27 and 28 April 2023. The Pump House, Christchurch A musical by Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
Peter Falkenberg’s name is synonymous with Free Theatre, an experimental and alternative theatre enterprise formed in Christchurch in the late 1970s and surviving/thriving these 44 years, earthquakes notwithstanding. That’s remarkable longevity.
Woyzeck, with composition by Tom Waits, lyrics by Kathleen Brennan and original direction by Robert Wilson, is here directed and adapted by Falkenberg. A program note on the venue: ‘Built in the 1870s to pump sewerage around the city of Christchurch, The Pump House is the perfect place for Free Theatre to deliver our latest project.’ That’s the dark echo to Tom Waits’ line ‘If there’s one thing you can say about mankind there’s nothing kind about man.’ So onto and into Woyzeck and its ‘dark carnival’ of the tale of a brutalised soldier turned murderer.
I’ve been hooked into Tom Waits since I first heard him sing Gavin Bryars’ Jesus Blood, so it was an easy decision to book a flight from Wellington to see this show. The Pump House is a remarkable brick space with a vast high stud so we’re sitting wrapped in our overcoats, in the round, expecting something less than conventional, or do I mean more?
There’s an echo to 1830s Berlin, to the original play by Georg Büchner (who wrote it aged 23 but died of typhoid before seeing a production). Berg, Herzog, Waits and Brennan and many others have had a go at it since, but there won’t be many productions to outshine this one. The cast brims with actors who can really sing, singers who can really dance, dancers who can really act, and none of them is clone to the others. (How refreshing. That doesn’t happen often in my town). The throbbing band onstage—sax, bass, guitar and drums ̶ provides the transport and are terrific. The audience come to feel in the cast.
The title role of the soldier is played by female, Hester Ullyart, who gives it a palpable androgynous presence. Hillary Moulder as Marie, his/her partner, is a tango tiger in many scenes, but their tender songs to the little cradled baby are almost unbearably poignant. Marie dances as though there’s no evil in the world. I am undone.
The Carnival Barker/Drum Major, played with much gusto by Aaron Boyce, keeps the show wheel turning and calls up the audience participation, ‘Row everybody row every, body row…‘ . Tom Trevella is Andres and you can only hope there’s a recording of his singing Diamond in Your Mind and It’s Just The Way We Are Boys to send to Tom Waits who I imagine would be very pleased to hear it. Chris Carrow is Monkey/Horse/Captain—the fool at loose in the crowd, and Greta Bond plays Margret with aplomb. The cynical role of the manic Doctor is given astonishing force by Marian McCurdy. The massive set, lighting and design by Stuart Lloyd-Harris, and meticulous costume and make-up by Jenny Ritchie, are pivotal to the whole phenomenon.
I’m still raw from Anzac Day earlier this week when I heard 99-year-old stories never told before, with children’s books about war newly brought to our attention, and children’s books about peace being taken to orphaned children in Ukraine. Christchurch is a city still mourning Andrew Bagshaw, pacifist and volunteer killed in Ukraine earlier this year. I’m going back to Woyzeck for a second draught tonight, keeping a Diamond in My Mind, and hoping that All the World Is Green while I search for the fragments of kindness among humankind.
On my second visit I found many fragments of kindness among the cast and crew who are as committed to the Free Theatre enterprise as folk were in the old-fashioned days of Theatre Action and Red Mole. Bring back the fashion I say, the country needs it. I’d have thought Auckland Arts Festival would snap up this Woyzeck—and The Pump House would be a perfect venue for a return season of the choreomaniacs in Lucy Marinkovich’s Strasbourg 1518.
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(Highly recommended is the documentary̶ Free Theatre: The 37 Year Experiment made by Shirley Horrocks in 2017—available on YouTube).
11 March 2023. Spiegeltent, Aotea Square, Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki/Auckland Arts Festival reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
This hour-long film screening had the creator and solo performer, Chisato Minamimura, present in the audience. It was followed by a discussion and q&a session with her, led by Shona McCullagh, artistic director of Auckland Arts Festival.
The film is poignant and moving in the extreme as it documents the experiences of deaf people who suffered yet somehow survived the bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945. You have to marvel at the message, be horrified at the scale of destruction, and wonder how you’ve never heard of ‘The Frank Report’ before. (That was a report submitted to the Truman government by a group of American scientists aghast at the planned bombing, and begging that the civilian population in Hiroshima be given advance warning to evacuate. Of course, the report was ignored and 140,000 people died. At Nagasaki, 70,000 died).
Minamimura, herself profoundly deaf, has an impressive record of dance training (Laban Trinity in London), and of creating and directing (she is a Work Place artist at The Place, London). The film uses signing, subtitles, Holo-Gauze (a projection material creating 3D holographic illusion), as well as sequences of Visual Vernacular, a more personalised mime-like dance-like form of expression. Post-war Japan included a program of compulsory sterilisation of deaf women in the attempt to eliminate ‘the deaf gene.’ Who knew?
The following discussion included an extremely competent signer and translator (from Platform Interpreting NZ) so the sizeable numbers of deaf community present in the audience could follow every syllable. In addition, from the program note: ‘At the heart of the show is cutting edge visual and vibration technology: Woojer straps worn by audience members offer a tactie vibrotactility of the haunting sound composition.’ Minamimura herself wears such a belt during the performance. How else would she know where she is up to in the music?
If the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not precisely in retaliation for Pearl Harbour, they were certainly part of the same hellbent war, and some say terrorism weighed in ahead of military strategy. Was Dresden bombed into annihilation in retaliation for the destruction of Warsaw where ‘not a brick must stay upon a brick?’ Nobody wins a war altogether, it’s just endless revenge that only stops when one side surrenders, or someone presses a button. Numerous countries now hold nuclear weapons. Think about that.
Scored in Silence was altogether an astonishing work, revealing what the deaf community have long told us—that 75% of human communication is non-verbal. Think about that.
This was another tight and terrific show in Te Ahurei Toi O Tāmaki/Auckland Arts Festival. We were invited afterwards to place a hand and goodwill on the mauri stone, specially carved for the Festival by Ngāti Whātua, placed on a plinth in the Spiegeltent. Think about that.
9 March 2023. Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre. Te Ahurei Toi o Tamaki/Auckland Arts Festival, reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
Revisor is created and directed by Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young, both highly original and hugely prolific theatre makers, movers and shakers, of Canadian provenance but now widely internationally acclaimed. The work is a knock-out tour-de-force of theatre, developed from Revizor, aka The Inspector General, the work of Russian playwright Gogol, which premiered in St. Petersburg in 1836.
The story goes that the five-act play was performed before the Czar who laughed and applauded throughout, not realising the play was satirical farce, ‘a comedy in disguise’. The Czar claimed to have ‘got it’, though one might add ‘in the neck’—it’s just that it took decades of Russian history for that to (continue to) reach dénouement. The play deals with themes of ambition for power, of greed and bribery, confidential lies and cover-ups that echo with painful relevance in many times, then and now, and places, there and here.
There’s a finely chiselled program essay from which I quote …
Since the 1830s, the play has been translated and adapted countless times. We approached the original text as a matrix for both voice and body, and found it to be malleable and resonant. Our quest has been to locate and portray a glimpse of the soul within this most unlikely frame: a well-worn farce about corruption and deceit.
Underneath the superficial subject of mistaken identity there were of course deeper subjects such as deceit, tyranny, greed and corruption; willful blindness and complicity; bureaucracy and officialdom; human suffering; the coming storm; the promise of change; imminent overthrow; salvation on the horizon; retribution at the corner; justice at the gate.
Ambitious incompetent individuals manipulate and bribe the bureaucracy while working their way into positions of political power and authority. Corruption, duplicity and control of propaganda are found at every turn, at every crossroad. Sound familiar? —think Putin and his treatment of Navalny, think Ceaucescu and wife, think Trump and Murdoch, think North Korea, think mediocre and ambitious bureaucrats everywhere. Think of all those who believe they live in a democracy which in truth is just rampant consumerism. It’s a long list.
Those who won’t go to the Ballet (capital B) because they ‘can’t hear the words’ would have ‘got’ this show because the playscript is pre-recorded and functions as the ‘music’ to which the ‘dance’ is performed. You know where you are because you ‘can hear the words’. The trouble is the script is deliberately riddled with clichés and double-entendres, lies, interrupted sentences and contradictions, so you actually haven’t a clue where you are—nor have the players—and therein lies the plot. The Inspector General is not actually The Inspector General, though some don’t know that, and those who do know are paid to shut up about it.
Pite and Young share their directors’ vision for the work so that boundaries between playscript, stage directions, deportment, gesture, mime, dance, plié and pause, gait and gavotte are seamlessly blurred throughout the 90 minute performance. The eight dancers make multiple entries and exits with superb timing and great aplomb, always using impeccable technique to serve the expressive needs of the dramatic action. [How refreshing to be spared the all too frequent conventions of balletic virtuosity that dancers are often required to display, thereby drowning out storyline and musical aesthetic. These are enormously skilled dancers but you won’t be seeing them in The Nutcracker any time soon.]
Individual performers are all outstanding but Gregory Lau as the Revisor, and Rakeem Hardy as Postmaster Wieland deserve singular mention. A number of sculptured group sequences are testament to how well these players know each other’s work so can all move together as one. An enigmatic figure wearing deer antlers plays several ritualised prayerlike sequences with mystical effect. The lighting concept and design make breathtakingly beautiful imagery, ephemeral backlit smoke patterns that point to the enduring questions echoed in the script …’Why am I here? What does it mean?’
Any dance educators who think ballet (lower case b) might not be ‘relevant to audiences within the changing demographic’ would do well to take their students to such a production as Revisor. The relevance of the choreography could not be more present or obvious. So why were there so many empty seats, or any empty seats at all? The audience barely breathed throughout the entire performance, stunned at the tight skills they were witnessing, and come the curtain call couldn’t wait to get to their feet for a prolonged standing ovation which carried a sense of appreciative urgency.
Auckland Arts Festival managed a coup in booking this act, following several years of its international touring. Those who saw Revisor here have witnessed the final season of the work. You should remember it, keep the program (a free handout—top marks again to the Festival), make notes, tell your grandchildren what you saw.
My year’s list of dance highlights seems thinner than usual since a number of productions didn’t make it to curtain-up. There are no lowlights though (why would you write about lowlights?) so I’ll just call them lights.
From a screen viewing I followed with interest the choreographic venture, Journey, by Lily Bones. I remember Lily’s serene sense of line as an unusual individual dancer at both NZSchool of Dance and later in RNZBallet. After a time performing in Europe she is now based in Sydney and is a colleague there of Martin James. Her resilience in surviving serious illness, and her determination to make dances despite zero external resources has given her a maturity and quiet confidence to choreograph themes that speak and that we can hear. No glamour or glitz, just her truth. Refreshing.
It was a treat indeed to see again an Arts Channel broadcast of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre in Rice. Choreographed by Lin Hwai Min in 2013 (and toured to Auckland in 2017), it is talisman to their repertoire, with typically perfect proportion in shaping the cycle of rice growth and harvesting. Like all Lin’s work, there is pacing and spacing through the episodes that deliver at one level of nature at work in the titled theme, and also allegorical layers of reference to human and personal experience. The erotic sensuality in a single central duet in Rice defines the original power of creation. I own a dvd of this work but choose not to watch it alone—so how is that different from sitting alone and watching a broadcast? just a sense that there will be others out there watching ‘with me’, a feeling of being in the audience that is shaped by a performance in time. Cloud Gate’s repertoire has a strength in its Chinese legacy and vocabulary that is yet accessible to the wider world. Riveting.
Another memorable experience on screen was the final sequence by the young boy in the studio, as epilogue to the film The White Crow, the dramatisation by Ralph Fiennes of Nureyev’s defection to the west. Overall I was not as transported by the film as others seemed, but was certainly moved by how that final dance was allowed to speak for itself. Poignant.
Pump Dance Studio’s Roll the Dice also transformed the commitment of young performers into something more than the sum of its parts. Infectious.
From NZSchool of Dance, Loughlan Prior’s Verse, a solo to the Folies d’Espagne played by the consummate ensemble Hesperion XXI, shone with the clarity of a beacon, both in choreography and performance. Luminous.
Two books—by Michelle Potter on Graeme Murphy, and by Ashley Killar on John Cranko—offered insights into those prolific choreographic careers, with welcome reminders of the live performances we have seen by their companies. Revelatory.
Not from this year, but nevertheless shaped by the pandemic term we are still experiencing, the tour de force of Strasbourg 1518 by Lucy Marinkovich and Lucien Johnson, remains the total standout dance season of recent times. Their earlier work, Lobsters, also holds its place on the list of memorable works of the decade. Indelible.
It has been indeed moving to follow the heroic project by Raewyn Hill, artistic director of Co3 Contemporary Dance in Perth, where she re-staged Gloria, the celebrated work by the late Douglas Wright, New Zealand’s visionary choreographer. Immortal.
A dance lives for as long as it is remembered, and can cheat death by a measure. Russell Kerr died earlier this year, and for many people the memory of his production of Petrouchka in which he cast Douglas in the title role, also stands as an indelible milestone in this country’s dance history. Legendary.
We are looking forward to the fifth in the series of the Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts, in Wellington, late February. The subject will be Patricia Rianne, celebrated dancer, teacher and choreographer whose long career spans years both in New Zealand as well as UK, Europe and Asia. A delight.
Season’s greetings and good wishes to all those who watch dance, who create dances, who perform, who write and who read about dancing. Sprezzatura.
Cranko. The man and his choreography by Ashley Killar Matador/Troubador Publishing ISBN. 978-0-646-86603-1 reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
This biography of John Cranko is a deeply researched, widely contextualised and beautifully written account of the life and work of a major choreographer of mid-20th century. There is meticulous detail in the documentation and analysis of Cranko’s vast choreographic output, both within the text and in appendices. Ashley Killar has drawn on that oeuvre, as well as many of Cranko’s letters to friends and colleagues, to evaluate the teeming imagination and artistry, musical ear, lively sense of wit and satire, the devoted loyalty to friends and colleagues, the generous personality, the frankness over frustrations when things went wrong, the ability to move on to the next thing, the excesses in a sometimes reckless lifestyle —-all the good and some of the bad in a life fully lived but ended too soon. You come to know the man through coming to know his works, not just by reading a list of titles but by experiencing the texture and timing of the choreographies. That’s skilful dance writing.
Killar was a member of Stuttgart Ballet from 1962 to 1967 so he knew Cranko well. The book Is a devoted tribute to the man and his work, but in no measure is it simply hagiography. The contexts of socio-political history and related arts that open several chapters, and are also summarised in the appendix of choreography, are welcome reminders of a 20th century world. The contrasts of living conditions and morale in South Africa (where Cranko was born, in 1927), in post-war England (where he lived, danced and began to choreograph), in a divided post-war Germany without a single national ballet company (where he flourished, from 1961 to 1973), in Russia (where there were intriguing interactions within the political control of ballet, and the dancers visiting from Stuttgart had to step through a door in an iron fire-curtain lowered to end the applause but the audience would not cease applauding), and in America (where on a number of tours, thanks to Sol Hurok, Cranko met with great success with audiences, who loved the narrative and dramatic power of his works that their own dance-makers had not produced. There was also ongoing disdain from certain critics, Arlene Croce the most vocal among them… as though to say, ‘If you love —Balanchine then you must hate Cranko’. OK, so did that mean the reverse was true? (KIllar’s pen is wiser and more tempered than Croce’s was).
These contextual accounts are briefly but tellingly written and the book should appeal to a much wider readership than just ballet afficionados. It places the man in his dances, his dances in society, and societies in their response to his dances. That’s resonant choreography and insightful appreciation combined.
There were seemingly unconventional work practices in all his career. Cranko never had an office but would sit in the company canteen, use the phone on the counter, and be at all times accessible to the dancers he considered members of a family—holding no truck with the typical power and control that many a ballet company director adopts in the vain pretence that this secures leadership. The accounts around England’s Royal Ballet and that company’s ethos under Ninette de Valois’ directorship, come under the spotlight. Peggy van Praagh by contrast emerges as a genuinely joyful and encouraging figure who instantly recognised Cranko’s talent and knew how to help him rein in so that his best ideas could emerge, that less would be more. Her own long life generously devoted to dance is well caught here.
You could look at the listing of dancers in the Stuttgart company and fledgling choreographers stimulated and nurtured by Cranko—they are among the best in the world, and New Zealand gets an entry. There is further resonance for New Zealand in that Martin James danced the title role of Eugene Onegin many times, rating it one of the most demanding and rewarding in his own remarkable performing career. It is but one example of how the dance profession becomes a kind of country in its own right, crossing over the political and historical boundaries defined by nationalism and history.
Cranko’s longstanding friendships with designer John Piper, and with composer Benjamin Britten (whose Gloriana, Peter Grimes, Prince of the Pagodas, A Midsummer Night’sDream, Bouquet Garni were choreographed to) are covered. Figures in the English ballet world include Cranko’s relationship with the somewhat caustic de Valois, the idiosyncratic Frederick Ashton, as well as his camaraderie with Kenneth MacMillan, and are notable. It is Peggy van Praagh who emerges as an independent thinker and visionary to my mind. I was intrigued to hear of the early influence on Cranko of the work of Rudolf Laban and Kurt Jooss—and later of his appreciation of the technique and style of Martha Graham, and suspect van Praagh was instrumental in this open-mindedness. Cranko’s partnership with Anne Woolliams as influential teacher at Stuttgart and her later appointment to the Australian Ballet, where van Praagh was a pioneering and spirited leader, provide a further connection to ballet in this part of the world.
From a hugely prolific body of work it is probably the early Cranks revue, the now largely forgotten Prince of the Pagodas, his The Lady and the Fool,Romeo & Juliet,Onegin and The Taming of the Shrew for which he is most remembered.
Marcia Haydée was legendary dancer and company stronghold at Stuttgart for many years. Among the young dancers in his company whose choreography he encouraged and nurtured are John Neumeier, Jiri Kylian, Gray Veredon (New Zealand’s own) and Ashley Killar himself (artistic director of RNZBallet 1992-1995, whose No Exit and Dark Waves were among the most dramatically incisive works in the company’s entire repertoire).
Cranko’s legacy speaks volumes and Killar has done him proud.
Jennifer Shennan, 13 December 2022
Cranko. The man and his choreography is available through Bloch’s ballet centres (including by mail order). Alternatively, the book is available to order through bookstores, or direct from www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/biography/cranko/
Book by Michelle Potter. Published by FortySouth Publishing, Tasmania reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
The first word of appreciation for this book should go to its design and visual appeal. A well-made paperback volume of good weight and proportion, it feels right in the hand, and its pages stay open (instead of closing themselves as typical paperbacks annoyingly do). In addition the ink of the text sits bright on the page rather than being absorbed into the paper, so that by running your hand over the page you discover a kind of braille, a little dance for your fingertips, in a haptic pleasure I don’t recall noticing in other volumes (clever designer).
The front cover image is Murphy the man, in dance profile and grinning, the back cover Graeme the young schoolboy, smiling his pleasure for the ice cream sundae he has just enjoyed. The front endpaper has a curtain-call lineup of applause—the back endpaper has Murphy acknowledging that applause—with a facing image of Graeme and his life and work partner, Janet Vernon, back to back. Their combined lifetime contribution to dance in Australia receives tribute in every chapter of the book (heroic couple, generous author).
The frontispiece photo has Graeme Murphy en l’air, not in some balletic cliché of soaring jeté or flying leap, limbs outspread, striving beyond gravity, where aspiration replaces destination. This is not any role performed but the man himself, right here, right now, in the middle of the page, looking straight at you, the reader. Hello.
Simultaneous movement in both upward and downward directions is implied. The single vertical stroke of the svelte elevated dancer in white trousers and loose-lapelled jacket, legs pointing down with pencil sharp engaged feet in an exquisite fifth position displaying all the stylised turnout that ballet requires of a dancer, (but none of the distorted overarched eagle feet sometimes displayed by those more interested in virtuosity than in dialogue or eloquence). Meantime the upper body is that of a relaxed and graceful man, hands tucked into large pockets, an enigmatic smile hovering around his lips. The floor is not shown in the photo so the image is of a dancer enduringly airborne, not one ounce of the effort involved in an elevation of this order allowed to show. Dancing masters of the Italian Renaissance had a term for this quality—sprezzatura/‘divine nonchalance’—as though to say ‘Look—leaping like this is as easy as breathing. I’ll teach you how to do it if you like.’ Yeah right. It’s a graceful yet wonderfully cheeky portrait, inviting readers into the book (gifted dancer, clever photographer). I savoured the photo for a day before starting to read the text. Felt as though I had been dancing.
The book title is borrowed from Murphy’s first major choreography, Glimpses, 1976. The astonishing photograph from that work reveals his early theatrical vision, with Janet Vernon standing tall on the chest of dancer Ross Stretton.
Eight chapters celebrate Murphy’s choreographic works in thematic rather than chronological treatment, mainly through excerpts selected from reviews Michelle has written over the years. It has been a colossal choreographed body of work. Over and over Murphy’s collaborations with design artists and composers are acknowledged and there is much discussion of the Australian content within the works, by dint of those collaborations rather than simply in local narratives or settings.
I thoroughly enjoyed reminders of those of Murphy’s works we have seen in New Zealand — with design by Kristian Fredrikson, the striking Orpheus for the RNZBallet’s celebrated Stravinsky centenary season in 1982, devised by artistic director Harry Haythorne. Our company also staged The Protecting Veil the following decade. Sydney Dance Company visited with Shining (I recall a mighty performance from New Zealand dancer Alfred Williams). They returned with Some Rooms, a fine work which appealed to audiences wider than just dance aficionados. Berlin was a major work that well warranted the trip to Auckland then, so of interest now to learn of the creative processes of its music ( with Iva Davies and Icehouse) and design (by Andrew Carter).
I also saw Mythologia in Sydney, 2000, though I retain much livelier memories of the inspired Nutcracker, The Story of Clara, and of the remarkable Swan Lake for Australian Ballet. Harry Haythorne had roles in these two works, but it was his tap-dancing-on-roller-skates routine in Tivoli that warranted yet another trip across the Tasman, to see the hilariously entertaining yet simultaneously poignant production. The closing image has never left me.
It’s also a good memory that Murphy invited New Zealand choreographer Douglas Wright to stage his legendary Gloria, to Vivaldi, on Sydney Dance Company.
Once when I was visiting Harry in Melbourne, he took a phone call from Graeme and I recall a very long conversation, more than an hour, with loads of laughter while Harry winked and indicated I should continue browsing his bookshelf. They were clearly best of mates with a great deal of respect for each other’s work.
There’s another synergy one can appreciate: Graeme’s work, Grand, was made for and dedicated to his mother—and Michelle has made and dedicated this book to her own mother who died recently.
The book’s text is succinct and its themes clearly delineated. My paraphrasing would not be nearly as useful as my encouragement to you to find and enjoy it for yourself (lucky reader).
Jennifer Shennan, 19 November 2022
Featured image: Cover image (excerpt) of Glimpses of Graeme. Full cover reproduced below.
16 November 2022. Te Whaea Theatre, Wellington reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
This year’s Performance Season by New Zealand School of Dance offers two programs that alternate throughout a ten-day season. The opening program has five works all choreographed by Loughlan Prior, performed by the school’s stream of classical ballet students. The following evening has five works each by a different choreographer, performed by contemporary dance students.
Loughlan Prior graduated from NZSD, followed a performing career and has more recently become a full-time free-lance choreographer. Even as a student he knew the pull towards choreography and has already a prolific output, one could say outpouring, of both short and full-length works, including a number of dance films, to his credit. His works have been seen widely in New Zealand and also staged in a number of countries abroad.
His pithy and helpful program notes are reproduced here since they don’t need re-writing…
Storm Surge Music: Matteo Sommacal, The Forgotten Strains (For Piano and String Quartet); Exile Upon Earth: 3. Pensive; Follow It Blindly (For Piano and Cello); The Sign of Gathering (For Piano and String Quartet) Costume Design: Max de Roy Inspired by the wild weather of Wellington, this newly created work explores the drama, beauty and fragility of the human body. Placed within varying environments, small fragments of movement are pieced together to create a complex matrix of shifting forms and patterns. The dancers are seen to dart and weave through a vibrant landscape evoking turbulent skies
The opening section in low light had a mesmerising quality in arm movements suggesting the ebb of kelp tossed in the tide. Next a duo of abstract movement in unison, followed by a sequence with emotion newly introduced, gave the sense that the choreography was evolving through layered references, the weather outside towards the weather inside. All eight dancers were focussed and in form for this premiere performance, with Aidan Tully particularly noticeable in the cast.
Verse Music: Antonio Martin Y Coll, Differencias sobre las Folias Physical calligraphy. A script embodied in flesh dedicated to Wellington arts patron, the late David Carson-Parker
Verse, a solo, beautifully performed by Joshua Douglas, is a carefully chiselled transition of a 17th century sarabande towards a contemporary sensibility. Prior has taken the minimalism of baroque dance movement vocabulary, through which intense emotion can be conveyed, from its iteration as the legendary Folies d’Espagne. The first known review of a dance performance in European literature is of a sarabande, by François Pomey mid 1660s, and I’ve yet to come across a finer account of a danced performance in any era. I’m drawn to art that reminds us infinity lies in both directions, ever outward, ever inward, as we walk backwards into the future. I would vote Verse as my favourite work from both programs if it were a competition, which thankfully it’s not.
(Verse takes its strength from the single music source, Diferencias sobre las Folias, theme and variations by Antonio Martin Y Coll, superbly rendered by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX1. In contrast, a number of the other dances across both evening’s programs use excerpts from many different music sources for a single dance work, leaving a choreography to devise its own structure, predictably with varying degrees of coherence).
Curious Alchemy Music: L.v Beethoven String Quartet no.3, op.130; C.Saint-Saens, String Quartet no 1, op.112 This short work was commissioned for students of the Canadian National Ballet School for a festival in 2017.
Four dancers in smart red contoured leotards moved with an attractive energy, conveying a playful mood of youthful enthusiasm. MIguel Herrera was particularly immersed in the humour of the style.
Time Weaver Music: Philip Glass, Metamorphosis This hypnotic and seemingly infinite, arrangement of Glass’ work for harp is symbolic of our relationship with the continuum of time and the perceived linear passage in which we live our lives. Two figures are captured curving, sculpting, playing, ‘living’ inside an unending duet, an ouroboros. If the stage light was never to fade, the dance could go on forever.
India Shackel and Aidan Tully performed this sustained pas-de-deux with unflinching care and admirable command of the technical demands it makes, resulting in a ritual or prayer-like atmosphere.
Coloratura Music: N. Porpora, O. Davis, G.Giacomelli, R.Broschi – numerous excerpts. Originally created for Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden, this stylish work never made it to the stage due to the Covid pandemic. Now in 2022 the piece finds a new home at NZSD and has been expended into a large ensemble work to feature the talents of every classical student. Fun, quirky and irreverent, Coloratura pays homage to the vocal mastery and comedic timing of world-renowned mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli. There is high energy and pure joy in every note, inspiring an infectious celebration of dance and music.
Fun, quirky and irreverent, indeed, as the excesses and extremes of staged opera are satirised. A lip-synching Diva, played by a masked Rilee Scott draped in fineries, struts the stage while he delivers many repeats of soft vague arm gestures in floating arm-covers to assist delivery of the lyrics. However the variety of would-be dynamic gestures that opera singers actually use while performing is a minefield waiting for choreographic exploration, since these are the often clumsy remnants of the earlier time when singers also danced and dancers also sang. Here a large dance chorus of attendants played backing, fronting and siding roles and one could imagine an expanded version of this piece in a heightened explosive finale with the ripped bodices and revelations of star performers in competition laid bare, as opera’s surreal characters sing and love, sing and dance, sing and suffer, sing and die, then come back to life for the curtain calls.
One suspects that Loughlan Prior finds a new dance idea every day of his waking life—and more in his dreaming life. This was a special opportunity to showcase his work on many young dancers who clearly relished their roles and gave spirited performances.
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17 November, 2022. Te Whaea Theatre, Wellington
The contemporary dance program opened with the premiere of Craig Bary’s State of Perpetuation. In an arresting beginning to a vocal section, the dancers held sculptural shapings in what was possibly the best lit work of the evening. It invited our own response, and the recurring motifs of hands quivering in wiri, or circular motions of wrist that suggested the thrust of poi movement I found both subtle and memorable.
(I know it’s important to thank the sponsors but one could hope space could be found in an 18-page printed program for a summary profile of each choreographer. Craig Bary was an exceptional student at the school years back, and later a phenomenal performer in a number of Douglas Wright’s choreographies. Dance is ephemeral enough by its nature so deserves the respect of memory within its legacy at every possible opportunity).
Midlight, choreographed by Christina Chan and Aymeric Bichon, was a duet danced by Persia Thor-Poet and Seth Ward. Their two bodies intertwined as one almost throughout, inviting thoughts about where individual identity is reshaped within a relationship.
Rubble, by Holly Newsome, had a large cast moving to vocal and percussion sections. Its theme involved the motivation needed to get up and get on with the daily dance. The song, Rise & Shine, framed the work with humour.
A Kind Tone, by Tyler Carney-Faleatua, again with a large group cast, explored the lifting of layers, both literally in swathes of draped costume, and metaphorically in regard to how a community supports individuals. Sequences of a slowly locomoting tight-knit group from which different individuals had to push and struggle to emerge, were memorable.
Sarah Foster-Sproull, another graduate from NZSD some years back, is a gifted choreographer with a major output. Her work here, To The Forest, To The Island, with music by Eden Mulholland, gave a strong cadence to the program and the dancers were galvanised into energised performances as they explored the notion of the places where we take refuge.
The work was originally conceived for film by students at Auckland’s Unitec. In this live version, a number of tube light sticks carried and positioned around the stage then reflected sequences of many bright colours which moved towards strobe effects. This seriously challenges the audience’s viewing access, and I confess my response is always to close my eyes at any time where lights are shone at the audience or strobe effects are used in the theatre. It was clear however that the committed dancers relished the chance to perform in a strong and animated choreography.
In different ways, works on both programs referenced themes of identity of individuals and of groups, as well as motivation in how to respond to challenges. The last three years of tumultuous experiences related to the global pandemic have affected life for every individual, family, neighbourhood in the country, indeed in every country on the planet. The resilience needed to adapt and continue when continuity is often the first casualty, with dance training programs probably more challenged than most enterprises, is reflected in many of these works.
To many the divide between ‘classical’ and ‘contemporary’ dance is more of an aesthetic concept than a reality in today’s professional dance world, and several of the works we saw could have been performed in either program. The school’s whakatauki or motto—Kia kōrero te katoa o te tinana/to talk with the whole body—offers encouraging reminder of the choreographic aspiration to get the physics of motion to reveal the physics of emotion.
5 November 2022. Opera House, Wellington reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
When I taught Dance Studies to students at New Zealand School of Dance several decades ago, one of the sessions I enjoyed the most, and students assured me they did too, was built around the documentary of the celebrated New York City Ballet dancer, Jacques d’Amboise—He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’ * and his associated book, Teaching the Magic of Dance.**
Each year d”Amboise would book the theatre at Lincoln Center, then through the National Dance Institute which he had founded, liaise with teachers in numerous Manhattan schools, to prepare a full-length narrated show with a cast of thousands, well, at least 1000. He would borrow artists from NYCB to play lead roles, then recruit local cops, street sweepers or truck drivers and teach them a few numbers to widen the scene. It was always the irrepressible enthusiasm and musicality in d’Amboise that proved infectious for everyone to give their best. ‘Give it a go—you don’t know if you can dance until you try’ … was his encouraging word, and the resulting film is evidence of their lift-off. Small wonder it won Academy awards, and made its mark worldwide.
A high-spirited and imaginative dance show, Roll The Dice, in a 2.5 hour long performance played twice last weekend to capacity audiences at Wellington’s Opera House. Pump Dance Studios brought what seemed like 200 young dancers together in a tightly sequenced show combining hip-hop, jazz and contemporary dance with faultless timing and spirited expression. It brought alive for me the memory of Jacques d’Amboise, who died last year aged 86, but whose legacy endures. No one who saw his fine performing or witnessed his spirited dance-making will forget him.
Roll the Dice followed the structure of a Monopoly game, with a narrative of rhyming couplets highlighting the greed that has driven so much of the world’s destruction of its natural resources. Starting with youth in protest, this became a journey of how to play the game and get out of jail without the Earth being the loser. Baddies v. Goodies played out in numerous episodes in which huge businesses, bankers, entrepreneurs, politicians, money lenders, pirates, war-profiteers and polluters were in contrast with young, hardworking and clear-thinking youth on a mission. Natural forces of water, wind, sun and air were danced and mimed into hydroelectricity, solar heating, sustainable building practices. There was a plea for the preservation of the environments for animals—meerkats, hyenas, panthers and penguins all disarmingly portrayed in dance. By re-writing the rules and disrupting the greed, The Goodies won in the end. What a heartening change from the daily news bulletins in our lives.
I particularly enjoyed the show’s atmosphere of inclusivity—there were soloists and leaders among the cast but also a sense that there’s no such thing as a minor role, and the resulting commitment was exponential in effect. There were numerous inventive ideas in lighting and staging—costume racks on wheels transformed into train carriages, onesie suits becoming hot dogs, $2 shop red bandanas signalling a band of pirates, a black net curtain reducing lives to mere shadows in death—numerous effective transitions that all prioritised ideas and imagination ahead of big budget and wardrobe. It worked so well because the narrative stayed alive at the spine of the show, and every performer believed in it. Jacques d’Amboise would have been tickled pink.
* The film is available on YouTube ** the book listed with Amazon
This impressive book contains close to 200 photographs, culled from some 3000, taken by Neville Waisbrod, tango dancer-turned-photographer of Wellington.
Evident throughout is Waisbrod’s deep feeling and respect for the dance form in milonguero style. This is not tango for display or spectacle, for competition or ambition, for innovation or experiment, for the money or the bag, but rather for the intimate unspoken communication that builds between partners, between steps, between movement and music. It’s both in time and across time, and as you close the book you feel you have been dancing too.
Several pithy quotes, catching what a writer, poet, philosopher, teacher or dancer has penned about tango, or wider dance ideas, are scattered throughout the book. These are few in number but that restraint only makes them more evocative since we all know that less is more. Sources of quotes range from renowned tanguero and teacher, Carlos Gavitos,
The tango is not in the steps. The tango is between one step and another. There, when you do nothing, you can see whether you dance tango.
Alicia Pons, a revered teacher regularly visiting New Zealand from Argentina, Tango is a journey not a destination.
JL Borges, The tango was having its way with us.
and from Waisbrod himself, The memory of an embrace will last a lifetime, while the steps will be forgotten by the end of the night.
There are further quotes from Jacques d’Amboise, Martha Graham, Wendy Whelan, Omar Khyyám, William Shakespeare, TS Eliot, Albert Einstein. These, as well as the Introduction and the Endnotes, are given in both English and Spanish.
The photographs are black & white or grained grey, with the focus on the mutual embrace of a dancing couple—upper body, head, neck, shoulders, arms, hands (for all of which, read ‘hearts and minds’). An image typically shows the face or profile of one dancer and thus the back of the head of the partner. We can read the facial expression of the one and, from the angle of head or neck, handhold raised or shoulder embraced, can imagine that of the partner. The concentration is intense. You’re not eavesdropping on these dancers, but looking and listening with your eyes and limbs.
A man and a woman hold each other and we hold our breath—they’ve probably been married for 45 years and we can tell their life story from the enchanted eyes of the one who faces the camera, and from the inclined and trusting head of his partner. It’s a love sonnet. Another couple, possibly three decades apart in calendar age, who may never have met before this milonga, are here not counting the years so much as sharing them. One tanguera is wearing a plaster cast on a broken arm and her partner carries its weight for her. The back of one head reveals hearing aids ‘the better to hear the music with, my dear’. One couple is dreaming, eyes closed, a hint of a smile hovering. A young couple shares an explosive laugh and we can only guess at what caused their mirth. Another couple, both males, are dancing more than just the steps their teacher taught them. A sadness etched into one woman’s face is lifted by the sense that her partner is allowing the dance to be bigger than any individual dancing it. Another image echoes that rapport, though with the gender roles reversed. Perhaps the memory of an earlier now departed life partner is nurtured by the physical proximity of a dance partner. One quote, ‘Dancing is cheaper than therapy’, could be the caption of several of these images, or perhaps of them all.
There are in fact no captions to individual photographs so the dancers remain anonymous. Although they have given their permission for reproduction, they are not posing for the camera and will be unaware they were being captured in that moment. The prime place given to the visuals within this book evokes for me the classic works of director Carlos Saura, who devoted entire feature-length films, with very few if any words, to the subject of just one dance form—Sevillanas, let’s say, or his fabled flamenco trilogy, Blood Wedding: the rehearsal—Carmen: the performance—El Amor Brujo: the dénouement.
JL Borges, Argentinian writer & poet, famously wrote…Tango can be debated, and we have debates over it, but it still encloses, as does all that which is truthful, a secret. This book borrows that notion to tell its own unspoken truth.
Waisbrod did not need to travel across continents in search of these dancers. They are all in New Zealand. His credit to Belinda Ellis for editorial help and design of the book is heartfelt. Search further and you find another modest little credit, ‘proudly supporting the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand’. This is a book of considerable humane and artistic merit, and, at $75.00, is cheaper than therapy.
Harry Haythorne (Artistic Director of Royal New Zealand Ballet 1981—1992) was always an enthusiastic admirer of Gray Veredon’s choreography. In 1981, the effervescent Ragtime Dance Company, to Scott Joplin, had set the stage sizzling and gave Jon Trimmer one of his favourite roles. In 1988 Harry commissioned Tell Me A Tale, which wove elements of 19th century Pakeha settlers interacting with local Maori community, incorporating haka into the danced narrative. To my memory that was the most assured choreographic staging in and of a bi-cultural New Zealand we have seen.
Veredon’s rapport with designer Kristian Fredrikson was evident in the shadowed atmosphere of a powerful set and vintage costumes. Images remain of the performances by Jon Trimmer as the father, Kerry-Anne Gilberd the mother, Kim Broad the son, with Warren Douglas powerfully leading the haka that challenged a love interest across the racial divide. It’s always intriguing to think about what keeps some dance memories alive for decades while others fade.
Kerry-Anne Gilberd and Stephen McTaggart in a scene from Tell Me a Tale. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 1988. Photographer not identified. Courtesy Gray Veredon
In 1989, Haythorne commissioned A Servant of Two Masters—with Veredon and Fredrikson again working together. The request was for a set that could easily travel abroad since Veredon’s contacts with the impresario Manfred Gerber enabled the Company’s first tour to Europe. Fredrikson came up trumps with silk banners that filled the stage yet could be folded down into two suitcases. Board a plane with a ballet in your carry-on luggage? Touché.
To vivacious Vivaldi, the full-length work proved a triumph as Veredon, who knew commedia dell’arte well, made stunning character roles for every soloist in the company, each one of whom rose to the challenge—most outstandingly Eric Languet as Truffaldino and Warren Douglas as Brighella. Even the Artistic Director was on stage as Harry leapt at the chance to play Dr. Lombardi, cavorting opposite Jon Trimmer as the wealthy Pantalone. It is true as Michelle Potter points out they did not push their luck by overplaying the farce, but reined in their comic timing which of course controls character the more impressively. Many audience veterans vote Servant as the ‘best ever’ work from RNZB repertoire. The tour proved hugely memorable for the Company for a completely different reason—they were in Berlin when the Wall came down. Dancer Turid Revfeim’s memories and descriptions of the events could and should be the subject of another full-length choreography.
In the book The Royal New Zealand Ballet at 60, Veredon wrote a perceptive article, Developing New Synergies, about his numerous seasons with RNZB. His tribute to Jon Trimmer as leading dancer for decades is for the record. Veredon also shares cogent and relevant ideas for choreographic development within a ballet company, and the responsibility to keep the best of the repertoire extant. Ka hau te rangatahi—the new net goes fishing.
Jennifer Shennan, 4 July 2022
Editor’s note: This article began as a comment on the review on this website of the Australian Ballet’s production of Harlequinade but deserved to become a short article on new and old repertoire. Gray Verdon’s comments on repertoire in The Royal New Zealand Ballet at 60, as mentioned above, are definitely worth reading especially the last paragraph on p. 166. More about A Servant of Two Masters and Tell me a Tale can be found in Kristian Fredrikson. Designer, pp. 147-156.
