Hatupatu Kurungaituku—A Forbidden Love. Taki Rua Productions

Artistic Direction: Tānemahuta Gray
Kapa Haka choreography: Wētini Mītai-Ngãtai
at Tawhiri in Wellington. 20 – 24 February 2024 and following tour to Auckland, Christchurch & Rotorua
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

It’s always a special moment for an audience when the poster image for a production is revealed in the course of play—only fleetingly, there it was, but we recognise it instantly since we have been looking forward to this show for some time and wondering how the combination of its many threads might weave together. And what an image it is, also on the program cover—a Maori man, Hatupatu, wearing a fine piupiu (woven fibre skirt), stands looking at us, his left fist strongly clenched, his right arm lifted to embrace the Maori bird-woman, Kurungaituku, who is suspended upside-down beside him, their cheeks adjacent, faces wreathed in red feathers and foliage, her bird body marked with feather shapes. It speaks of love and tragedy, of what is possible and what’s not, a man and a woman together but who can never be united, and one of them will die. The cryptic mystery of the legend of Hatupatu and the Bird-Woman is told in dialogue, all of it in te reo (Maori language), four males, gun performers of haka and taiaha. Female aerial artists are the birds, their urgent calls screeching out as they soar and sway overhead.

It is a courageous and innovative opening performance of the Aotearoa New Zealand Arts Festival, in a new venue that Wellington will see more of.

You’d have to be a visionary to even attempt such a production but if anyone can do it that would be Tānemahuta Gray in tandem with Taki Rua theatre enterprise. Tāne has been thinking for years about creating this show, let’s call it an aerial dance-play, drawn from a legend of Te Arawa Maori. It’s a remarkable project but he would be swift to credit the team of collaborators. Principal among those is Wētini Mītai-Ngatai, (of the leading cultural group in Rotorua, Te Mātārae I Ōrehu), who choreographed the kapa haka and taiaha sequences which Hatupatu and his three brothers deliver with power, precision and grace. There is contrasting humour when they goof around sparring with each other, to the great delight of the capacity audience which is seated or standing either side of the long thrust-stage. The Bird-Woman and her fellow creatures fly and soar above us, but without indulging in virtuosity merely to impress us. We are the more impressed by that.

Another stage at one end is backed by a drop screen with projected stunning images, stylised from the natural world phenomena around Rotorua. (Lucky me, I visited there by coincidence just last week so was thrilled to be reminded here of the wondrous dancing sands at Hamurana, the deafeningly wonderful waterfall at Okere, the fuming Pohutu geyser, the glorious soaring trees and exquisite bird life in the bush at Maungatautari). A trap door opens and recreates Pohutu geyser, and another trapdoor opens to reveal a mammoth cage in which the Bird Woman traps her man. These are all special effects that could go wrong 100 different ways. Nothing went wrong.

Paddy Free’s supportive sound score incorporated taonga puoro (traditional Maori music instruments) played by Alistair Fraser. John Verryt’s set design, Jo Kilgour’s lighting, Elizabeth Whiting’s and Amy Macaskill’s costume design are all faultless.

I specially appreciated the illuminated taniko weaving patterns that replaced a proscenium arch. That personified the title Taki Rua, the long-standing theatre company that presented this work. (Former director of Taki Rua, playwright Hone Kouka says of the name, ‘Taki Rua is a weaving pattern and means to go in twos—signifying the bi-cultural aspect of the theatre.’) This is an assembled tribe of Aotearoa New Zealand’s premier theatre artists all at their stunning best. Eds Eramiha as Hatupatu, a magnetic presence, is a natural performer across several genres without a cliché anywhere. Kasina Campbell as Kurungaituku is the compelling Bird Woman, every one of her gestures finely chiselled. Both are experienced in film, theatre and kapa haka so not a shred of performance nerves near them. Others in the cast include graduates from Toi Whakaari Drama School, Whitireia Performing Arts, Unitec, UCol, University of Auckland, New Zealand School of Dance, which accounts for a refreshing combination of performance styles.

Tāne Gray is himself a graduate of New Zealand School Dance and still maintains a presence for Maori tikanga there. This production carries further echo back to the 2001 season of Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Ihi FreNZy, which combined Mark Baldwin’s choreography to songs of Split Enz, and the kapa haka group of Te Mātārae I Ōrehu, led by Wētini Mītai-Ngātai. This production brings the promises from that early season to fruition here, 23 years later.

The production will now tour to Auckland, Christchurch and Rotorua—where I imagine the roof will lift off the venue, the audience rise in haka to applaud them, then everyone will be flying on high-wires.

Ka mua ka muri. Look back to look forwards.

Jennifer Shennan, 22 February 2024

Featured image: Hatupatu, played by Eds Eramiha, and Kurungaituku the Bird Woman played by Kasina Campbell. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Hilary Trotter (1933–2024)

Hilary Trotter, whose influence on the role of dance in society, especially in Australia, is almost without measure, has died in Canberra in her 91st year. From a personal point of view, she helped me for several years with the establishment of Brolga. An Australian Journal About Dance. And from the point of view of the growth of professional dance in the ACT, her input was remarkable. Below is an outline of Hilary’s career in dance written by her close colleague Julie Dyson, and published here with her permission.

Hilary Trotter, dance writer, advocate and activist
b. 13 June 1933; d. 18 February 2024

Hilary and her family moved to Canberra in the 1960s, where she was dance critic for the Canberra Times from 1972–90. She was an early advocate for dance in the ACT as a writer and parent of young children at the then Bryan Lawrence School of Ballet where she herself—determined to learn the intricacies of ballet—joined the classes as an adult beginner. In 1977 she became a founding member of the Australian Association for Dance Education (now the Australian Dance Council—Ausdance), and was its first ACT President from 1977–1981, and National President from 1981–84.

Hilary helped to draft Ausdance’s first Constitution in 1978, wrote its monthly newsletter Dance Action, managed ACT dance projects such as Sunday in the Park, initiated the annual ACT Summer School of Dance, the ACT Dance Festival, and then successfully lobbied for the establishment of the ACT’s first professional dance company, Human Veins Dance Theatre (HVDT).

In the early 1980s she was elected to the Gorman House establishment committee, ensuring that there would be workable and accessible dance spaces there with sprung floors, high ceilings and adequate office and green room spaces. Since then there have been permanent professional dance companies in residence in Gorman House [now Gorman Arts Centre]: HVDT, the Meryl Tankard Company, Sue Healey’s Vis-à-vis Dance Canberra, the Australian Choreographic Centre, and now QL2.

Funding for all Ausdance ACT projects were the direct result of Hilary’s skills as a grant application writer and advocate. When Ausdance National received its first Australia Council funding in 1984, Hilary became its co-director until her retirement in 1991, co-managing many projects for Ausdance National including the establishment of a national dance database, partnerships with the Media Arts & Entertainment Alliance (MEAA) to produce the Dancers’ Transition Report (1989), and the National Arts Industry Training Council to produce the first Safe Dance Report (1990) as its skilled project designer and editor, and inventing the now internationally-recognised term ‘Safe Dance’, with implications for dance practice world-wide. She also designed Brolga—an Australian Journal About Dance and Asia-Pacific Channels for many years, and was the writer, editor and designer of all Ausdance National publications throughout the 1990s.

Hilary’s vision for Ausdance was to see a network of funded Ausdance organisations throughout the country, and her work to realise that vision led to a real growth in Australians’ understanding of dance as an art form, as a vital part of every child’s education, as a health imperative and as a serious area of tertiary study. The national coordinators toured the country every year throughout the 1980s and early ’90s, visiting each Ausdance office, holding meetings with companies, studio teachers, students, tertiary institutions, local arts councils and funding bodies, and endeavouring to link all their activities to meaningfully connect the industry with a voice that would be heard by decisions makers at all levels, but most particularly in the federal Parliament.

Hilary’s passing sees the end of an advocacy era, where leadership that provides action and a national overview is respected, validated and acted upon by all in the greater interest of dance across political and state boundaries. Recent national and state funding decisions have greatly undermined this effort, a situation that saddened Hilary in her later years.

Hilary’s approach was gently persuasive, always backed by written evidence and supported by others with whom she worked. Hilary was made an Honorary Life Member of Ausdance in 1991, and was further honoured at the 2018 Australian Dance Awards for Services to Dance.

Vale Hilary!

—Julie Dyson, 18/2/24

Julie Dyson has reminded me also of an oral history that Hilary Trotter recorded in 1988 with Don Asker director of Human Veins Dance Theatre at the time, which is part of the oral history collection of the National Library of Australia. She also reminded me of a series of articles (five to be exact) regarding a 1982 tour made by Adelaide-based Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), then led by Jonathan Taylor. The articles, with the title ‘Dustbins and Taffeta’, appeared in Brolga, issues 10–14 (1999–2001). Looking back at them they provide an exceptional record of that tour, which started at Sadler’s Wells in London and then continued at a range of festivals in Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. I randomly opened up the first article and read the following paragraph, which concerns Taylor’s work While we watched:

The deep impression made by the high energy level of the dancing is a hallmark of the piece. But the rake and small size of the Sadler’s Wells stage have caused problems of pace and timing in rehearsal. In Adelaide the dancers had to run at full speed to make their stage crossings in time, but here people keep finding themselves arriving at designated points in the pattern too early. Nevertheless I hear the stagehands behind me talking in low voices, ‘See the energy—it’s staggering—people zipping about all over the place—God, what stamina!

All five articles are well worth reading. (Brolga is unfortunately no longer in production but it is held in print form in most major state libraries around Australia.)

Vale Hilary indeed!

Michelle Potter, 19 February 2024

Featured image: Hilary Trotter receiving her Honorary Life Membership from Ausdance President Keith Bain in Perth in 1991. Photographer not identified

Jungle Book Reimagined from Akram Khan Company. A review

3 February 2024. Canberra Theatre

Below is a slightly expanded review of Jungle Book Reimagined originally published by Canberra’s City News on 4 February 2024.

English choreographer Akram Khan has made a name for himself as an artist who pushes boundaries and who looks for new ways of presenting well known stories. His 2016 production of Giselle, which he removes from its 19th century origins and sets in a modern context of migrant labour, is one example. So too is Jungle Book Reimagined which takes as a starting point Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, a collection of stories that, like Giselle, dates back to the 19th century. Jungle Book Reimagined points out how vulnerable we are as our climate changes and becomes catastrophic. The opening scenes are gripping as we see well-known buildings collapsing—Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, and others—and we listen to emergency broadcasts about the situation.

Scene from *Jungle Book Reimagined*. Photo: © Ambra Venuccio

In Act I we are introduced to Mowgli, a girl child in this production rather than the boy we encounter in Kipling’s book. She has been separated from her family when she falls off a boat that is taking the family away from their now uninhabitable home, made so as a result of rising water and other disastrous climate changes. The child is discovered by a pack of animals who eventually name her Mowgli and we follow the decisions made about her future by these animals. While some of the animals are represented by dancers, others, including Hathi a large and dominant leader of the elephants, and a line of mice who scurry across the downstage space at one point, are shown using line-drawn animation techniques created by director of animation Adam Smith.

In Act II other animals, who have come from human testing laboratories, attempt to have Mowgli teach them to become human and take on characteristics that they find may help them in some way as they become inhabitants of the earth, including the use of fire. But Mowgli eventually realises she must support the friends with whom she has found peace rather than give in to the demands of this group.

The story is told in large part by a soundtrack of voices from various actors, each representing a different character, with an original musical score from Jocelyn Pook. Many of the major events are presented in video form and have been created by technician and projectionist Matthew Armstrong. A particular feature of the video elements is the interaction that occurs between the human performers and the video footage.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of Jungle Book Reimagined is that, for all intents and purposes, it is classed as dance. Khan, who has a Bangladeshi heritage, is well versed in the Indian dance style of kathak. The hybrid choreography he has developed in Jungle Book Reimagined is Western contemporary dance with kathak overtones, especially in some movements of the hands and fingers and the feet, which occasionally flex up with the heel remaining on the ground. The dance sections, which are interspersed throughout the two-hour production, are magnificently performed. There are some exceptional group sections and moments when a single character dances solo. The dancing is nothing short of spectacular.

But Jungle Book Reimagined defies characterisation as any specific theatrical genre. Given the animation, the voices, the songs and other such elements, it is definitely more than dance. It is not a play although the use of narrative techniques is a strong element throughout, perhaps as a representation of the fact the work is based on a written text? Nor is it an item of musical theatre even though song plays a part. It is hard to know how to pin it down other than to say it crosses boundaries in the most creative manner.

I did, however, find it difficult sometimes to follow the jumble of conversations that happened among the characters. I also found it frustrating that the sound often seemed to be coming from spots in the auditorium, which I guess was meant to make the production immersive, although to me it was distracting. While there were also parts of the show that probably needed a second viewing to fully understand the story, I nevertheless found Jungle Book Reimagined, and the transmission of its message for those who inhabit our earth, terrifyingly brilliant.

Here is a link to the City News version. See also my earlier post on this production.

Michelle Potter, 5 February 2024

Featured image: Scene from Jungle Book Reimagined. Photo: © Ambra Venuccio

Tribute to Jon Trimmer

2 February 2024. Opera House, Wellington
by Jennifer Shennan

Sir Jon Trimmer, dancer extraordinaire and leading artist of the Royal New Zealand Ballet for decades, died in October 2023. Yesterday a Tribute to the man and artist was presented in Wellington to a capacity audience at the Opera House. Guest of Honour was Jacqui, Lady Trimmer, also a dancer with RNZB, who was at Jon’s side throughout his 60 year performance career

The event was designed and prepared by Turid Revfeim, former dancer with Company, and more recently artistic director of her independent Ballet Collective Aotearoa.

We were reminded of the extraordinary range of Jonty’s roles in spoken tributes, photo images, film excerpts of him dancing, and live performances by current members of RNZB. Jon had danced in all the classics—(his favourite was Albrecht, and we also saw film of him as the visionary poet in Les Sylphides). In dramatic roles there were so many favourites but let’s mention Friar Lawrence and Duke of Verona in Christopher Hampson’s Romeo and Juliet; the debauched King in André Prokovsky’s Königsmark; Dr Coppélius in Russell Kerr’s Coppélia; the stunning Swan in Bernard Hourseau’s Carmina Burana; a compelling toa/warrior in Gaylene Sciascia’s Moko; the enigmatic Man in Ashley Killar’s No Exit; and the poignant Leopold in Gray Veredon’s Wolfgang Amadeus—in a duet-minuet with the inimitable Eric Languet. In comedy roles Jon relished Stepmother in Cinderella, Pantalone in Veredon’s The Servant of Two Masters, The Matron in Gary Harris’ The Nutcracker, and goofing through the title role in Harris’ Don Quixote.

Jon Trimmer as the wealthy Pantalone and Harry Haythorne as Dr Lombardi in 'A Servant of Two Masters' — Jon Trimmer (left) as the wealthy Pantalone and Harry Haythorne as Dr Lombardi in *A Servant of Two Masters*. Royal New Zealand Ballet. Photo: © Martin Stewart, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. PACOLL-8050-36-04

Jon Trimmer (left) as Carabosse in *The Sleeping Beauty*, 1979. Photographer not identified; and (right) as Dr Coppélius in *Coppélia*, 1996. Photo: © Stephen A’Court. Images courtesy of Royal New Zealand Ballet

All those memories are worth gold, but it’s apparent to anyone who thinks about it that Gray Veredon was/is New Zealand’s exceptional choreographer with a unique imagination, style and sensibility. Jon was 41 when he first danced the outrageously wonderful solo as The Entertainer in Veredon’s Ragtime Dance Company. No one on the planet ever did or could match that performing. At age 80 Veredon is still active on the international choreographic stage, with recent successes in Warsaw and Venice, and now in Mexico. How fine and fitting it would be for RNZB to re-stage some of his stellar works—perhaps Firebird and Tell Me A Tale for starters.

In 2006 Peter Coates directed and produced a wonderful documentary of Jon’s career from which excerpts were screened. How wonderful to see and hear Russell Kerr in such good voice analysing Jon’s talents. The film will be a valuable resource for years to come.

Tributes were received from former artistic directors of RNZB—Harry Haythorne (by proxy from Mark Keyworth), Ashley Killar, Patricia Rianne, Gary Harris, Matz Skoog, Ethan Stiefel and Francesco Ventriglia—and were read by Anne Rowse, former director of New Zealand School of Dance.

Breathing stopped when Helen Moulder started a cameo from her poignant play, Meeting Karpovsky, that she and Jon performed many times. How could she do that with half the cast missing? But suddenly there was Kim Broad who quietly appeared from the shadows in a miraculous summoning of Jon’s presence. That was the true moment of theatre in the whole event.

The next Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts, the sixth in the annual series, to be held in Wellington on Sunday 25 February 2024, will be all about Jon Trimmer. Turid Revfeim is the main presenter, with a number of other contributors, and we will also screen the complete Coates’ documentary. For those readers able and interested to attend, please email jennifershennan@xtra.co.nz for an invitation.

We are already thinking ahead that 2025’s lecture will be on Gray Veredon. Perhaps the year after that might be Eric Languet?

Jennifer Shennan, 3 February 2024

Featured image: Jon Trimmer in Helen Moulder’s Meeting Karpovsky. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Dance diary. January 2024

BOLD Bites

The BOLD Festival started as a biennial event in 2017 but it suffered in terms of being biennial as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It will, however, be back in a mini form in March 2024. BOLD24 will be a ‘Bite Size’ initiative and will feature a series of events celebrating International Women’s Day 2024. It will anticipate the next major BOLD festival in 2025. BOLD Bites will, as is the focus of all BOLD activities, honour intercultural, inclusive and intergenerational dance.

The program will take place over three days, from 8 to 10 March, in various venues in Canberra. Further information shortly on the BOLD website. Stay tuned. UPDATE: Here is a link to the schedule.

I will be involved in three conversation sessions:

BOLD critique with author Emma Batchelor on writing about dance in reviews, articles and other formats. Our conversation will be followed by an open Q & A session.

BOLD Moves with Elizabeth Cameron Dalman focusing on the foundations of Mirramu on Lake Weereewa, and on the inspiration Dalman finds in nature. It will be a prequel to the premiere screening of a new film, Lake Song, choreographed by Dalman, directed by Sue Healey and featuring Canberra’s company of older dancers, the GOLDS.

BOLD Diva with Morag Deyes, former director of Dance Base in Scotland. This conversation will focus on the rich tapestry of Deyes’ career as the leader of Dance Base and as the founder of PRIME, Scotland’s premier dance company of elders.

New dancers for Sydney Dance Company

Sydney Dance Company has announced that five new dancers will join the company for its 2024 season—Timmy Blakenship, Ngaere Jenkins, Ryan Pearson, Anika Boet and Tayla Gartner. It was more than interesting to read a brief biography of each of these new dancers. Two have strong New Zealand connections (Jenkins and Boet); Blakenship was born, raised and trained in dance in the United States; and Pearson and Gartner are Australian with Pearson having a strong First Nations background and a memorable early career with Bangarra Dance Theatre.

Sydney Dance Company 2024. Photo: © Pedro Greig

Sydney Dance Company has always been a company of dancers with diverse backgrounds but with the new additions in 2024 that diversity is being strengthened. And from a personal point of view, after watching Ryan Pearson perform so magnificently with Bangarra Dance Theatre, I really look forward to watching him work with Sydney Dance Company. Below are brief biographies of the five new artists (taken from the Sydney Dance Company media release):

American dancer Timmy Blakenship was born on the Lands of the Arapaho Nation/Colorado, and completed his early training in contemporary dance and choreography at Artistic Fusion in Thornton, Colorado and Dance Town in Miami, Florida. He continued his training at the prestigious University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance on scholarship, graduating with a BFA in 2023 where he performed works by William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Merce Cunningham and Yin Yue.

Ryan Pearson was born and raised in Biripi Country/Taree, New South Wales and is of Biripi and Worimi descent on his mother’s side and Minang, Goreng and Balardung on his father’s side. Ryan began his dance training at NAISDA at age 16, after taking part in the NSW Public Schools’ Aboriginal Dance Company, facilitated by Bangarra’s Youth Program Team in 2012. Ryan joined Bangarra Dance Theatre in 2017 as part of the Russell Page Graduate Program and was nominated in the 2020 Australian Dance Awards for Most Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer for his performance in Jiri Kylian’s Stamping Ground.

Originally from Wadawurrung Country/Geelong in Victoria, Tayla Gartner commenced full-time training at the Patrick Studios Australia Academy program in 2018 before undertaking the Sydney Dance Company’s Pre-Professional Year in 2022, where she performed works by choreographers including Melanie Lane, Stephanie Lake, Jenni Large, Tobiah Booth-Remmers and Rafael Bonachela. In 2022, Tayla worked with and performed repertoire by Ohad Naharin and was a finalist in the Brisbane International Contemporary Dance Prix.

Born in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Ngaere Jenkins is of Te Arawa and Ngāti Kahungunu descent. Ngaere trained at the New Zealand School of Dance, graduating in 2018. Throughout her studies, she worked with influential mentors including James O’Hara, Victoria (Tor) Colombus, Taiaroa Royal and Tanemahuta Gray. Ngaere represented the school as a guest artist in Tahiti at the Académie de Danse Annie FAYN fifth International Dance Festival and Singapore Ballet Academy’s 60th Anniversary Gala. From 2019 Ngaere was a dancer with The New Zealand Dance Company and was the recipient of the Bill Sheat Dance Award.

Raised in Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Anika Boet is of South African and Dutch descent. Moving to Sydney in 2020, Anika completed two years of full-time training at Brent Street School of Performing Arts, receiving her Diploma of Dance (focusing on Contemporary) with Honours. Anika made her professional debut in Sydney Festival in January 2022 performing a work Grey Rhino, choreographed by Charmene Yap and Cass Mortimer Eipper. Anika completed a post-graduate course at Transit Dance, performing works by Chimene Steele Prior, Prue Lang, and Paul Malek.

Ruth Osborne, OAM

Ruth Osborne, outgoing director of Canberra’s QL2 Dance, was honoured with the richly deserved award of a Medal of the Order of Australia at the 2024 Australia Day Awards. Osborne has had a distinguished career over several decades, most recently since 1999 with Canberra’s outstanding youth dance organisation, QL2 Dance. Among her previous awards are an Australian Dance Award (Services to Dance), 2011; a Churchill Fellowship, 2017; and three Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards, most recently in 2023 for her performance and input into James Batchelor’s Shortcuts to Familiar Places. For more about Ruth Osborne on this website see, in particular, this link and, more generally, this tag.

Ruth Osborne, Canberra, 2023. Photo: © Olivia Wikner

Meryl Tankard: a new work

My colleague Jennifer Shennan has passed on the news that Ballet Zürich has just premiered a new work by Meryl Tankard. Called For Hedy, it is part of a triple bill called Timekeepers, which looks back to the artistic achievements of the 1920s. Other choreographers represented in Timekeepers are Bronislava Nijinska (Les Noces) and Mthuthuzeli November (Rhapsodies). More information is on the Ballet Zürich website.

Press for January 2024

It has been a while since I have been able to add a section called ‘Press …. ‘ in a dance diary, but in January I had two items published in print outlets (which of course also appeared in an online version). The first appeared in Canberra’s City News, the second in Dance Australia for the 2023 Critics’ Choice section.

‘Flatfooted funding threatens company’s future.’ City News (Canberra), 4-10 January 2024, p. 17. Online version at this link.

‘MICHELLE POTTER, Canberra’. Dance Australia: ‘Critics’ Choice’. Issue 242 (January, February, March 2024), p. 46. The text for this item is quite difficult to read against its black background, even in a blown-up version, so that text is inserted below next to a small image of the page.

Choreographer James Batchelor regards himself as a Canberran, although at this stage in his dance life he works between Australia and the rest of the world. To make a career as a professional, independent artist he goes where work is available for him and most recently has been working in Sweden with Norrdans. But he grew up in Canberra and had his dance training with QL2, Canberra’s youth dance organisation. He returns frequently to his home town and in 2023 presented Shortcuts to Familiar Places, a work that in fact had a significant connection with Canberra. It was a major highlight in the city’s dance calendar.

The work began as an investigation into the transmission of dance from one generation to another. Batchelor was especially interested in his own “body luggage” as passed on to him by his early dance teacher at QL2, Ruth Osborne, whose background had links to the work of pioneering dancer and teacher Gertrud Bodenwieser. Shortcuts to Familiar Places was the end result of this interest and investigation.

Shortcuts began with footage of Osborne giving an insight into the swirling movements of the arms and upper body that she absorbed via her own teacher, former Bodenwieser dancer Margaret Chapple.

As the footage came to an end, Batchelor appeared onstage and performed a shadowy solo that began slowly but that gathered momentum as time passed. From then on there was a beautifully conceived melding of film footage and onstage movement with Batchelor being joined by Chloe Chignell in a series of duets. It was a fascinating experience to watch the movement unfold and to feel a clear connection to what Osborne and others demonstrated and spoke about on film at various moments during the work. In addition to Osborne we saw on film Eileen Kramer, who demonstrated the movements she recalled from Bodenwieser’s Waterlilies, as well as Carol Brown and Shona Dunlop MacTavish. But it was also interesting to see how Batchelor and Chignell moved away from the movement of Bodenwieser and her followers to develop an individual but connected style.

One moment stood out in an exceptional way. It happened when, on film, Osborne stretched her arm forward in a straight line towards Batchelor and Chignell on stage as if reaching to them in a gesture of transmission, which they accepted with arms outstretched towards the footage. There it was, the lineage and its transmission for us all to see.

A driving, original score from Morgan Hickinbotham was played live and a changing pattern of light and dark came from lighting designer Vinny Jones. With dramaturgy by Bek Berger, Shortcuts was an intelligently thought through show. The idea of embodied transmission is one that is so often mentioned in dance discussions today, but with Shortcuts Batchelor showed the concept to us specifically through dance, and demonstrated in particular how a style from an older period can be developed to suit the current era. Shortcuts to Familiar Places was just brilliant to watch and consider.

Michelle Potter, 31 January 2024

Featured image: A moment during the filming of Lake Song, directed by Sue Healey and choreographed by Elizabeth Cameron Dalman (seen in the foreground, coaching from the shore), 2023. Photo: © Sue Healey