On 11 March 2025, Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal returned to the Adelaide Festival, this time bringing its seminal dance theatre work Café Müller (1978) for its Australian premiere. The full program is a nostalgia trip revisiting prominent works from the 1970s and 1990s, because the company at that time was under the directorship of trailblazing French contemporary dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz who brought his Club Amor to partner with Café Müller, making this a fascinating evening highlighting ‘love and desire’ in very different ways. Charmatz speaks of his admiration of Bausch’s repertoire and the importance of her legacy:
I wanted to go deep into her work so it can be taken care of collectively because it is not me alone taking care of it. There is the foundation, the critics, the dancers and ex dancers, the audience and so on. There are so many people who are taking care of this repertoire which is amazing. (Veronica Posth, Dance Icons, 2023)
That said, feathers have been ruffled with some resistance within the company to Charmatz’s artistic direction (Hüster, 2025). Indeed, regarding repertoire preservation, certain choreographers have made explicit instructions that their work is not performed after their death, so it is a positive to understand how Salomon Bausch—son, heir, and rights administrator of the Bausch works—working alongside the Pina Bausch Foundation considers the importance of Café Müller being revived.
My attention was first drawn to Kyle Abraham, choreographer of The Weathering (a Royal Ballet commission from 2022), while working in New York from 2006 to 2008, although I didn’t ever manage to see any of his choreography then. Almost two decades later, The Weathering, made on eleven dancers (two female and nine male of various ethnicities) is the first of his works that I have seen.
Media notes tell us that The Weathering ‘explores notions of love, loss and acceptance’ although it is not always easy to see that exploration appear in the choreography. I thought Abraham’s movement was quite repetitious—lots of pirouettes and other turning steps and a particular emphasis on waving arms. There was the occasional czardas-type movement and a few other interesting steps but nothing took away from the feeling I had that the choreography was somewhat repetitious.
The most watchable sections for me were those that featured Fumi Kaneko whether in her solo sections or in pas de deux with William Bracewell. Kaneko’s beautifully flexible body, and the fluidity with which she uses that aspect of her dancing, along with her ability to inject emotion into her performance made watching her a real pleasure.
A pas de deux between Calvin Richardson and Joseph Sissens also was satisfying to watch. It was a moment when the attraction between two people was strong.
The lighting design by Dan Scully consisted of lights enclosed in small rectangular-shaped containers. They were movable items that appeared at times on the floor and at others in various positions across the upper space of the performing area. Their placing and movements were something to watch, although it wasn’t clear if there was, or was not a relationship between them and the expressed themes of love, loss and acceptance.
In the end this review became a very short comment largely because I just kept wondering whether Abraham was simply making an effort to create a work that could be seen as politically or culturally correct given the diversity of the cast he chose and the way that cast members interacted in terms of gender and ethnicity. I am looking forward to seeing some more of Abraham’s work. It might clarify his approach (for me at least).
It was a real pleasure to see that Elizabeth Cameron Dalman had been awarded an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) in the King’s Birthday Honours announced early in June. Dalman’s dance career has been quite astonishing and has included the establishment of Australian Dance Theatre in 1965, a company that she directed for 10 years and that continues to the present day; the creation of a vast number of contemporary dance works; working and performing with dance artists across the world including in Australia; and the establishment of the Mirramu Creative Arts Centre at Bungendore close to Canberra, along with the Mirramu Dance Company (co-founded with Vivienne Rogis).
Dalman has been the recipient of numerous awards including an OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) in 1995; a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Dance Awards in 1997; a creative Arts Fellowship from ArtsACT in 2004; induction into the Australian Dance Awards Hall of Fame in 2015; and the award of Canberra CityNews Artist of the Year also in 2015.
Academically Dalman is the recipient of a Masters of Creative Arts degree from the University of Wollongong earned in 1994 and a Doctorate in Dance from the University of Western Sydney achieved in 2012.
The above is a very brief account of an amazing career. She has just recently published a book, Nature Moves, which gives more information. And for more about Dalman on this site see this tag.
Anandavalli
I had the pleasure in June of recording an oral history interview for the National Library of Australia with renowned Sydney-based dancer, teacher and choreographer, Anadavalli (pictured on the left). Once processed for inclusion in the NLA’s collection, the interview will be readily available to those interested in what has been, and continues to be an exceptional theatrical career.
Valery Panov (1938-2025)
Valery Panov, a dancer whose professional career started with the Kirov Ballet but who left Russia in 1974, has died in Ashdod, Israel, at the age of 87. Obituaries are available online through a number of sources.
Panov’s career has been written about extensively in books and a variety of other sources but rarely, if ever, do authors mention that he and Galina Panov danced a major season of ten weeks in Australia and New Zealand with Ballet Victoria, the company established by Laurel Martyn.
Unsurprisingly, Edward Pask, in his book Ballet in Australia. The Second Act 1940-1980 does not ignore the visit by the Panovs and gives an account of the productions in which they danced and some reviews of their dancing. While Petrouchka was always the major item on the program, both in Australia and New Zealand, other works presented included a work by Panov himself, Adagio celebre, Jonathan Taylor’s Star’s End, Les Sylphides and Harlequinade.
Over May, June and July of 1976, the Panovs and Ballet Victoria performed in Australia in Sydney, Brisbane, Newcastle, Canberra, Adelaide and Melbourne before moving on to New Zealand where they were seen in Wellington, Auckland, Dunedin and Christchurch. Ballet Victoria did not, it seems, last as a company for much longer after July. In fact the company was dissolved in October 1976. Pask suggests that it was due to a major financial loss as a result of the Panov tour. The Panov season clearly deserves a thorough re-examination.
DanceShowcase, Adelaide College of the Arts
it was a thrill to see first year tertiary dance students at the Adelaide College of the Arts performing their first work-in-progress event. The showcase was a thirty-minute-long production, full of choreographic surprises and very well performed by all. ‘It was great to see professional contemporary dance,’ said a young person sitting next to me. The students are being taught by Sarah-Jayne Howard (back row in a red top in the image below), who joined the dancers for the attached group photo taken at the end of the showcase.
27 June 2025. The Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane
Queensland Ballet’s Triple Bill left me with mixed feelings. The opening work was Jack Lister’s Gemini, which in program notes is described as ‘A subterranean gathering harnessing both the earthly and the divine. A new world where myth and matter amass.’ To me it was an effort to bring to the fore the procedure of Gesamtkunstwerk where all the various elements that make up a show are given a strong presence and inform each other in some way. Musically we heard Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 as a reimagined score by Louis Frere-Harvey. Lighting was interesting, although not hugely to my liking as it constantly cut out the movement created by the dancers. But music and lighting certainly had a strong presence.
But for me the choreography was an unimpressive addition to the whole. For some of the time there was no movement, just bodies standing in various groupings. When there was movement it was quite abrupt and geometric in look. At times it looked animalistic and at others it reminded me of a kind of calisthenics. It was all something of a disappointment.
The absolute standout was the second work on the program, Natalie Weir’s 4Seasons, a creation that was filled with fluid movement and curving shapes. There were some truly beautiful pas de deux sections—as we have come to expect from Weir. Some were quite acrobatic but always balletically acrobatic and I loved watching for how the male dancers held the females as they proceeded through the pas de deux. There were some spectacular solos too, especially from Ivan Surodeev as Summer and Joshua Ostermann as Winter (pictured below right).
It was also fulfilling to watch Weir’s use of the performing space throughout 4Seasons. Often a line of dancers across the space, or stretched vertically through the space, would break up with movements that flowed along those lines and seemingly reflected on interconnections between those engaged in a journey through life.
4Seasons was danced to Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, with some sections recomposed by Max Richter. Its costumes were designed by Bruce McKinven and lighting came from Matthew Marshall.
The evening closed with Greg Horsman’s A Rhapsody in Motion. This is the third time I have watched Horsman’s Rhapsody and every time I have seen something new. On this occasion I was taken aback (pleasantly) by parts of the opening section in which Horsman explores a dancer’s engagement with the barre, that object with which every ballet dancer’s class begins and which Horsman sees ‘a seemingly simple tool that represents years of discipline and dedication’. I loved those moments when the dancers found an occasion to use the barre in ways that don’t usually happen. (I don’t remember a class where I was held upside down at the barre!)
I also enjoyed immensely the movement from barre to eventual performance complete with changed costumes (Zoe Griffiths) and with some exciting dancing from across the cast. A Rhapsody in Motion is a fast-paced production that opens new areas of interest at each viewing.
Queensland Ballet continues to go from strength to strength with displays of remarkable dancing.
My 2025 review of Carmen was published by Canberra CityNews online on 21 June 2025. Below is a slightly expanded version of the review. The CityNews review is at this link.
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It was something of a surprise to see, on approaching the Canberra Theatre Centre for the opening night of an Australian Ballet performance of Johan Inger’s Carmen, that the exterior walls of the building were lit red. Red, the colour we perhaps associate with Carmen, the very dramatic leading character in the story who is invariably dressed in red. But it also set up a particular feeling that perhaps this was not going to be the Carmen we might be expecting. And the production, created by Swedish choreographer Johan Inger, was indeed a very different production from other versions of Carmen I have seen.
Inger’s Carmen updates the story in the novella, Carmen, written in 1845 by the French writer Prosper Mérimée. Inger’s ballet, created originally for Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid in 2015, looks inside the personalities of the characters, especially the sexual feelings of the three major male characters—Don José (Callum Linnane), Torero (Jake Mangakahia) and Zúñiga (Brett Chynoweth) and their activities with women, especially Carmen (Jill Ogai).
Inger has added some characters. They include a young boy (Lilla Harvey) who begins as an innocent youth dressed in white. We see him playing with a football as the ballet begins. The boy follows the action throughout, but by the end has been shocked by the actions that have taken place and loses that innocence. His white outfit is now a black costume. In addition, there are characters dressed in black and wearing masks. They appear throughout both acts and seem to characterise Fate as they remove dead bodies and interact with other members of the cast.
Choreographically Inger surprises with his fast, complex movements and his expressive choreography for the feet, legs, arms and hands. All recall balletic movements but they push that recall beyond expectations. His choreography also has powerful sexual references, especially from Carmen, who often presents herself in sexually explicit ways to the men with whom she is engaging.
Musically the work is exciting to hear. While the composer is credited as Rodin Shchedrin, the score includes music from Georges Bizet’s composition for the opera Carmen with additional music from Marc Alvarez. It was played live by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra conducted by guest artist Jessica Gethin.
Carmen looked fabulous on the Canberra Theatre stage. It is a stage that has, over the years, been much maligned by certain influential staff of the Australian Ballet. They have consistently refused to bring the company to Canberra with a major, but not sole reason being that the stage was unsuitable. But for Carmen the stage space had been stripped back and set up as a kind of ‘black box’ site, which suited the quite minimal but beautifully expressive set (Curt Allen Wilmer and Leticia Ganán).
The set consisted of several large pillars with different surfaces depending on which side was facing the audience. The pillars could be, and were moved into a variety of positions and combinations to suggest the various settings in which the action took place. Those settings included an arrangement that seemed like a maze through which Don José rushed while calling out for Carmen. The oblong shape of the performing space also suited the spatial aspects of Inger’s choreography, especially for his groupings of dancers, which were often in horizontally arranged lines.
The Australian Ballet really needs to reconsider its attitude to Canberra. ‘We are CBR’ says the city’s slogan with the letters C, B and R not just being an abbreviation for the name of the city but also standing for Confident, Bold and Ready. Carmen is a brilliant production, exceptionally choreographed, beautifully produced and so well danced by artists of the Australian Ballet. It so suits those who are confident, bold and ready. Don’t miss it!
