21 May 2025. Screened at the German Film Festival, Palace Electric Cinemas, Canberra Cranko is quite a long film, over two hours. But it has such an engrossing narrative, as well as being a superbly realised production, that those two and a bit hours absolutely raced along. The film held one’s attention from beginning to end. Directed and written by
14 May 2025. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House Having just reread Different Drummer, Jann Parry’s 2009 biography of Kenneth MacMillan, choreographer of the ballet Manon, I was curious to see the Australian Ballet’s production of that work. Would the background that Parry provides in her biography open up the work for me. Well I wasn’t disappointed. As a choreographer
2 May 2025. Fitters’ Workshop, Kingston, Canberra Garden took place in a very different venue from what we are used to for productions by QL2 Dance: the Fitters’ Workshop in the Canberra suburb of Kingston. I was somewhat taken aback when I first heard of this major change from the traditional theatre space in which the annual May production by
3 May 2025. National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra International Music Festival My review of A Book of Hours was published by CityNews online on 4 May. Below is a slightly altered version of the review. For those of my readers who may not know the ‘bonang’, which is mentioned in the text, I have added some images at the
April is the middle month of Autumn in the southern hemisphere. Spectacular colours abound in nature as dance for 2025 continues, despite a disheartening approach to funding for the art form. The difficult financial situation that Queensland Ballet is facing, for example, is more than disheartening, although the exact changes that are being made to the company are yet to
Via the ROH streaming platform Wayne McGregor made Limen as an exploration of the concept of liminality. The word liminality is not all that easy to define, and to tell the truth I spent a bit of time looking at how it is defined in different settings, including as an anthropological concept. In the end I settled for the fact
A somewhat intriguing sentence appears on the website of Ausdance ACT as the organisation sets out to introduce us to its program for Dance Week 2025. The suggestion is, Experience a tasting plate of performances, workshops, and activities for all ages with a range of free classes and events. Within those three sections (courses?) on the tasting plate—performances, workshops, and
16 April 2025 (matinee), Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House John Neumeier’s Nijinsky is a spectacular and highly complex work. I have had the good fortune of seeing it several times (twice by Hamburg Ballet, the company for which the work was made in 2000). In terms of the nature of the work and its relationship to the dramatic life
My review of Swan Lake from Victorian State Ballet was published online on 5 April 2025 by CBR CityNews. Read it at this link. Below is a slightly enlarged version of the review. ************************ 4 April 2025. Canberra Theatre The dance world has seen a wealth of versions of the ballet Swan Lake since its first performance in Moscow in 1877. Many choreographers
Norton Owen is Director of Preservation at Jacob’s Pillow, an exceptional centre for dance that includes a school and a performance space in Becket, Massachusetts, in the beautiful mountainous region of the Berkshires. Norton has been awarded the 2025 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. It is in celebration of his 50th year of being on the staff of Jacob’s Pillow and