The Whole Cake. Vivienne Rogis

My review of The Whole Cake was published online by CBR CityNews on 28 September 2026, following its premiere performance on 27 September. The review below is a slightly enlarged version of the CityNews post. Follow this link to the CityNews review.

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27 September 2026. The Hall Pavilion, Hall ACT

It would be hard to envisage a more unusual dance performance than The Whole Cake. Created and choreographed by Vivienne Rogis, it sets out to examine her experiences as a woman engaging with life over several decades. There is dance of course, but the whole consists of six episodes that also give a verbal outline of specific periods in Rogis’ life (and by extension periods in female life in general). Then, at the end of each section Rogis cuts six separate cakes and, after donning on an apron, distributes slices to the audience.

Vivienne Rogis serving a slice of cake. *The Whole Cake*, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

Rogis defines the six episodes as expressing ‘the difficulties and joys of managing diverse roles within family, work, community, and friendship, while maintaining a sense of individuality.’ Each of the six episodes follows a similar framework: a danced section, a verbal discussion with personal references to Rogis’ own experiences, and the cutting and serving of slices of the relevant cake to the audience seated at small tables situated at the edge of the performance space. Each table accommodates just three or four people.

The outstanding overall feature of the work is the manner in which Rogis shows the different emotional and physical aspects of each of her difficulties and/or joys.

Vivienne Rogis dances joyously. *The Whole Cake*, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

In dance terms an early section shows a balletic movement focus, which moves on to a more contemporary style, showing the growth of Rogis’ personal dance practice. A little later there is a kind of personal freedom and joy in the movement we encounter. Rogis’ life grows and develops. She marries and has children. Her life becomes filled with complications and the story continues to move on.

Towards the end there is movement that is more bent over and slow with the apparent intervention of ageing and the need to manage life as a mother, partner and housekeeper. She shows us some of her activities in various ways including some of the more annoying necessities of life such as dealing with the washing.

Vivienne Rogis manages a basket of washing. *The Whole Cake*, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

At the very end the movement contains shapes that are uplifting suggesting that Rogis has conquered her problems.

But beyond the physicality of the body itself, Rogis also uses facial and verbal expression to add highlights to what the body expresses. It is perhaps most noticeable towards the end when Rogis is struggling to overcome her anger at the situation in which she finds herself. Her voice becomes sharper, her face shows annoyance and she cuts the relevant cake swiftly and sharply without consideration for what the slice might look like. Even the way she serves the slices to audience members lacks a certain calm.

Vivienne Rogis cutting a cake (with some anger or anxiety). *The Whole Cake*, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

As for the cakes, made by Sweet Bones Bakery and Cafe in the suburb of Scullin, there is universal agreement that they are delicious. But they too follow the changing patterns Rogis examines. They include, for example, The Cake of Love and Life containing a delicious chocolate mousse and The Cake of Motherhood consisting of a selection of cupcakes. All the cakes have appropriate connections to the narrative.

The Whole Cake is, to a certain extent, a solo performance. Rogis is the star and is an expert performer whether dancing, speaking, dramatising situations, or serving cake! But there is a definite role for the audience as well and the work is beyond doubt an immersive and engaging experience. The Whole Cake is definitely a show worth seeing.

Michelle Potter, 28 September 2026

Featured image: Vivienne Rogis with her cakes in the background. The Whole Cake, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

Creation. Ballet Collective Aotearoa, with Orchestra Wellington

22 August 2026. Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

Turid Revfeim is director of Ballet Collective Aotearoa and she never says No to a challenge, which leads to a range of interesting projects for the collective, both locally and nationally. Tānemahuta Gray is an established free-lance choreographer and force majeure for integration of Maori history and myths into the contemporary political, civic and artistic culture of Aotearoa New Zealand.

The evening at this concert began very well indeed with what was probably the best and most informative pre-performance talk I can remember (which was consoling because the last ppt I had attended, by a different group across town, was probably the worst and least informative I’ve ever known). Orchestra Wellington’s director-conductor, Marc Taddei, interviewed Tānemahuta for insight into the choreographic process of his dance work to Darius Milhaud’s Creation.

The Michael Fowler Centre is not an easy space to stage dance, but it is the home venue for Orchestra Wellington concerts so there was some degree of anticipation as to how the musicians and dancers would share the stage. (An earlier project between OW and BCA involved Bartok’s The Miraculous Mandarin, and the staging of that work, dancing in two dimensions up in the choir seats above the orchestra, was itself something of a miracle).

Milhaud’s music has an atmosphere of 1920s Paris, jazz, rhythms of African percussion and its own air of modernism. Gray confessed that despite listening to the music for 1001 nights he could not source a libretto of a creation story in it. He instead resorted to a selection of themes from Maori mythology of the creation of the world, the separation of Papatuanuku-Earth Mother, from Ranginui-Sky Father, and the role their children played in that cataclysm. Gray then ingeniously wound time back to the original attraction between Rangi and Papa, to the conception and procreation of their children. In other words, the birth of a child was presented as the original creative act. (The truth is that all cultures’ creation stories involve some form of incest to procreate the human race but it was movingly explained in the pre-performance talk that Maori myth accepts that as a reality, unlike most codified religions which ignore the biological necessity). That insight definitely helped us to follow the choreographic play in performance.

The front of the auditorium was treated as the Underworld, so dancers climbing up onto the stage were entering the world of light. Gray stood to chant a powerful karakia before the orchestra began the Milhaud score. The team of seven dancers adopted different forms of stylised movement that broadened the reference beyond Te Ao Maori. The inventive work was focussed and well-carried and arrived at a final sculptured grouping that reminded me of Maori carved figures in a traditional lintel. It was a masterstroke to have Gray again chanting a closing poem after the Milhaud had ended, cadencing in the repeated mantra of Hi ! Ha ! —with the group of dancers rising and lowering in subtle but powerful breathing, in and out, as the first act of life. That image will stay with all who recognised it. Tihei mauriora, the breath of life.

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I found extra resonance in another work on the program, Bela Bartok’s Concerto for two pianos, percussion and orchestra—since that had been the music chosen by Ashley Killar when Artistic Director of RNZBallet back in the early 90’s—for his one-act ballet Dark Waves. After a Nabokov short story, it gave Jon Trimmer one of his finest roles as the blind husband, fearing that his much younger wife was having an affair. The work was only performed on the company’s tour to America (to great acclaim as it happens) but never publicly in New Zealand (I had been privileged to see a studio rehearsal before the tour). Upon return, a rescheduling of repertoire was Killar’s desperate attempt to survive the scandalous chapter when the Arts Council of the day tried to close the Company down. They were unsuccessful of course (nobody closes down the New Zealand Ballet that Poul Gnatt formed in 1953) but that remarkable Dark Waves was lost in the struggle of survival. Jon Trimmer is dead but Killar is not—Sonya Behrnes and Kim Broad played leading roles, are around and could help with staging. It should not be impossible to hope for a revival since historical masterworks in the repertoire are what define a company’s identity.

Jennifer Shennan, 26 September 2026

Featured image: A scene from Creation, 2026. Photo: © James Burchell

All in. Dance Makers Collective, Canberra 2026

My review of All in was published online by CBR CityNews on 25 September 2026, following its opening performance in Canberra on 24 September. The review below is a slightly enlarged version of the CityNews post. Follow this link to the CityNews review.

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24 September 2026. The Theatre, Belconnen Arts Centrre, Canberra

All in from Dance Makers Collective, a Western Sydney-based company directed by Miranda Wheen, was first performed in Sydney in early 2025 and has since been touring to various locations, each time including dancers from various local companies. The Canberra performances over three days included dancers from the First Nations contemporary dance group Project Dust, the classical Indian group Apsaras Arts, and the youth group Quantum Leap Australia. As the name of the work suggests, All in, choreographed by Wheen, focuses on the concept of connections.

Dancers from various companies performing together in *All in,* Canberra 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

After a short introduction in which performers from all groups were briefly seen together, the work proper began with extraordinarily powerful dancing from seven dancers representing Dance Makers Collective. They twisted and turned, jumped and lent from side to side, made absorbing use of arms and hands, and interacted in a choreographic sense with each other. It was a long sequence and the dancers continued to move with intensity while also making ongoing facial contact with the audience. They smiled directly at individual people, inviting us to be involved (in an emotional sense). With the audience seated on two opposite sides of the performing space, the focus of the dancers moved from side to side so all audience members were involved.

Then followed performances by dancers from the Canberra groups, with the strongest input from the Apsaras Arts dancers who work in Bharatanatyam style. Their dancing was exceptional and also took into account the spread of audience members across the space. Their connection to the audience was made with invitingly beautiful eyes and lots of smiles, but also with the strength of their dancing and with the somewhat geometric structure of the work.

A moment from the performance by Apsaras Arts dancers in *All in*, Canberra 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

There was also a rather hilarious short section when a voice-over spoke about the nature of dance and the role it has in the life of some, including those who find the art form of dance impossible to understand. This section was accompanied by efforts from dancers to show unusual aspects of movement.

A moment from *All in*, Canberra 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

But the highlight of the ‘all in’ concept came at the end of the show when the audience was invited to join the dancing. Pretty much the entire audience, young and old, rose from their seats and joined the dancers in the performing space. The space was not huge and was extraordinarily crowded. This section was also very noisy considering the small performing space of the Belco venue. Those features concerned no one, however, except perhaps those who declined to join in the dancing. There were instructions for the people on the floor to follow, which were screened at one end of the theatre: ‘Go left’, ‘go right’, ‘make a circle’, ‘dance with the person next to you’ and so forth. And everyone followed the instructions with enthusiasm.

All in is very much a show that does indeed make connections between those involved, including the audience. But the choreography for the Canberra showing was quite different from what was seen in Sydney. And in particular, in the Sydney showing there were close connections between the dancers from the various groups, which unfortunately did not eventuate to the same extent in Canberra. I suspect this different focus reflected a lack of rehearsal time between the local groups and Wheen and her dancers. All in is nevertheless a show that is worth seeing, and in which it is fun to be involved.

Michelle Potter, 26 September 2026

Featured image: A moment from All in, Canberra 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

I was a guest of Canberra Theatre Centre, Belconnen Arts Centre and Dance Makers Collective for this production.

I am most grateful to O&J Wikner for the Canberra images, which were not available from other sources.

Recipients. Peggy van Praagh and Keith Bain Fellowships

Ausdance National, Australia’s peak body for dance, has just announced the 2026 recipients of the Peggy van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship and the Keith Bain Choreographic Travel Fellowship. Both Fellowships were made available as a result of bequests from Dame Peggy van Praagh and Keith Bain OAM, both of whom made substantial contributions to dance in Australia.

Currently working in Perth, Xin Ong has been awarded the Keith Bain Choreographic Travel Fellowship. From the media release we learn that Xin Ong is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice centres on presence, connection, and deep listening. She has been invited as Assistant to Farooq Chaudhry OBE, Artistic Director, in his upcoming development of The Bridge, in Shenzen, China. Within this project, which centres on intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration, the Fellowship will support Xin’s choreographic practice and enquiry, through the opportunity to witness a multitude of complexities at close range, under expert mentorship.

Read a biography of Xin Ong on the Strut Dance website. Images of Xin Ong below are by © David Cooper.

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The Peggy van Praagh Choreographic Fellowship was awarded to Chung Nguyen. Currently based in Melbourne, Chung Nguyen has just recently staged a work with the name of Fluid Memories.

A moment from *Fluid Memories*, Melbourne 2026. Photo © Jeff Busby

A Vietnamese/Australian, he practises as a dance artist, somatic movement facilitator and Biodynamic Craniosacral therapist. His work sits, as media information explains, at the intersection of live performance, video installation, choreography, and community engagement. With his Fellowship Chung will build on investigations of the Australian migrant journey to develop Breathing is Remembering through a series of developments and residencies across Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania. The work will consider communities and sites linked to Agent Orange, an agricultural chemical weaponised and used during the war in Vietnam (1962-1971). The Fellowships will directly impact Chung’s leadership, providing dedicated research and development time, while building skills in community-based, cross-cultural, and choreographic research.

The Fellowships were put into place several years ago but were closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic and through the following years. Ausdance National has managed the Fellowships on behalf of the donors from the beginning and the organisation has now reinstated them. It is great to see the Fellowships back up and working, and to reflect once more on the exceptional work carried out by van Praagh and Bain. I do hope this is not a one-off event and that the Fellowships will continue to be part of Australian dance activities.

Read more about the Fellowships on this website at this link.

Michelle Potter, 16 September 2026.

‘Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique.’ James Batchelor and colleagues

My review of Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique was published online by CBR CityNews on 7 September 2026, following the initiative in which James Batchelor’s work for a Masters degree relating to the technique of Gertrud Bodenwieser was discussed. The review below is a slightly enlarged version of the CityNews post. Follow this link to the CityNews review.

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3 September 2026. The Street Theatre, Canberra

Canberra’s dance community gathered recently at The Street Theatre for an event in the series Wellspring: Inquiry and Exchange, a regular collaborative endeavour between The Street and the ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics. This particular Wellspring occasion had the specific name ‘Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique’ and was part of the ANU Masters degree program being undertaken by choreographer James Batchelor.

Part of the audience watching James Batchelor dancing during ‘Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique’, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner photography.

The evening was introduced by ANU researcher and coordinator of the Wellspring program, Leslie Barnes, and was sponsored by the ANU and the team at The Street via Caroline Stacey. The main participants were Batchelor himself; Ruth Osborne, a former student of the Bodenwieser style and also a former artistic director of Quantum Leap Australia and teacher of the Bodenwieser technique; and Wesley Lim, senior lecturer at the ANU and supervisor of Batchelor’s research.

(l-r) Wesley Lim, Ruth Osborne and James Batchelor leading the Wellspring conversation, ‘Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique’, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner photography.

The program for the evening consisted of a spoken introduction from Lim on the history of Bodenwieser technique, especially in Australia. It was followed by a further introduction from Osborne of specific aspects of the technique; and then a demonstration, led by Osborne and performed by a small group of dancers, including Batchelor and Lim, of certain elements of the technique. Finally, we watched a solo, created and performed by Batchelor, on aspects of the technique that had been previously discussed. A Q&A session concluded the evening.

Dancers demonstrating aspects of the Bodenwieser technique, ‘Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique’, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner photography.

While both the discussion and performances, especially the group dancing demonstrating Bodenwieser’s use of a figure-of-eight movement by the body, were more than interesting, one aspect of the conversation bothered me somewhat. There was some discussion by Batchelor and Osborne that Bodenwieser is not as well-known in Australia as she should be, given the major influence her technique has created.

Perhaps it is necessary for some kind of teacher training to be introduced that should suggest that Bodenwieser’s name be added to teaching and technique development.

From a personal point of view, I recall as a student often being asked to carry out a particular ballet barre exercise called ‘Danilova grands battements’. It was a development of a standard exercise, the grand battement, but was something of an evolution invented by well-known Ballets Russes dancer Alexandra Danilova. I also discovered that part of a solo performance I did at a studio performance came from George Balanchine’s famous early work Serenade. So, thanks to my teacher at the time, I was well aware I was dancing material created by previous and much-admired artists. It was a thrill to know this and I suspect the same might occur for Bodenwieser students if teachers were trained to add her name somewhere during a class.

Below are two images of Bodenwieser teaching in Australia in 1955. The images were created by Eric Cuckson who offered Bodenwieser classes initially to children of workers employed in his zipper factory at St Mary’s in western Sydney, and then to the general public.

Bodenwieser has her back to the camera in both images. She is wearing a black outfit with cross-over straps at the back. The photos here are posted with the kind permission of Barbara Cuckson.

Michelle Potter, 8 September 2026

For more about James Batchelor on this site see this tag. And for more about Gertrud Bodenwieser see here.

Featured image: James Batchelor speaking during ‘Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique’, 2026. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner photography.