4 October 2024. Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane
My review of the Queensland Ballet presentation of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon was published in Limelight on 6 October. Read the Limelight review at this link. Below is a slightly enlarged version of that review.
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Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon, from Belgian-Columbian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, was originally sought for Queensland Ballet by the company’s former artistic director, Li Cunxin. He began working to add it to the repertoire, he told me, some five or six years ago. It finally premiered in Brisbane as a joint production with Hong Kong Ballet and Atlanta Ballet.
As Queensland Ballet’s program notes tell us, Coco Chanel was a ‘creative, controversial and wildly ambitious’ woman. In addition to her initiatives with clothing design and the creation of a range of perfumes, she had a number of lovers and she interacted with many of the world’s best-known artists across theatrical genres, including many who worked with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. And her connection with the Nazi movement during World War II has been hotly debated. How then to create a ballet about her life, filled as it was with so many complex activities?
We first see Chanel (Neneka Yoshida) as a poverty-stricken nineteen-year-old seamstress working in a factory on clothes to be worn by the rich and famous. Already we have a view of the juxtaposition of poverty and wealth that characterised her early life. We also meet Shadow-Chanel (Kaho Kato), an encouraging figure, who is often quietly present onstage and who guides Chanel through her work and into the future.
From there we move on to a series of episodes reflecting aspects of Chanel’s life including her early work with her sister Julia (Alisa Pukkinen) as a singer and dancer in a Parisian bistro; and various aspects of her design career, including holiday activities in the French seaside resort of Deauville that inspired the addition to her designs of striped and other sailor-style items.
Other episodes look at the demands she insisted upon from those who worked for her; her logo consisting of an entwined version of the letter C; her various lovers, including Arthur Edward ‘Boy’ Capel (Patricio Revé), who is killed in a car accident; the choice of Chanel No. 5 as her signature perfume; and her activities during the war years.
In the final episodes we see her work being rejected, but also the comeback that she eventually achieves.
Theatrically, Lopez Ochoa handles the episodic nature of the story with absolute skill. There is never any doubt about what is happening despite the shortness but complexity of each episode. Choreographically her use of the space of the stage is carefully considered as are the groupings she makes between dancers as the episodes unfold. I especially enjoyed the episode in which Chanel chooses her signature perfume from five possibilities. It was a smart presentation preceded by a beautifully choreographed group dance of flower people (scents of perfume).
But the Nazi episode was also a highlight with Chanel’s lover at the time, a Gestapo spy named Hans Günther von Dincklage, dramatically danced by Vito Bernasconi. Also of particular interest was the episode in which Chanel engaged with Igor Stravinsky (Joshua Ostermann). Stravinsky benefitted from Chanel’s philanthropic generosity in relationship to his score for the Ballets Russes production of The Rite of Spring but, in a moving moment in the episode, Stravinsky left the relationship in favour of his wife and family.
But every dancer rose to the occasion in every episode and performed with exceptional skill and commitment.
Set and costumes were created by Jérôme Kaplan and he pursued a minimalist approach, reflecting the unadorned nature of Chanel’s clothing designs. No frills, no fussy additions. An ongoing aspect of his design was the circular staircase that was moved on and off stage as the moment demanded and that looked back to a mirrored, circular staircase that was part the ground level of Chanel’s studio in Paris.
Jon Buswell’s atmospheric lighting added to the overall effect, and the new and often surprising score by Peter Salem was played by Camerata: Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra conducted by Nigel Gaynor.
When I received my ticket to Coco Chanel my heart sank. My seat was in the Gallery rather than the Stalls. I suspected that I’d never be able to see the production well enough to review it. But I couldn’t have asked for anything better. The seat in the Gallery gave me a perfect view of Lopez Ochoa’s choreographic vision, in particular the way in which she patterns bodies in the performing space, and the manner in which the show was brought together as a collaborative endeavour. Coco Chanel is an absolutely brilliant production made by a choreographer with an approach that is distinctively individualistic, and from which shines an understanding of, and belief in ballet as a medium to be pursued. It deserves to be seen across Australia.
In September the Australian Ballet announced its 2025 season and, amazingly, the season includes a visit to Canberra. The company has largely avoided the national capital for years now with various reasons given, none of which ever mentions a major, contentious situation that developed relating to orchestral involvement. That aside, it is also amazing that the company is bringing to Canberra Johan Inger’s magnificent Carmen rather than an ‘old favourite’ like The Merry Widow. See this link for my review of Inger’s production of Carmen from the Australian Ballet’s 2024 Sydney season.
The Canberra Symphony Orchestra will accompany the performances, which pushes the contentious issue alluded to above into the background, thankfully. Here’s hoping we are back on track and that the national company will continue to include, frequently, the national capital in its annual seasons. See the company’s website for details of the complete 2025 season.
Akira Isogawa
It was a thrill to see designer Akira Isogawa collaborating again with Melanie Lane on Love Lock, Lane’s recent work for Sydney Dance Company. Isogawa’s previous collaborations with Lane have included Slow Haunt for West Australian Ballet in 2021, and MOUNTAIN, an independent work from 2023.
Isogawa has also worked often with Graeme Murphy, both for works Murphy made for Sydney Dance Company while that company’s artistic director, and for Murphy’s production of Romeo and Juliet for the Australian Ballet. Some of Isogawa’s distinctive and intricate costumes, including items for Romeo and Juliet, were seen close-up in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria back in 2013. See this link.
I was sorry to hear of the death of Edith Campbell in Wellington on 24 September. I first met Edith in 2018 when I was in Wellington to deliver the first Russell Kerr Lecture, in which I focused on the work of designer Kristian Fredrikson. I talked a little in that lecture about productions by Opera-Technique Inc., the Wellington-based operetta company for which Fredrikson created some of his earliest designs, and in which Edith appeared as a performer.
The day after the lecture Edith showed me some material from Opera-Technique Inc. As I was in the throes of putting together my book about Fredrikson, Edith’s material helped enormously in filling in details about Fredrikson’s early work. I loved talking to Edith and am forever grateful for the help she gave me. After the book was published, Edith wrote about it and I published on this website what she had written. Read it at this link.
I was planning to review Chicago, which played at the Canberra Theatre Centre for a large part of September. But in the end I couldn’t bring myself to do it. For one thing (amongst others), I wondered how much of the text (spoken and sung) was being lip-synced. The voices sounded quite American in accent and I couldn’t believe that the Australian cast had those accents. Perhaps that’s the way things happen these days? But it’s not quite what I find satisfying in a theatrical presentation.
Press for September 2024
– ‘Dance triumph with a Canberra connection.’ Review of Twofold, Sydney Dance Company. CBR City News, 19 September 2024. Online at this link.
22 September 2024. Palace Electric Cinema, Canberra
Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, which premiered in 1974, has never been my favourite ballet. It has always seemed to be too long and to have a surplus of main characters that have often been hard to distinguish from each other. But I nevertheless went to see the film called L’Histoire de Manon as danced by La Scala Ballet in Milan to music by Jules Massenet. I was intrigued initially by the title and when reading about the ballet before seeing the film I discovered the following on the MacMillan website.
When the Paris Opera Ballet took Manon into its repertoire in 1991, a legal wrangle resulted in MacMillan’s ballet being re-titled L’Histoire de Manon. The heir to Massenet’s estate had objected to possible confusion between the opera and the ballet. Henceforth, the ballet has been known in Europe (with the exception of the United Kingdom) as L’Histoire de Manon and in the rest of the world simply as Manon.
To put it mildly, the film shows the ballet as a tour de force, completely understandable in all its facets and danced with remarkable technique from every performer. Standouts were Nicoletta Manni as Manon and Reece Clarke as the young student, Des Grieux, who falls in love with Manon and follows her to Louisiana, to where, as one of several prostitutes, she has been deported. Technically their performance of MacMillan’s choreography, especially the several pas de deux for them, with their flowing lifts, turns, slides and all manner of movements, was just spectacular. And as for their acting, the relationship between them was clearly evident. The audience could not have asked for more.
The same might be said for Nicola del Freo as Lescaut, Manon’s brother, and Gabrielle Corrado as Monsieur G. M., with whom Lescaut interacts to develop the connection with this rich old man who showers Manon with expensive items of clothing and jewellery. They are seen in the image below.
Even the ending in the swamp in Louisiana was so beautifully performed that its length seemed not to matter any more.
I admired Nicholas Georgiadis’ sets and costumes, as I have previously when seeing them used by London’s Royal Ballet in their production of Manon. They set up so well the difference between the rich and the poor in the story. (Manon will feature in the Australian Ballet’s 2025 season, when it will be performed with sets and costumes by Peter Farmer.)
More than anything, when looking back at my reactions while watching this film, I am very surprised by my emotional involvement in the production. I felt totally involved! It doesn’t happen all that often.
I have seen the La Scala company twice before, once in Brisbane in 2018 when they performed the Nureyev production of Don Quixote and once in Milan in 2019 when I saw their rendition of Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works. On both those occasions I was blown away by the performances and after Don Quixote wrote ‘This was a spectacularly good production from an outstanding company of artists.’ The film L’histoire de Manon simply confirmed my opinion that this company is just amazing.
Michelle Potter, 24 September 2024
Featured image: Nicoletta Manni as Manon
The photos used in this post come from publicity material for the film.
Below is an enlarged version of my review of Twofold published online by Canberra’s CityNews on 19 September 2024. The CityNews review is at this link.
18 September 2024. Roslyn Packer Theatre, Sydney
Sydney Dance Company’s Twofold began by giving the audience a second look at Rafael Bonachela’s work, Impermanence. Bonachela, artistic director of Sydney Dance Company for more than 15 years, created this work, in conjunction with American composer Bryce Dessner, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was first seen onstage in 2021 when I masked up and braved the situation and went to see it. My review of that occasion is at this link.
Then followed the thrill of a brand-new work, Love Lock, from Melanie Lane who works across the world as an independent choreographer. Love Lock is Lane’s second major work for Sydney Dance Company, following on from the much-admired WOOF, which premiered in its mainstage iteration in 2019. See this link for my review of that work.
Lane spent her early life in Canberra and received her dance training at the National Capital Ballet School under the direction of Janet Karin. She has maintained her Canberra connections and has worked closely in recent years with QL2 Dance, Canberra’s youth dance organisation, and has also created works in Canberra in a number of independent situations.
The titles of the two works in Twofold, Impermanence and Love Lock, both raise interesting questions in the mind of those watching, but neither really explains unquestionably the nature of the works as we see them. But then it has always been Bonachela’s belief that it is the members of the audience, not the choreographer, who decide on the meaning of any dance work.
Impermanence was extremely engaging and was performed to Dessner’s score played live onstage by the Australian String Quartet. Its choreography showed Bonachela at his most intense and relentless giving rise to the dancers being able to display their outstanding ability to bend and twist the body into remarkable positions while maintaining a lyricism and a strong connection with others onstage. They worked with each other in duets, trios, quartets and often as a whole group in unison. But I was surprised by the number of times five dancers formed a group, which made me think back to Bonachela’s Cinco, a work that referred to the five decades of dance from Sydney Dance Company.
The work was lit by Damien Cooper and often the dancers and musicians were shadowy. At other times they were dark figures in brighter surroundings. Always the lighting influenced how we perceived the dancing, which came to an end with a striking solo danced to a song from singer and songwriter Anohni.
As for Love Lock, given Lane’s Canberra connections it was more than tempting to think back to the strange role love locks have had in Canberra. In 2015 a growing collection of love locks, that is padlocks that represent everlasting love that are sometimes attached to a bridge before having their keys thrown into the water never to be retrieved, were forcibly removed by the National Capital Authority from the bridge leading to Queen Elizabeth II Island on which is housed Canberra’s carillon.
But Love Lock was a reflection on folk or community dancing, which Lane said she sees as celebrating what it means ‘to connect with each other through our bodies and essentially what it means to be human.’ In the early moments of the work the choreography was characterised by lines of dancers, dressed in shiny black, largely unadorned outfits, filling the performance space and working in a somewhat geometric fashion. Slowly, however, this structured format gave way to movement that was more eccentric, thus losing to a certain extent its folkloric appearance. As the work progressed dancers began appearing in remarkable and individualistic costumes from designer Akira Isogawa. The costumes were of various colours, often made with softly draped material, and often quite sharply and unexpectedly protruding beyond the line of the body.
Love Lock was also lit by Damien Cooper and was performed to a driving score commissioned from [Chris] Clark. The movement continued to appear intense and individualistic with changing physical connections between dancers until the closing moments when a calm descended over the group.
Love Lock is a work for this century. It is brash at times but always demanding of our thoughts about humanity and how connections may change over time. A triumph for its choreographer and her collaborators.
Dancer Rowena Jackson has died at the age of 98 in her home on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Jackson had an exceptional career with London’s Royal Ballet before returning to New Zealand, where she was born and where she and her husband, Philip Chatfield (1927-2021), became involved with a variety of dance activities. In 1993 Jackson and Chatfield moved to Queensland, to be closer to their family.
Jackson first came to Australia as a professional performer in 1957 to dance in Sydney and Melbourne as a guest artist with the Borovansky Ballet in a season that featured Margot Fonteyn. Her performances in Australia in 1957 were widely praised by critics with one writer remarking of Jackson and Bryan Ashbridge in the pas de deux from Don Quixote:
New Zealand can take a bow for Rowena Jackson and Bryan Ashbridge. Their pas de deux was an interlude of perfection. Two rubies in a velvet case … Precise and thrilling, their artistry was incontestable.*
Jackson returned to the southern hemisphere when the Royal Ballet toured to Australia and New Zealand in 1958-1959. Jackson and Chatfield led the company on that occasion and, during that tour, Jackson’s dancing was regarded as technically faultless. She had particular success as Swanilda in Coppélia often dancing alongside Robert Helpmann as Dr Coppélius.
Rowena Jackson died on 15 August 2024. Follow this link to read Jennifer Shennan’s obituary published in New Zealand by The Post on 2 September 2024.
Voices of the Italian Baroque
I don’t usually review music performances but circumstances were such that I ended up reviewing a one-performance-only event in Canberra by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. I really enjoyed the program, Voices of the Italian Baroque, and it was in fact the word ‘Baroque’ in the title that made me, hesitantly I have to say, volunteer to do it when no one else was available. The Baroque era, in terms of art and architecture, has long interested me, and I was curious to know whether the characteristics I associate with the art and architecture of the Baroque era were also present in music from the period. Here is a link to the review.
In the review I mention a sculpture by Bernini, which took my breath away when I saw it in real life (after paying to turn on a light so it could be seen properly!). Below is an image of that sculpture, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. It is often thought to have sexual undertones and is in a church in Rome, Santa Maria della Vittoria.
I may never review another music performance, who knows? But I am glad of the experience I had with Voices of the Italian Baroque, including being present in a relatively new theatre space in Canberra, the Snow Concert Hall, with its exceptional use of wood as the stage floor, and as a decorative item on the walls.
I am looking forward to seeing Queensland Ballet’s production of Coco Chanel. Life of a fashion icon, which takes the stage in Brisbane in October. Choreographed by Belgian-Columbian artist Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, it has already been seen, as it is a co-production, in Hong Kong and Atlanta.
As these things happen, however, Chanel’s connections with the dance world have surfaced on and off as I have continued my reading of books that have sat unread on my bookshelves for a number of years. At the moment I am reading Richard Buckle’s In the wake of Diaghilev and have discovered that Chanel subsidised the Massine revival of The Rite of Spring in 1920 when (according to Buckle) no one could remember the Nijinsky choreography. Chanel also visited Diaghilev in his hotel the day before he died in August 1929. She also donated 10,000 French francs to the effort by Boris Kochno and George Balanchine to start up a new company following Diaghilev’s death.** (10,000 French francs was a large amount of money given that with 100 French francs you could, at the time, buy around a year’s worth of milk, or butter plus sugar, or 6 months of bread—according to information found on the web).
Just how much of Chanel’s diverse career and political life will be featured in the ballet is yet to be seen. Such is the interest in the work, however, that some nights in the season are already sold out!
– ‘Review: Royal New Zealand Ballet.’ Review of Solace, Royal New Zealand Ballet. Dance Australia, 5 August 2024. Online at this link. – ‘A five-star show when dance meets music.’ Review of Silence & Rapture, Australian Chamber Orchestra & Sydney Dance Company. CBR CityNews, 18 August 2024. Online at this link. – ‘Uneasy show that pulled no punches in its message.’ Review of Jurrungu Ngan-Ga [Straight Talk], Marrugeku. CBR CityNews, 24 August 2024. Online at this link. – ‘Voices bring beauty to music of Italian Baroque.’ Review of Voices of the Italian Baroque, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. CBR City News, 25 August 2024. Online at this link.
I am thrilled to publish, on behalf of former student of Xenia Borovansky, Elizabeth Kennedy, this tribute to Joy Dalgliesh (1936-2024). As a result of her long friendship with Joy Dalgliesh, Elizabeth is able to reveal to us an image of Madame (as Xenia Borovansky was known to her students and others) that is quite different from what has been written elsewhere. Along the way she introduces us to other little known features of the world of the Borovanskys and I am sure readers will enjoy learning more about the Borovansky family, of which Joy Dalgliesh was clearly a member. Michelle Potter, 27 August 2024.
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Remembering Joy Dalgliesh Elizabeth Kennedy
I first encountered Joy Dalgliesh in 1968 when I began lessons at the Borovansky Ballet Academy in Melbourne with Madame Xenia Borovansky. I cannot offer a completely dispassionate account: Joy and I shared many opinions on ballet matters and were bound to share biases as well.
In 1970 I received the first of what would become several invitations to accompany Madame on her annual summer holiday in Daylesford, initially staying at the Villa Camellia, the property of the Russian singer Mara de Renroff.
The author (centre) with Madame and her brother V.R. Smirnoff at Daylesford railway station
Shortly afterwards, Madame bought a holiday house of her own in Daylesford, and on and off over the next ten years I would visit her there or at her house at Grandview Grove where Joy, when not visiting her parents for the weekend, would sometimes be present.
The author at Madame’s with her two dogs Mushchka and Sharek
In 1980 I left Australia to live and continue my university studies in Scotland. On departure Madame gave me a signed photo of herself.
Madame’s apparent pessimism in this dedication was not justified
In the 1990’s Joy and I resumed contact, albeit from different continents, and from the early years of 2000 were in frequent communication. Our last contact was at the end of 2023, shortly before she died.
In 2013 Joy sent me some hand copied excerpts from some of the cards she received from Madame:
Joy arrived in Melbourne from Wodonga in the early 1950’s to work at a solicitors’ office, in the city of Melbourne, first training in book-keeping and subsequently as a paralegal. She worked in that capacity into her 50’s and then worked at the head office of The Age in Melbourne. She initially lived with an elderly Polish lady called Mrs Krause, a client of her employers, first at Kew and then in Burke Road, East Hawthorne, Melbourne. Joy was destined to live in that part of Melbourne for the next thirty years.
Through her work connections and in conjunction with those of the lady called Mrs Mackay, an invitation was extended to Joy to go and stay at 14 Grandview Grove, East Hawthorne, the Borovansky residence in Melbourne. Madame Xenia Borovansky had just been widowed, was effectively on her own, and inevitably vulnerable to the dubious characters who batten onto rich old widows. Madame Borovansky had no extended family in Australia who could give her security and comfort. Mrs Mackay, a close friend, called on Joy to lend what support she could. Joy accepted the invitation to stay with Madame—a short distance from where she was living at the time with Mrs Krause, just the other side of Burke Road. She became Madame’s family, her extended family, a shield, a rock and—in the final years—her carer.
Joy taken by V.R. Smirnoff, Madame Borovansky’s brother, at Grandview Grove sometime in the 1970s
Joy’s love of ballet started in her childhood when she had private lessons while still in Wodonga. Once in Melbourne, for a long time outside her day job hours, she trained mostly with Martin Rubinstein who took her under his wing. When he was absent, examining, he nominated her to step in for him and take his classes—as an associate or, as Joy would say, his ‘sidekick. There was an occasion once for Boro to be present—always on the lookout for potential Borovansky Ballet candidates—so the critical eye of the dancing master did behold Joy briefly! But it was not to be—Joy’s great merit lay elsewhere, unbeknown at the time.
Edouard and Xenia Borovansky were great celebrities, moving in exalted circles on the Australian scene at the time. They had exceptional connections prior to their arrival in Australia: Pavlova, Fokine, Colonel de Basil, Picasso (the last two particularly well known to Boro): the whole world of beauty and glamour that classical ballet stood for in those days.
Joy attended many of the spectacular shows put on in Melbourne by the Borovansky Ballet Company and had many fond memories of these, including seeing Barry Kitcher dance in Graduation Ball. Through the good offices of Michelle Potter, Joy was able to make contact with Barry in recent years and get news of Martin Rubinstein and reminisce and exchange some ballet secrets. Of course, Joy well remembered seeing Boro himself perform in ballets such as Carnaval and Coppélia. She considered the Borovansky Nutcracker productions absolutely ‘the best’, compared to others she had been able to see in different formats over the years: the Borovansky ones, in her opinion, were ‘particularly true to the original conception of this Christmas ballet as actual childrens’ world of magic’. Joy also particularly observed that, unlike with ‘ballet companies these days where there’s a stream of directors Boro did everything himself’—not to mention the fact that ‘he spent all of his earnings on his dancers’ salaries and company costumes’, while his wife Xenia had to foot the entire purchase price of the matrimonial home at Grandview Grove herself. (The house was in her name alone).
A Borovansky Australian Ballet Christmas card. On the inside the pre-printed message reads, ‘With all Good Wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Edouard and Xenia Borovansky, 14 Grandview Grove, Hawthorn E. 3., Melbourne, Australia, Photography by: Allen Studios’
Over many years, part of the inner sanctum of Madame’s private world, Joy was able to observe and hear much that went on in Madame’s life, both prior to arriving in Australia and after Boro’s early death at the end of 1959. For that, Joy was envied and maligned in equal measure—albeit nothing would deflect her from what became her life’s mission. She knew the back stories to the gossip and trouble alluded to by Frank Salter in his book on the Borovansky phenomenon in Australia. She would relate with amusement or deliberation, as the case may be, many anecdotes. One such goes back to the time of Anna Pavlova when she was in Monte Carlo with her ballet company. The dancers were not greatly remunerated in those days, in fact, they were all quite poor and at times had to scrape around to feed themselves. On this particular occasion somebody came up with a solution: they pooled all their current resources and sent Feodor Shevlugin off to the Casino to gamble in order to secure the necessary funds for some provisions. Off he went and a while later returned with stacks of baguettes and onions. The onions were duly fried, spread out inside the baguettes and eaten with relish; they did all this self-catering in the part of the hotel which was at the other end to where Madame Pavlova had her rooms, but the feast was sufficiently fragrant for her easily to detect.
Another of Joy’s anecdotes concerned Robert Helpmann and Rudolf Nureyev. When Nureyev staged Don Quixote for the Australian Ballet Company, during the Arts Festival held in Adelaide in 1970, he and Helpmann had been staying at a house belonging to Mrs Mackay’s family. Whereas Nureyev graciously paid the rental for his share of the accommodation, Helpmann did not. Apparently, Joy said, ‘he considered himself entitled’.
With Madame’s influence over the world of ballet for many years it was natural that Joy would look for beauty and perfection in the Vaganova Method. In recent years she would spend hours on her iPad watching YouTube videos and purchasing DVDs of some of the latest fabulous dancers representing that school. She adored Svetlana Zakharova, Ulyana Lopatkina and Svetlana Lunkina. Joy considered Lunkina ‘the best Giselle’ and that Zakharova ‘had the best feet’. In contrast, watching Margot Fonteyn in Ondine and the Rose Adagio in The Sleeping Beauty she noticed how Fonteyn, ‘sickled her foot when doing the retiré and développé,’ and ‘sickled her left foot behind the leg in pirouettes’. Of the male dancers in more recent times, Joy adored Roberto Bolle and referred to him as ‘the most beautiful chap’.
In contrast, she would say of Robert Helpmann ‘Helpmann couldn’t dance’. Indeed, she reserved her greatest scorn and criticism for this fellow Australian and the mythology that went into overdrive surrounding him. She found particularly distasteful the means Helpmann, van Praagh and other anti-Borovansky fellow travellers, deployed over the decades to undermine the Borovanskys’ achievements, and their attempts to relegate to obscurity the company and its huge contributions to Australia.
Joy was not alone in Australia in casting a jaundiced eye in Helpmann’s direction, as correspondence in The Herald in 1968 makes clear.
Clipping from The Herald with sections marked in red pencil, preserved by Joy. Sent to the author in 2016
The 1980 gala tribute celebrating Borovansky’s work as the founder of ballet in Australia, was held at the Sydney Opera House by the Australian Ballet under the directorship of Marilyn Jones, and attended by Madame Borovansky, her friend Mrs Mackay, Sanderman, and Edna Busse; alas, Joy stayed behind at Grandview Grove looking after the house.
The Australian Ballet 50th Anniversary Gala in 2012 was received by Joy with sadness: ‘There was no scenery, little pieces and it wasn’t classical AND no mention was made of the Borovanskys. For a long time, people called the Australian Ballet Company The Borovansky Ballet Company.’
This was the background against which Joy’s mission in life crystallised. Australia, she felt, owed the Borovanskys a debt of honour and something needed to be done. As a proud Australian, in her own modest fashion, she committed her life to the surviving member of this extraordinary couple, dedicating herself to Madame—at work, in the Borovansky Ballet Academy studio, and (increasingly) at Madame’s home. It was Joy who secured the state pension for Madame, when Madame was told, in no uncertain terms, that none would be forthcoming in her case. It was Joy who was there for Madame when fire ripped through one of the flats forming part of 14 Grandview Grove, through the negligence of a tenant. It was Joy who looked after and kept house for Madame. And when cancer was taking increasing toll over Madame’s ability to look after herself independently, Joy became her constant carer and companion enabling Madame to stay in her own home to the very end.
A Russian Orthodox priest was called the night before Madame died. Mrs Mackay (who lived very close at ‘the grandest place in Burke Road’ and visited regularly in the evenings to play Chinese chequers with Xenia) arrived by taxi an hour before she died. Joy was already there on her knees by the bedside.
Edna Busse arrived from Wagga Wagga to find Joy waiting to set off to the funeral. Joy told me that Miss Busse pointed to her saying to the undertakers ‘Oh, she’s just a tenant’, and demanded that Joy ‘take off those black shoes and those black clothes!’ Some tenant! Although comically snobbish, Joy was hurt and reflected afterwards on what had possibly produced the outburst—her only hypothesis was that Miss Busse was wearing one of her light-coloured, signature vintage ‘Jumper’ dresses of her own making and realised Joy was perhaps more appropriately dressed.
After Joy left Grandview Grove she lived for another 38 years. She remained very loyal to the memory of Madame and Edouard Borovansky.
She died just short of her 88th birthday. A Memorial Service was held on 26 July 2024 in Doncaster, Victoria. Joy was one of those rare Australians—a national treasure.
Edouard and Xenia Borovansky —The Young Australian Pioneers
Books referred to in the text:
Kitcher, Barry. From Gaolbird to Lyrebird—a Life in Australian Ballet (2001 edition now sold out) new eBook edition (BryshaWilson Press, 2016) now with over 340 images compared with around 100 in the 2001 printed book.
Salter, Frank. Borovansky. The Man Who Made Australian Ballet, Wildcat Press, Sydney, 1980.
Elizabeth Kennedy, 25 August 2024
Featured image: Extracted from ‘Joy taken by V.R. Smirnoff, Madame Borovansky’s brother, at Grandview Grove sometime in the 1970s’. (Full image above)
23 August 2024. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
Below is a slightly enlarged version of my review of Jurrungu Ngan-Ga [Straight Talk] published online by Canberra’s CityNews on 24 August 2024. The CityNews review is at this link.
I have always thought of Marrugeku as a dance company with a strong focus on Indigenous issues. But Jurrungu Ngan-Ga, staged recently in Canberra by Marrugeku, showed just how much more the company offers audiences. In the case of this production, multi-disciplinary is a much stronger descriptive term for this company. In Jurrungu Ngan-Ga dance was a definite, probably dominant, component and the dancers were all exceptional performers. But the dance input was solidly supported by voice (both spoken and sung), video projection, and installation. It also had a cast of diverse cultural origins, including those with an Indigenous heritage as well as migrants to Australia, especially those who had been interred in immigration camps, notably on Manus Island in Papua New Guines.
The work was largely a series of distinct scenes. It opened with a solo that gave us a look at the kind of choreography we might expect throughout the evening—dance that was twisted, complex, occasionally grounded but moving constantly across the stage space, and subtly displaying the effects of invisible forces on the body. From there Jurrungu Ngan-Ga moved from scene to scene, some more confronting than others including some prison scenes, some overtly sexual moments, and one scene that involved dancing that seemed to suggest determined resilience in the face of unimaginable personal difficulties.
Choreographically Jurrungu Ngan-Ga was diverse in its references. There were moments when moves were distinctively balletic, some that seemed clearly Indigenous, others that had a strongly Asian feel, and some that recalled hip-hop. There were even some moments when I couldn’t help thinking of Raygun and her much-discussed Olympic break-dancing performance.
Unfortunately, as is a common practice these days, the online program gave us little that helped identify performers we may not have known from elsewhere—no portrait-style images. But the male dancer who, to me, gave the strongest performance was former Canberra-based artist Luke Currie-Richardson. Tall, powerfully built, shaved head and sporting a black beard, he was at times terrifying as he manipulated a boomerang as if it were a gun, while all the time soaring through the air and always completely committed to his role. *
Bhenji Ra also gave an outstanding performance as a woman who needed to, and did talk about her ideas and opinions on life. She did it mostly from a table top, which she demanded to be set up for her. Her strength as an actor shone through.
Costumes by Andrew Treloar were an interesting mix of styles from underwear to stylish evening attire. They were also shared among the dancers and often split into several pieces with parts worn by various dancers. As for the projections, from the program it was not immediately clear who was responsible for this aspect of the show but it was more of a mirror of what was happening onstage than anything else.
Marrugeku is led by Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain and is located between Broome, Western Australia and Sydney New South Wales. Its patron is former senator, Patrick Dodson, who has been strongly involved with the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. His input into the political aspects of Jurrungu Ngan-Ga was clearly present.
With such a background Jurrungu Ngan-Ga was not an easy show to watch. It was provocative and it constantly put confronting issues before us. It ended as it had begun with a solo, which this time was angst-ridden and full of a feeling of sorrow. The work pulled no punches but certainly gave us a profound examination of shameful issues, largely those emerging from incarceration and the detention of refugees, which have affected the people at the heart of the work. Straight Talk indeed.
Michelle Potter, 26 August 2024
* For more about Luke Currie-Richardson see this link to an article published in The Canberra Times in 2016 (from the days when that newspaper actually published material about the arts).
Below is a slightly enlarged version of my review of Silence & Rapture published online by Canberra’s CityNews on 18 August 2024. The CityNews review is at this link.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) has an admirable history of staging productions with dance companies in which both musicians and dancers perform onstage, with artists of each genre reflecting the work of the other in some way. My first recollection of this kind of collaborative endeavour goes back to 1998 when the ACO joined with a small contingent of dancers from the Australian Ballet, then under the direction of Ross Stretton, to present the Stravinsky/Balanchine ballet, Apollo. Since then there have been several collaborations between the ACO and Sydney Dance Company. Silence & Rapture is their most recent joint initiative.*
Directed by Richard Tognetti, Silence & Rapture presented a series of compositions by two composers—J. S. Bach and Arvo Pärt—whose works are years apart but were so expertly curated on the program that they fell together seamlessly. Program notes explained the narrative that was behind the selection. It followed ‘the path of a Lutheran metaphor … the world as a pendulum swinging downward, from the natural world of Hope and Temptation (Garden of Eden), down to Tragedy and Passion (Garden of Gethsemane), then upward again to Resurrection and Redemption (Garden of Heaven).’ The ACO musicians were joined by countertenor Iestyn Davies and two Sydney Dance Company artists, Emily Seymour and Liam Green, who performed the choreography of Rafael Bonachela.
Every aspect of the show was superbly executed by every single artist, with a standout performance of the Prelude from Bach’s Suite for Solo Cello in C Major from ACO’s principal cellist Timo-Veikko Valve. Apart from an impeccable transmission of the sound of the music, Valve the man could scarcely be separated from his instrument so involved was he, in a bodily sense, in transmitting the notes across the stage space and into the auditorium. While Valve’s involvement in this way was unforgettable, most of the ACO musicians also showed their intense commitment with a similar physical connection with their instrument during performance.
The dancers also stood out for their performance of Bonachela’s highly complex movement. Bonachela needed to restrain his choreography to an extent, given the small space in which the dancers could perform. But he showed his skill and, in addition to a focus on complexity, which often reflected the complexity of the music, he had the dancers at times performing solos on two small tables on the edges of the stage space. There were brief moments too of unison dancing involving Seymour and Green and I am always impressed by the way Bonachela turns to unison work, and how his dancers respond so beautifully.
But the truly outstanding feature of Silence & Rapture was the theatricality that permeated the evening, especially in the use of the stage space. Apart from the two cellists and Chad Kelly, who played organ and harpsichord, all the musicians stood for the entire performance (how did they do it?) and formed a semi-circle onstage. They provided a focused performing area for the dancers and countertenor, who constantly interacted with each other, with the countertenor occasionally joining the dancers in performing Bonachela’s choreography.
Then there was the input from well-known lighting designer Damien Cooper. His design added colour to the production, and darkness sometimes when the musicians were practically hidden but still playing. His design also highlighted certain moments, including the cello solo by Valve, and a moment towards the end when the two dancers mounted a rise at the centre back of the stage to present the ‘upward swing’ to ‘Resurrection and Redemption’.
When I look back at the Apollo collaborative event of 1998 (and re-read my less than positive review of that performance) I wonder whether the success of Silence & Rapture reflects the fact that in this case the dance was made for the music, which had been specifically selected and put together. The show thus had an originality, a presentation that had not existed previously, an originality that was not present in what was put together in 1998? Whatever the reason, in its one-night-only performance in Canberra, Silence & Rapture was a five-star show.
Michelle Potter, 18 August 2024
* It is of course not uncommon for dance companies and composers to work together—even working onstage together is relatively common. This review simply concerns the collaborative efforts of the ACO, while not dismissing other such efforts.
Below is a slightly enlarged version of my review of Solace published online by Dance Australia on 5 August 2024. The Dance Australia review is at this link.
Solace, the recent triple bill from Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB), offered audiences a thought-provoking look at the approach of contemporary choreographers who work with ballet companies. They are often inspired by abstract ideas rather than by a narrative line. Such was the case with the three works that made up Solace: Wayne McGregor’s Infra, To Hold by Sarah Foster-Sproull, and Alice Topp’s High Tide.
First up was Infra, danced to a score by Max Richter. I first saw Infra in an Australian Ballet season back in 2014 and I was not really thrilled with what I saw then. But I felt quite differently watching the RNZB production. In his RNZB program notes McGregor remarked that ‘Infra has become simply about people’. Two people stood out in the cast I saw—Branden Reiners and Kate Kadow. Their duet, one of several in Infra, was filled with emotion as a result of the magnificent contact they made with each other. The connection they created was not simply a result of the physicality they developed through McGregor’s choreography but in other ways as well, including through their constant and engaging eye contact. But eventually Reiners left the stage, walking off without acknowledging Kadow. Her reaction continued the momentum that the duet had generated. Kadow seemed stricken by anxiety and pain as she reacted to Reiners’ departure. It was heart-stopping. Despite exceptional dancing by the entire cast, nothing could match the performance of Reiners and Kadow.
Apart from being moved by the Reiners/Kadow connection, it was interesting to watch the unfolding of McGregor’s choreography. With Infra he worked within the classical medium but pushed that medium to exceptional lengths. In particular, his choreography moved away from the classical notion that the body is centred on an erect spine. In Infra it was quite noticeable that the spine was often curved with the dancers pushing the pelvis backwards and forwards to remove and then reinstate the straight line of the spine. Great work from RNZB.
Next was Sarah Foster-Sproull’s newly-commissioned work, To Hold, again dealing with an abstract idea, ‘ways of holding and being held’. This idea was constantly made clear by the groupings Foster-Sproull created throughout the piece. Often the dancers gathered together in large, tightly-held arrangements. Often too they joined arms to create various groupings. Frequently the hands, often with fingers spread wide apart, were very prominent. To my mind this focus on joining hands in various ways meant that other choreographic moves seemed of secondary importance. I would have loved to have seen more variation rather than the work being overburdened by ‘togetherness’.
The bright blue costumes by Donna Jefferis moved beautifully as the choreography, and the score by Eden Mulholland, unfolded. The costumes added a visually impressive element to the work.
The evening ended with another new work, High Tide, created by Australia’s Alice Topp to music by Icelandic composer Ölafur Arnalds. Topp writes that the work is ‘a tender look at the isolating experiences of fear and our ever-changing shadows’. High Tide consisted largely of duets, a dance format that is a specialty of Topp’s choreographic approach. Topp showed off her skill at developing lifts and partnership moves that were often quite spectacular in the way bodies linked up. Dancers were, for example, often held upside down or in twisted positions, and they frequently pulled away from each other while still maintaining a physical connection. Topp’s choreography is firmly classically based but is demanding in its complexity and there were moments when I felt a little anxious about some of the performers. High Tide probably needs more time for the dancers to develop greater confidence and fluidity with Topp’s choreography.
While visually all three works had an impact, the most outstanding collaborative contribution was designer Jon Buswell’s huge and domineering orb that accompanied High Tide. It reflected, on its changing surface and with its movement within the performing space, much of what Topp hoped to express about human experiences.
Solace was a demanding triple bill and RNZB rose skillfully to the occasion. It was an evening to be savoured and enjoyed for what it demonstrated about ballet today.
Update on request. An oral history interview with Alice Topp, recorded for the National Library of Australia, is available at this link. (MP 7/8/24)
As August approaches I am looking forward to a number of dance performances beginning in Wellington with Royal New Zealand Ballet’s triple bill program Solace. Solace opens on 1 August and consists of Wayne McGregor’s Infra and two new works, To Hold by Sarah Foster-Sproull and High Tide by Alice Topp. Infra was seen in Australia in 2017 when it was performed by the Australian Ballet in a season called Faster. It is not my favourite McGregor work and it suffered somewhat in 2017 by being programmed alongside an absolutely brilliant work, Squander and Glory, by Tim Harbour. But I am very much looking forward to seeing the new works by Foster-Sproull and Topp.
I interviewed Topp in November for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. It is available to listen to online at this link.
Then, in mid-August, the fifth Ballet International Gala begins a series of one night stands in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra. Annoyingly it is not clear which works will be presented in Australia. Nor is it clear which dancers will be performing. I guess we just have to wait and see! Here is the website, which may eventually include some specific information.
James Batchelor was recently funded by artsACT to develop a new work ‘inspired by the late choreographer, Tanja Liedtke.’ This follows on from his Shortcuts to familiar places, which examined the influence of Gertrud Bodenwieser on those who were close to her and those who followed her methods of dancing and teaching.
Liedtke’s career was relatively short. She tragically died when quite young (she was just 29) and, while she was definitely an influential choreographer, she was, as a result of her early death, without the extended connections Bodenwieser had developed over many decades. So, it will be interesting to see how Batchelor develops this new work.
News from QL2 Dance
Late in July, at the invitation of the Australian Embassy in Thailand, some dancers from Canberra’s youth group QL2 Dance performed in Bangkok as part of a large-scale event to celebrate the birthday of His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Phra Vajiraklaochaoyuhua. Two First Nations’ dance artists, Julia Villaflor (Wagiman) and Jahna Lugnan (Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr) were part of the celebration and performed Connected, a duet they had created that acknowledges and explores their connection to the land and each other. Villaflor and Lugnan were accompanied on their journey to Bangkok by Alice Lee Holland, incoming director of QL2 Dance.
