Strelsa Heckelman Lording (1925−2012)

Strelsa Heckelman, 1950. J. C. Williamson collection. National Library of Australia

Strelsa Heckelman Lording, who danced under her maiden name Strelsa Heckelman in several early Australian ballet companies in the 1940s and 1950s, has died in Melbourne aged 87.

Described by friend and dancing colleague Athol Willoughby as ‘a sparkling dancer with a strong technique’, Heckelman began dancing early in her life in her home town of Brisbane. By the time she was thirteen she had passed all her Royal Academy of Dance examinations and shortly afterwards she was invited to take part in classes with Colonel de Basil’s Original Ballet Russe during the company’s 1940 Brisbane season. De Basil then invited her to follow the company to Sydney, which she did.

But, despite impressing de Basil, she did not join the Ballets Russes. Instead she continued her training as a full-time student with Hélène Kirsova in Sydney at Kirsova’s studios at Circular Quay and, when Kirsova started a ballet company herself in 1941, Heckelman joined it. She danced with the Kirsova Ballet until the company folded in 1944. With Kirsova she was part of the unique collaborative activities that Kirsova initiated when she commissioned composers, including Henry Krips, and designers such as Loudon Sainthill to work with her company.

Heckelman then joined Edouard Borovansky’s Borovansky Ballet performing in the company’s regular repertoire as well as in musical shows that Borovansky choreographed for the J. C. Williamson organisation. Later she danced with Laurel Martyn’s Melbourne-based company Ballet Guild, and in the early 1950s danced again in J. C. Williamson musicals, including Song of Norway and Oklahoma. Leading performers in musicals in the fifties were almost always brought in from overseas and Heckelman danced to considerble acclaim in both Song of Norway and Oklahoma with star American jazz dancer Matt Mattox.

Her final professional performances before retiring in 1953 to have her children were with the National Theatre Ballet in Melbourne. With the National her repertoire included the full-length Swan Lake, the Giselle peasant pas de deux, which she danced with Ray Trickett, and the Head Girl in Kira Bousloff’s staging of Graduation Ball. She also alternated with Valrene Tweedie as Columbine in Tweedie’s 1953 production of Carnaval for the National.

Strelsa Heckelman in the peasant pas de deux from *Giselle*. National Theatre Ballet, 1952. Photo: Walter Stringer. National Library of Australia

Athol Willoughby recalls a somewhat incredible feat that took place during a rehearsal for the National’s Swan Lake. He says: ‘Our rehearsals for the 1952 season were conducted in a large church hall in the suburb of Hawthorn. At a rehearsal for “Swan Lake” Act 3, Strelsa was dancing in a cardigan because she had a cold. She began the 32 fouettes of the coda when her nose began to run. Without missing a beat she took a handkerchief from a pocket in the cardigan, blew her nose, put the hanky back in the pocket concluding the series of fouettes without moving from the spot. That seemed to me to be quite an achievement!’

In between jobs with a ballet companies, Heckelman worked in a photographer’s studio and later in the perfume department of the Melbourne department store, Georges. Following her stage career she established her own ballet school and also taught for other teachers in the Melbourne area. She remained active in the dance world in her later years and in 2002 became patron of the Tasmanian Ballet Company.

Heckelman once recalled that she never tired of dancing. She thought of every night as an opening night and always relished the overture starting, the curtain going up and seeing the lights in the theatre. That was the magic of the theatre for her.

Strelsa Heckelman married Jack Carruthers in 1951. After the death of Carruthers, Heckelman married Tom Lording in 1984. He died the following year. Heckelman is survived by a son, Ian, and a daughter, Lynn, from her first marriage.

Strelsa Heckelman Lording: born Brisbane, 20 July 1925; died Melbourne, 28 December 2012

Michelle Potter, 7 January 2013

Sacre—The Rite of Spring. Raimund Hoghe

5 January 2013, Carriageworks, Eveleigh (Sydney), Sydney Festival 2013

The year 2013 is the centenary of the first performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, which Vaslav Nijinsky choreographed for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and which received a riotous reception on its opening night. The story of that night has passed into legend and, as Raimund Hoghe’s Sacre began, a voice-over recounted that tale. We were not told whose words they were but I have assumed they were those of Stravinsky recalling the evening.

But Hoghe’s production is about as far removed from what we have come to know as Sacre as you could imagine, and since 1913 countless choreographers have tried their hand at making their own version. First, the music for Hoghe’s production was a two piano score, played live. While this was pleasurable to listen to, it was an odd experience because orchestral colour is a large part of what makes those other danced versions of Sacre that audiences have seen over the years so powerful, so full of tension, so theatrical, so dramatic—the Joffrey reconstruction, the Pina Bausch version, Maurice Béjart’s production as danced by Tokyo Ballet, Stephen Page’s Rites and Meryl Tankard’s Oracle are the ones I have seen onstage.

Secondly, the work was choreographically extremely limited. Danced by Hoghe, who is small, middle-aged and has a deformed spine, and the much younger, athletic Lorenzo De Brabandere, it consisted of the two dancers balancing against each other, running (De Brabandere sometimes full pelt, Hoghe usually with jerky, stilted movements reflecting his disability), facing each other and looking hard into each other’s eyes, and performing similarly uncomplicated, often repeated movements. No drama or tension there either.

Perhaps the clue to this work comes in the final moment when the voice-over returns (and this time we were told the words are those of Stravinsky). Stravinsky recalls that when writing the work he was not constrained by any theory and he further recalls that a neighbour remembered that while he, Stravinsky, was writing a young boy used to stand outside, listening. The boy kept saying ‘That’s wrong’. Stravinsky’s answer was ‘Wrong for him’.

It is Hoghe’s right to produce a Sacre that has nothing of what we have come to expect. No-one expected Nijinsky’s choreography either. But what I found most interesting as I sat watching this show was Hoghe’s body in performance. It was intriguing to see how his disability affected his centre of balance, or how he compensated physically for the lack of a centred spine as he performed the moves he did. But this is not why I go to the theatre. I longed for a moment of drama, a bit of tension, even some choreography, no matter how simple, that reflected something of the rhythms of the music, which were of course still obvious in the two piano score. There was one moment that jolted me out of a soporific state and that was when, after leaning over a dish of water, De Brabandere suddenly splashed water into Hoghe’s face. But one splash wasn’t enough to compensate.

Michelle Potter, 6 January 2013

Ballets Russes: ‘We’re going to Australia’

Talk given at the National Gallery of Australia in conjunction with the exhibition Ballets Russes: the art of costume, 12 March 2011

Modified text and PowerPoint slides at this link

Some audio clips as used in the live talk and referred to in the text:

The full audio interviews with Baronova and Bousloff are available online from the National Library of Australia:

Michelle Potter, 1 January

Dance diary. December 2012

Hannah O’Neill: news from Paris

Hannah O’Neill is now half way through her second year with the Paris Opera Ballet, having successfully negotiated another temporary contract at the annual examinations the company conducts each year.

In her second year with the company O’Neill has taken particular delight in performing in George Balanchine’s Serenade, part of a program of three Balanchine ballets that began the 2012‒2013 season. Sadly for her Australian admirers however, she is not coming to Sydney for the Paris Opera Ballet’s season of Giselle to be staged in January‒February. She says that, as she is still on a temporary contract, she wasn’t expecting to tour but that the bonus is that she will be performing in Paris in February in Jiri Kylian’s Kaguyahime. With a company of over 150 dancers, the Paris Opera Ballet has the luxury of being able to tour while maintaining a regular program in Paris at the same time. Kaguyahime, a spectacular piece of theatre, will be O’Neill’s first experience dancing a contemporary work since she has been in Paris.

Michelle Ryan: new artistic director at Restless Dance Theatre

Early in December Michelle Ryan was appointed artistic director of Restless Dance Theatre in Adelaide. Many will remember Ryan I am sure from her performance days with Meryl Tankard. She joined the Meryl Tankard Company in Canberra in 1992 and then moved to Adelaide in 1993 remaining with Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre until it disbanded. More recently Ryan has been working as rehearsal director with Dance North.

For more about the history of Restless Dance, a contemporary company working with people with and without a disability, the National Library holds an extensive interview with Kat Worth, artistic director of Restless Dance 2001–2006.

Meryl Tankard: an original voice

Here are some shout-lines from some who have read Meryl Tankard: an original voice: ‘It has a sense of drama but also balance, and it brings Meryl and her work to life’; and ‘The best and most comprehensive study of Tankard I have read’.

Site news

I am always interested to see which tags are being accessed most frequently by visitors to this site. It usually changes slightly from month to month depending on what has been posted in any particular month. But it is perhaps more telling to look at which tags have been accessed over a full year. In 2012 the Australian Ballet topped the list. Here are the top ten:

The Australian Ballet
Hannah O’Neill
Ty King-Wall
Ballets Russes
Graeme Murphy
Meryl Tankard
Madeleine Eastoe
Olga Spessivtseva
Juliet Burnett
Lana Jones

Michelle Potter, 28 December 2012

Liz Lea. More Canberra dance in 2013

When I first wrote about what Canberra dance audiences are likely to see in 2013 there was no mention of what Liz Lea, current artistic director of Canberra Dance Theatre, would be presenting over that year. Well, not surprisingly, Lea has a number of shows in development for 2013.

Over the past several months, Lea has been choreographer-in-residence at CSIRO Discovery in Canberra where she is researching bird flight, feathers and behaviour, and examining how the paths of history might inform current dance practice. Many of her plans for 2013 will build on the research and work-in-progress activities she has engaged in as part of the residency. A major venture is Seeking Biloela, which Lea will direct at the Street Theatre, Canberra, on 26 and 27 October. The show will consist of two solo works, ‘Magnificus, magnificus’ and ‘Kaught’.

‘Magnificus, magnificus’, performed by Tammi Gissell and directed by Lea, develops the work-in-progress that Lea showed at CSIRO Discovery during Science Week in August 2012 and in which Gissell made such an impression.

Tammi Gissell in rehearsal for the work-in-progress, *Seeking Biloela*, August 2012. Photos: © Lorna Sim

In its expanded form the work is inspired by the red-tailed black cockatoo, as indeed the work-in-progress was as well, and the developed work will, as Lea puts it, ‘explore the nature of being a performer, where we come from and how we go forward’.

‘Kaught’, created and performed by Lea, is inspired by the writings of the freedom fighter Ahmed Kathrada, who was imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela for 26 years. In particular, ‘Kaught’ focuses on Kathrada’s favourite Hindi song about a trapped bird. In addition to Lea, ‘Kaught’ will feature the ARIA Award winning tabla player Bobby Singh, along with composer and saxophonist Sandy Evans.

The creative team for Seeking Biloela 2013 also includes lighting designer Karen Norris, whose work for Bangarra Dance Theatre’s recent production, Terrain, was so impressive, and Japanese-Australian fibre installation artist, Naomi Ota.

Also during 2013 Lea will direct a company of four dancers to present InFlight, a work inspired by early Australian aviators and Australian bird life. This show has a two day season on 31 May and 1 June at the National Library of Australia. Other projects include a series of dance and science lectures at CSIRO Discovery in February; DANscienCE—a festival of dance and science at CSIRO Discovery and Canberra Dance Theatre studios for National Science Week in August; and a project in June at the National Gallery of Australia as part of Canberra’s Centenary celebrations.

More as information comes to hand but bouquets to Lea for her input into the Canberra dance scene. A bit of alternative dance life is definitely something the city needs.

Michelle Potter, 27 December 2012