Towards the end of August Bangarra presented its latest show, Sandsong, in Brisbane. In order to do this, the company needed to go into a 14 day period of quarantine before being permitted to enter Queensland. As the featured image indicates the committed dancers of the company did just that in the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility.
I managed to see Sandsong in Sydney and got back to Canberra just before the Delta variant struck Sydney with a vengeance. Here is a link to my review.
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the Australian Ballet has cancelled the rest of its 2021 Melbourne season. Now I am wondering about the 2021 October-December Sydney season. I have a feeling that may end up being cancelled as well. Fingers crossed for 2022.
James Batchelor
Meanwhile in Europe, James Batchelor is working in a variety of venues. In September 2021 he and his collaborators will perform Deepspace and Hyperspace in France in Versailles and Dijon. In the following month, October, he will be in Paris to perform An Evening-length Performance, which premiered in Berlin in August 2021.
James Batchelor (left) and dancers in An Evening-length Performance, 2021
I was booked to cross the Tasman to see Royal New Zealand Ballet’s recent double bill program, The Firebird and Paquita, but the pandemic got in the way yet again. So I was pleased that a stream of Firebird was available, filmed in Wellington on its opening night there on 28 July 2021.
This Firebird was commissioned from Loughlan Prior, choreographer in residence with Royal New Zealand Ballet, and, while Prior used the music of Igor Stravinsky, familiar to many dance audiences, what resulted was a unique take on the story rather than what many might expect from a production named The Firebird. In essence, Prior’s Firebird is about hope in a world plagued by environmental crises and other chaotic matters, and the Firebird is portrayed as a phoenix-like character who gives hope as she rises from the ashes of destruction.
For most of the time the setting is grim and dark and seems mostly to take place in a run down corner of a harbour town where, in the background, we can see the remains of a ship and a gangplank or two that give the upstage area some height. This world is populated by two groups of people, the Wastelanders who work to survive in harsh conditions and the Scavengers who are constantly and sometimes unpleasantly on the lookout for food and water. Occasionally the scene shifts from a corner of this settlement to a forest-like area (no trees, just scrims and darkness) where the search for food and water takes place. The main figure among the Wastelanders is Arrow (Harrison James). He is without water and falls asleep in the forest area where he is discovered by the Firebird (Ana Gallardo Lobaina). After their encounter she gives him a feather, plucked from her body: it is capable of drawing up water from the depths of the earth.
But later the Firebird is captured by the Scavengers, led by the Burnt Mask (Paul Mathews) and his partner Elizaveta (Kirby Selchow). The Firebird is eventually released by Arrow’s partner, Neve (Sara Garbowski), but, angry at having been captured, the Firebird calls on the dark side of her powers to create an inferno that initially engulfs the harbour settlement. Then, drawing on her last remaining strength, she extinguishes the inferno and collapses into Arrow’s arms. Her body bursts into flames. But from the ashes she is reborn and hope fills the world.
Ana Gallardo Lobaina’s performance as the Firebird is an absolute standout, as is Prior’s choreography for her. At times, especially in her first solo, her movement is quite grounded, but at other times her arms have such a beautiful, lyrical quality, and the way she moves her neck and head tells us so much about her character. Her various pas de deux with Arrow are filled yet again with swirlingly beautiful arms and exceptional lifts. The duet after their first encounter is especially interesting. Harrison James’ performance here is at first hesitant and anxious; he is unsure of how to react to the creature he has just encountered. But he shows growing pleasure in the meeting and we see those changes of emotion quite clearly in the choreography and the performance of it.
Another choreographic highlight is the manner in which Prior develops the idea of the inferno that the Firebird creates. Four dancers surround her and support her as she storms her way around the stage, and at times they gather around her in poses that extend her arms so her wing span looks huge and confronting. Lobaina’s death throes are also beautifully structured and performed, as is her rebirth at the end of the work.
There were one or two moments that I thought needed some extra work from Prior. These were times when groups of dancers stood around watching the main events. Often they appeared not to be involved in the action taking place before them and they reminded me of the young ladies of the village in some productions of Giselle who stand around admiring each other’s dresses rather than being involved in the downstage action. On the other hand, the final group dance as the Firebird was reborn was great to watch with everyone joining in the spreading joy.
I was not a fan of some of Tracy Grant Lord’s costumes, in particular the ‘dropped crotch’ pants worn by many of the characters. While such clothes are something of a fashion item these days, they just look daggy to me, although I guess that added to the shabby look (no doubt intentional) that distinguished those characters and the roles they were playing. The costume for the Firebird, however, was quite spectacular in colour, fabric and cut.
I was blown away by Jon Buswell’s lighting and the exceptional use of visuals and animation from POW Studios, including the orange-red flame and sparkling red spots of light that preceded the comings and goings of the Firebird. Then there were the images of water covering the stage and the crashing waves that appeared in the background as chaos began to rage through the settlement. And, after the incendiary red orb, the darkness and the clouded sky behind the ruined ship that made up the main part of the set, the arrival of the light was quietly beautiful, especially the huge, softly-petalled pink flower that replaced the darkness of the sky.
In the end this Firebird has to be seen as an outstanding example of collaborative input from an exceptional team of creative artists. I can’t help wondering if the kind of visual additions of a technological kind that we saw in this Firebird is the way forward. I have seen similar uses of technology by contemporary companies in Australia (Sydney Dance Company springs to mind) but ballet companies often seem to be a little more set in their ways, especially in large-scale narrative works lasting two or more hours, which may not be surprising. But let’s keep moving.
What do dancers/choreographers do in quarantine/lockdown? If they’re Liz Lea they make short videos, in this case for Science Week 2021.
Cockatoo calling is made for children so if you have your family at home, with the children doing home schooling, you might be interested in Lea’s introduction to the habits of the sulphur crested cockatoo. But even for grown ups it’s a fun experience.
One particular section reminds me of a dance colleague who some years ago was visiting me in Canberra and was shocked that I was trying (in vain I might add) to keep the cockatoos out of our yard. My friend was from New York City where having a cockatoo or three in your yard (which most people in New York don’t have anyway) was such a beautiful surprise that she couldn’t understand why I was shooing them away. Why was I? They were busy chewing on the wood of our deck and I had visions of it collapsing!
I’ve now given up. They come all the time, it’s one of the joys of living in Canberra. And the deck is still standing.
Josephine Baker, singer and dancer, heroine of wartime French Resistance, later a civil rights and peace activist, will be re-interred at the Panthéon monument in Paris, making the entertainer the first black woman to receive the country’s highest honour.
American-born but by choice a Parisian, Baker, who died in 1975, was buried in Monaco, dressed in a French military uniform with the medals she received for her role as part of the French Resistance. President Macron has announced that a re-interment ceremony is planned for November 30, 2021, at the Paris monument, which houses the remains of scientist Marie Curie, French philosopher Voltaire, writer Victor Hugo and other French luminaries.
Born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1906, Baker moved to Paris in 1925 in flight from the racism and segregation she encountered in the United States. She performed at le Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and later at les Folies-Bergère in Paris, becoming a mega-star, adulated by many followers. She posed for Picasso, among other artists; F. Scott Fitzgerald and numerous writers praised her, with Colette calling her a ‘beautiful panther’. André Levinson wrote: ‘Some of her poses, with her waist curved inward, her rump projecting, her arms interlaced and lifted in semblance of a phallic symbol … evoke all the marvels of noble black statuary: she is no longer the dancing girl… she is the Black Venus…’
(left) Josephine Baker in Banana Skirt from the 1927 Folies-Bergère production Un vent de folie. Public Domain; (right) Poster for the 1927 film La revue des revues. Public domain
Baker, together with Maurice Chevalier, entertained many of the French troops, during WWII, and also was a Resistance courier of information passed between the French and their allies as she used her celebrity status for travel purposes (with documents hidden in her underwear).
Baker took part in 1963 in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom alongside the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who made his ‘I have a Dream’ speech there. She had become a French citizen after her marriage to industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. Between 1954 and 1965, three husbands later, she adopted 12 orphaned or destitute children of different ethnicities, calling them her ‘rainbow tribe’. One of her most celebrated numbers was ‘J’ai deux amours—mon pays et Paris.’
A fine biography, Jazz Cleopatra, by Phyllis Rose was published in 1989. The International Encyclopedia of Dance entry on Baker has an inspiring cameo of her by Marie-Francoise Christout, which reads—‘The “black pearl” is remembered for her feline walk, her warmth, and her exceptional rhythmic spontaneity. She received France’s Croix de Guerre for her work during the war, as well as the medal of the City of Paris and membership in the Legion’. The French certainly know how to honour and re-bury their dead.
Jennifer Shennan, 23 August 2021
Featured image: Josephine Baker, 1949. Photo: Carl van Vechten, Van Vechten Collection at Library of Congress, Public Domain
I didn’t see Graeme Murphy’s 2017 work, The Frock, as a live production. It was fashioned by Murphy and his creative associate Janet Vernon on the Tasmanian group of ‘senior’ dancers, Mature Artists Dance Experience (MADE), a company I have never had the luck to see live either. But some research I have been doing recently aroused my interest and I found a way to see The Frock on film. And what an adventure it was!
The Frock follows the life experiences of a woman who sits at the side of the stage on what looks like the verandah of a house in a rural area of Australia. She watches as her life unfolds before her, although leaves the comfort of her verandah to participate in many of the experiences that play out on stage. She is nameless and is something of an ‘everywoman’ living across several decades, beginning perhaps in the 1950s.
But before those decades begin to unfold choreographically, in the opening section the woman explains the moments that define her situation, especially the dress made by her mother, the frock of the title; and her sexual experience as a teenager (wearing the frock), which resulted in an out-of-marriage pregnancy. Throughout the work the frock appears on a wire mannequin designed by Gerard Manion. The mannequin is a mobilised device (robotics by Paul Fenech) with a voice (that of Murphy) that comments verbally, not always kindly, on what is happening.
The first moment of remarkable dancing comes when the frock is tried on for the first time. We watch as the woman (in real life and in the story in her sixties perhaps) dances a duet with another performer representing the woman as a young girl wearing that frock. Murphy’s choreography is lyrical and emotion-filled movement; not a collection of difficult steps but swinging, swaying movement easily fitting the bodies of those older dancers. It is also the first time we see the backcloth (design by Gerard Manion) that stayed in place for most of the show—a beautiful collection of draped fabrics, lit throughout by Damien Cooper.
From there the decades unfold before us: the ‘swinging sixties’ and seventies, along with the smoking of drugs and the hallucinations that resulted; the rise of feminism; midlife; and the gradual move through the following decades to old age, the ‘Age of Invisibility’. Choreographic highlights included, for me, the rock ‘n roll scenes; the section when the woman contemplates her childless life; the beautiful reunion scene in which the woman and friends from her past come together dancing to Moon River, that evocative song from Breakfast at Tiffany’s; a trio as mid-life approaches danced with the aid of lengths of diaphanous cloth; and the extraordinary solo by the woman performed to a poem (written by Murphy) entitled ‘But still I fly’. The poem is heard in the clip below, along with excerpts from various parts of the work.
It was fascinating to see Murphy using some of the techniques that have appeared in so many of his works, including the use of flowing cloth as a device. But also noticeable was the use of linked arms and hands making linear patterns, something that I recall from many of Murphy’s works with Sydney Dance Company. Then there were references (that perhaps I imagined) to Botticelli’s ‘Three Graces’ in his well-known painting Primavera, and even, briefly, to Nijinsky’s choreography for Afternoon of a Faun. (Murphy does this so many times—brings up a mixed bag of ideas, imagined or not).
The sound design by Christopher Gordon with Christo Curtis was brilliantly put together to evoke every moment in every decade. Apart from Moon River, standouts for me were the Sunday School activities of the early moments when the hymn being sung was that well-known Sunday School song, Jesus Loves Me; the Indian inspired music that accompanied the drug and hallucination scenes; and some hugely moving operatic excerpts.
Jennifer Irwin’s costume were also so evocative of the decades being represented as the story proceeded. Especially outstanding from this point of view were those in the scene taking place in the 1960s filled, as it was, with mini-skirted dresses in brightly coloured, floral fabric, sometimes matched with knee high boots in bright colours. How it takes those of a certain age back to their own teenage years.
The Frock might be counted as one of Murphy’s most theatrical productions with so many exceptional collaborative elements, including its hugely diverse selection of musical interludes; its poem ‘But still I fly’; and its robot carrying the storyline line along. But perhaps more than anything it arouses such a range of emotions in the viewer. That to me is theatricality at its best. Sometimes The Frock is quite simply confronting. At other times it is just hilarious. But more than anything it is deeply moving as a comment on life’s many changing situations. I have to admit I started to cry at the end as the woman, and the daughter she had never met, intuitively knew who the other was when they came together unexpectedly in an op shop where both admired that frock hanging on a rack of clothing on sale. But the weeping quickly turned to laughter as the dress was shoplifted out! Magnificent Murphy.
Postscript: I should add that a complete version of The Frock is not publicly available at this stage, although a promo is available on Vimeo, beautifully put together by Philippe Charluet of Stella Motion Pitures.
The poster image below announces the premiere of the work in Japan in 2018.
