we saw movements in canon form, some spectacular dancing from the men, along with admirable partnering. I loved too the simple, elegant lines of the costumes by Maree Strachan that did not distract from the choreography but, rather, allowed it to shine.

Level 7 dancers from the Australian Ballet School in Stephen Baynes' 'Ballet Barocco'. Showcase 2018. Photo: Sergeyev Konstantinov
Level 7 dancers from the Australian Ballet School in Stephen Baynes’ Ballet Barocco. Showcase 2018. Photo: © Sergey Konstantinov

Margaret Wilson teaches contemporary dance at the Australian Ballet School and I was expecting something rather different from what was presented to us in Heart Strings. With the girls on pointe and clear references to ballet technique, to me the work was contemporary ballet. It was beautifully performed and seemed to focus on limbs—long and extended, lifted and stretched. But what really tore at the heart strings for me was the underlying narrative, which drew on aspects of adolescent life: arguments, bullying, young love and the like. These dancers, adolescents themselves, captured so clearly  the emotion behind these life-moments and just swept us along.

Other highlights? The male dancing in Valetta, which is made for 13 male dancers and just one female artist, was often quite spectacular with its strong patterns and fast pace. The principal male dancer, Thomas McClintock, danced exceptionally well, but in addition had extraordinary stage presence. Someone to watch as he embarks on his professional career. Then it was impossible not to be charmed by the cheekiness of Wolfgang Dance. Performed to the Allegro from Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the youngest of the students who toured to Canberra drew us into their games onstage and peeped at us from the wings as they made their exits.

Dancers from the Australian Ballet School in 'Valetta', Showcase 2018. Photo: Sergey Konstantinov
Dancers from the Australian Ballet School in Valetta, Showcase 2018. Photo: Sergey Konstantinov

The one item that left me a little cold was the Dryad scene from Don Quixote.  It was not the dancing that worried me and I especially enjoyed the performance by Ella Chambers as Cupid. But Barry Kay’s costumes are so over decorated, especially those headdresses. I feel it is time to retire them.

Despite the overdressed Dryads, Showcase 2018 gave us a glimpse of a promising future for ballet in Australia.

Michelle Potter, 24 September 2018

Featured image: Dancers from the Australian Ballet School in Alegrias. Photo: © Sergey Konstantinov

Dancers from the Australian Ballet School in 'Alegrias'. Photo Sergey Konstantinov
Terri Charlesworth. Photo Darren Clark

Terri Charlesworth. Lifetime Achievement Award

The Australian Dance Awards has just announced that the winner of the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for 2016 is Perth dance identity, Terri Charlesworth. The award will be presented at a ceremony in Perth on 18 September when recipients of awards in other categories will also be announced.

The citation that was attached to the award covers the main aspects of Charlesworth’s long and much-admired career in dance, although her qualities as a teacher are beautifully summed up by former Australian Ballet principal, Lisa Bolte. Charlesworth was a teacher at the Australian Ballet School between 1982 and 1986 and Bolte was one of her pupils during that period. In my biography of Dame Margaret Scott, Bolte recalls:

I always felt that Terri came at dancing from both a very technical and holistic approach to life and dance. She also worked on visualisation with everything, from finding, strengthening and relaxing certain muscles, to visualising rings on your fingers to attain a certain classical port de bras or to lengthen the arms. I worked closely with her for my graduation performance as the Sugar Plum Fairy in Robert Ray’s Nutcracker in 1985. We worked on technique, including port de brasépaulement, and very importantly on the musical phrasing. And Terri inspired me to attain the style by bringing books with pictures of lithographs I could study to attain the style. It was a complete inspiration.—Dame Maggie Scott. A life in dance (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2014), pp. 235–236.

With many congratulations to Terri Charlesworth!

Michelle Potter, 25 August 2016

Featured image: Terri Charlesworth. Photo: © Darren Clark

Terri Charlesworth. Photo Darren Clark

Hannah O’Neill. ‘First dancer’

Hannah O’Neill has been promoted to ‘first dancer’ [premier danseur—literal translation first dancer] with the Paris Opera Ballet. Follow this link for the results of the competitive round for female dancers, which took place on 3 November. O’Neill danced the set piece, Spring from The Four Seasons by Jerome Robbins, and her chosen piece, the variation from Act III of Nureyev’s production of Raymonda.

This is an absolutely astonishing feat given that O’Neill graduated from the Australian Ballet School only four years ago in 2011. Her seasonal contract with the Paris Opera Ballet began shortly afterwards with a permanent contract for life being offered in mid 2013.

Félicitations!

Michelle Potter, 4 November 2015

Gailene Stock (1946—2014)

Gailene Stock, most recently director of the Royal Ballet School, has died from complications resulting from a brain tumour. Stock had been ill since 2013. Born in Ballarat, Victoria, and named Gail Stock by her parents, she changed her first name to Gailene at the request of Peggy van Praagh, artistic director of the Australian Ballet, who thought that the name ‘Gail’ was too short.

Gailene Stock and Gary Norman, Melbourne 2012. Photo © Jean Stewart

Stock was the middle child in a family of three girls born to Roy and Sylvia Stock. When Stock was quite small, the family moved to Perth, Western Australia, when her father, a journalist, took a job there. It was in Perth that she took her first dance lessons. When the family moved to Melbourne after a short time in Perth, Stock took up dancing more seriously at the Himing School of Dance where she studied the Cecchetti syllabus. As a teenager she studied with Paul Hammond who prepared her for her major examinations of the Royal Academy of Dance. Her dance training was interrupted for two long periods, however, first as a result of a severe bout of poliomyelitis and then following injuries sustained in a serious car accident.

Deferring a Royal Academy bursary to study at the Royal Ballet School, Stock joined the Australian Ballet, aged sixteen, for its inaugural season. But the following year, with a year’s leave of absence from the Australian Ballet, she took up her bursary and travelled to London. At the Royal Ballet School her main teacher in the theatre class, where she was placed because she had come from a company to the School, was Pamela May. Outside of the School she took classes with Maria Fay and after a nine month period at the Royal she took classes in Paris and then in Cannes with Rosella Hightower. Her classes in France were to satisfy van Praagh who thought that her dancing was very correct and that she needed a bit of French pizzazz. Before returning to Australia she danced with the Grand ballet classique de France and then with an Italian company.

Rejoining the Australia Ballet in 1965 she was cast in works by Antony Tudor and John Butler and her reputation as an exponent of dramatic roles grew. But after seven years she wanted what she has called ‘new pastures’ and joined the National Ballet of Canada on the recommendation of  Rudolf Nureyev. A position as principal with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet followed. She was joined in Canada by Gary Norman whom she married while in Canada.

On their return to Australia Stock danced briefly with the Australian Ballet under Anne Woolliams before having her daughter Lisa and then directing the National Theatre Ballet School. Her next major step was the directorship of the Australian Ballet School which she took on at the end of 1989. Her last role was that of director of the Royal Ballet School. Stock has discussed her approach to her work in London at length in her oral history interview for the National Library of Australia, recorded in Melbourne in 2012. The audio is available online over the National Library’s website.The entire interview is a warm and informative account of her life and career and full of charming and sometimes very funny anecdotes about those she met and worked with during her life. Talking about her earliest dance experiences in Perth she says:

‘My debut on the stage was as a chicken and a hula girl. In the back of my mind I think I was already being a ballet mistress, teacher, director, because when we were doing our chicken dance I looked along the line and saw one of the chickens was very much out of line and lost. So I toddled over and shoved her back into line and got her into place and then went back to my own place and went on with the dance. I’ve always been obsessed with staying in line so it probably started at a very young age.’*

Stock is survived by her husband Gary Norman and their daughter Lisa.

Michelle Potter, 4 May 2014

* Gailene Stock interviewed by Michelle Potter, April 2012. National Library of Australia, TRC 6399.

Let’s dance. Various Australian companies

16 June 2012, State Theatre, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne

Let’s dance is the program that the Australian Ballet commissioned to cover the time while the main company was busy ‘taking Manhattan’. It is, on the surface, a commendable venture giving subscription audiences the opportunity to see the array of dance styles being created and performed across Australia—there’s more to dance than the Australian Ballet. But as a program I am not sure that it worked as well as we might have hoped. It turned out to be a bit of a mish-mash and there was also some choreography that I found lamentable. Perhaps the program needed some overarching curatorial plan to give it at least some thread of cohesion?

What follows is not so much a review as a series of thoughts on various aspects of the show.

  • Choreography

I really liked Natalie Weir’s choreography for Don’t made on Expressions Dance Company. Weir’s particular strength, I think, lies in her skills in working on partnerships, whether for two people or more. For Weir a body held upside down has as much value as one held the right way up and what results has always taken the eye, slowly and calmly, in new directions. It’s a shame, I think, that the Australian Ballet has never restaged Weir’s Dark Lullaby, which is definitely worth another look. Too close to Ross Stretton perhaps?

Tim Harbour’s choreography for Sweedeedee was another highlight, not because it was hugely innovative but because he found a way to make two older dancers (‘stars’ is a better word probably for Justine Summers and Steven Heathcote), and two emerging younger dancers (Mia Heathcote and Lennox Niven from the Australian Ballet School) appear together and look as though they all belonged in the work. It was simple, clear movement that told the homey, folksy story well.

Steven Heathcote and Justine Summers in Tim Harbour’s Sweedeedee, 2012. Photo: © Lynette Wills. Courtesy the Australian Ballet

I honestly could have done without Dance North’s Fugue, which was choreographed by Raewyn Hill and which I thought looked like nothing more than a clump of limping dancers engaged in the same moves over and over again. If you read the program notes there is a reason behind the choreography looking the way it did as the work reflects, apparently, a 16th century European ‘dancing plague’. But it was certainly not to my taste, neither aesthetically nor theatrically (despite the Sass & Bide costumes).

  • Dancers

I love watching Sydney Dance Company’s dancers, on this program dancing an excerpt from Rafael Bonachela’s recent work, 2 one another. His dancers have such clean lines in their movements. Nothing is murky or foggy, each tiny aspect of a movement is clear. Chen Wen particularly stood out for me in this program, although he often does. I love so many technical things about how he dances, especially the way his legs, so straight, stretch into infinity, and the way that, when he tilts the body forward, he maintains the strength of his back as he does so.

As for Mia Heathcote who played the Girl in Harbour’s Sweedeedee, if things go well for her as I hope they do, she has all the makings of a future star. It has been a long time since a dancer has given me goose bumps, but this member of the Heathcote family did before she had even danced a step. I look forward to following her career.

Mia Heathcote in Tim Harbour’s Sweedeedee, 2012. Photo: © Lynette Wills. Courtesy the Australian Ballet
  • Design

The designer whose work I most admired was Lexi George whose simple, white costumes, patterned with black designs, for Sweedeedee were so appropriate for the piece. Their simplicity belied their elegance. I also liked Bill Haycock’s black and white dresses for the women in Don’t with their variations in length, fitting and general style. Again Natalie Weir is moving in a well-considered direction with her ongoing commissioning of Haycock.

As for lighting I enjoyed Benjamin Cisterne’s designs for both 2 one another and Sweedeedee. Like much else that I liked about this show, his lighting designs were spare and clear. I especially admired the changing, neon-style, vertical columns of light that accompanied the Bonachela piece. Very smart and modernistic and in keeping with Bonachela’s choreography.

  • Appeal

Two works had appeal that invited little analysis: Ivan Cavallari’s Ombra leggera danced by two artists from West Australian Ballet, and Francois Klaus’ excerpt from Cloudland, danced by two artists from Queensland Ballet. Both were charming, if light pieces and were nicely executed.

  • What else?

Tasdance contributed a short film, Momentary, with choreography by Anna Smith, and Australian Dance Theatre was represented by an excerpt from Garry Stewart’s Be your self. Neither really fitted well into the program. Which goes back to my original comment: the program needed a curator. This is not to say that the works had no merit. Stewart, as ever, gave something that required intellectual as much as dancerly input and his dancers, like those of Sydney Dance Company, have extraordinary physical capacity. But Stewart, to his credit I have to say, is out on his own really and looks best by himself.

Michelle Potter, 17 June 2012