Built for Ballet. Leanne Benjamin with Sarah Crompton

Last time I wrote a book review for this site I was puzzled by the difference between a memoir and an autobiography. Well there is no struggle this time. Leanne Benjamin’s Built for Ballet is clearly an autobiography of a woman who has had an absolutely stellar career as a dancer across continents. It focuses not on one aspect of her life but, going back to where earlier I went searching for definitions, it ‘primarily focuses on facts—the who-what-when-where-why-how of [an author’s] entire timeline.’ We are privy to Benjamin’s dance-focused life from the time she took her first dance lessons, aged three, in Rockhampton, to 2020 when the book was completed. And it is a fascinating account of that life, written in a very conversational tone. It is hard to put the book down once one starts.

I am, however, curious about that conversational tone. While it is lovely to be carried along with the story, I couldn’t help wondering how it was written. Was it partly constructed as a result of oral interviews, with Benjamin’s words translated straight to written form? This would perhaps account for certain grammatical issues that I found a little grating. Speaking isn’t always grammatically correct, especially when agreements between verb and subject, and the use of ‘me’ and ‘I’ as subject or object are concerned. I am perhaps a pedant but I do find certain things annoying and wish that strict copy editing could remain an essential part of book production so that the written word retains its grammatical structure.

Moving on, however, Benjamin is thoroughly honest about her relationships with coaches, directors, other dancers and the like and it is great to read of her approaches to rehearsals, classes, being coached, partners, and performing. Then, one can vicariously feel the exhaustion of the extensive travel that Benjamin undertook both with the companies with which she was involved and as a guest artist around the world. The way Benjamin addresses the various injuries all dancers sustain over the course of a career also arouses a feeling of empathy for the pain and the loss of performances that have to be endured.

I especially enjoyed Benjamin’s discussion of her work with some of the most outstanding choreographers of her time. Her work with Kenneth MacMillan, and later with Wayne McGregor, stand out. What did she gain from being coached by them? And how was she able to pass on what she had gained to younger dancers when she became a coach herself? It’s all there. And yes, her thoughts on Ross Stretton and his time both with the Australian Ballet and the Royal Ballet are featured at one stage.

Benjamin does not gloss over her personal life either. We learn of her various love interests, her marriage and the birth of her son, and the fate of her extended family including her mother-in-law and father-in-law, both of whom had major dance or dance-related careers.

Perhaps one section that I found fascinating, largely because of where I live, concerned the photo that appears on the back cover of the book (although all the photos in the book are interesting and often quite personal). The back cover has a photograph taken in 2006 by Jason Bell at a location outside Alice Springs. It is a spectacular image. A print is in the collection of the National Library of Australia in Canberra and is often used as a publicity shot for anything to do with dance and the National Library. It is etched in my mind as a result. Benjamin discusses the circumstances surrounding the photo shoot.

*Built for Ballet,* back cover (detail). Image: © Jason Bell, 2006

Built for Ballet is an engrossing read. It is honest to the core and opens one’s eyes to much that goes on behind the scenes in a dancer’s life. Built for Ballet is published by Melbourne Books.

Michelle Potter, 8 November 2021

Annie Greig (1953–2021)

Annie Greig, who has died just a few days short of her 68th birthday, was born and grew up in Launceston and took her first dance lessons there from Nelly Dova. But, as a young teenager, Greig gave up those ballet classes when her interest in school sports and physical education activities began to occupy her time. When she handed in her ballet shoes to Dova, as a symbol of her changed interests, Dova said to her ‘You will come back.’ While Greig did not go back to ballet, she did fulfil Dova’s prediction. Other forms of dance, and a whole variety of related activities, did become the major focus of her life.

After finishing school Greig undertook a course in Physical Education at the College of Advanced Education in Hobart. As part of that course she had a secondment with Adelaide’s Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), then under the direction of Elizabeth Dalman. It was working with Dalman that sparked her interest in contemporary dance and Greig regarded Dalman as the most significant influence on her career during the 1970s. While on secondment with ADT she also took mime classes at Flinders University with Zora Semberova and was influenced by the approaches of Eleo Pomare and Jennifer Barrie who were working with Dalman at the time.

Greig began teaching after completing her course in Hobart and then, following a recreational trip trip to Europe in 1977, she received a Fulbright scholarship in 1979. The Fulbright enabled her to undertake a Master’s degree in dance and dance education at New York University. It was in New York that she developed her interest in film and video production and won awards in that area in the early 1980s at the American Dance Film and Video Festival. As well as gaining her Master’s degree, in New York she worked for a year with choreographer Alwin Nikolais, especially on cataloguing the records of the Alwin Nikolais Company and of the creative career of Nikolais and Murray Louis. Nikolais she regarded as another major influence on the direction her life took. He was, Greig said, ‘such a holistic artist, creating his own sound scores, costumes, lighting designs as well as his ingenious choreographic works.’

Greig returned to Australia in the early 1980s and, after a brief stay in Tasmania, worked freelance in Sydney, taking on a range of teaching positions as well as undertaking advocacy and volunteer work for Ausdance NSW. But in 1986 she was offered a position as co-ordinator at the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA). There she developed the organisation’s touring program and oversaw the accreditation of NAISDA’s curriculum. She returned to Tasmania in 1991 where Jenny Kinder, then artistic director of Tasdance, offered her the position of general manager and, later, liaison officer with the company.

Greig was appointed artistic director of Tasdance in 1997, a position she held until she retired in 2015. Her contribution was recognised by the Tasmanian Parliament when Andrea Dawkins, a Greens parliamentarian in the House of Assembly, moved that the House recognise and acknowledge that Greig had ‘developed Tasdance into a vital force in Tasmania’s cultural landscape and into the national arts arena,’ and that under her guidance ‘Tasdance had forged a reputation for quality mainstage performances, as well as innovative community and educational programs.’ During her tenure as artistic director of Tasdance, Greig also undertook an AsiaLink Residency in 2001, which resulted in opportunities for Tasdance to perform in Asia, including in Korea and India. Under Greig’s direction Tasdance performed over 70 works, of which at least half were choreographed by young, emerging artists. Greig’s last production was Affinity, which focused on Tasmanian born or oriented creators including Graeme Murphy, Stephanie Lake and Peter Sculthorpe.

When speaking in 2017 to Liz Lea, director of Canberra’s BOLD Festival where Greig was an invited participant, Greig described herself as a ‘facilitator’. ‘Making things happen is what floats my boat,’ she said. ‘I am always excited by thinking up a new project and then setting up the people connections, the artistic ingredients and other possibilities.’ Her multi-faceted career is a clear indication of the extent to which she investigated many of those ‘new possibilities’. Her last project looked back, in a way, to her work with Alwin Nikolais in New York in the 1980s. Greig was working to document information on the whereabouts of material in various formats relating to the career of Graeme Murphy, and was adding to those records.

Among the many honours and accolades Greig received throughout her lifetime were a Centenary Medal in 2003 and an Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance in 2014. She was also listed on the Honour Roll for Women in Tasmania in 2010 and made an honorary life member of Ausdance having served as President of Ausdance NSW and Vice-President of Ausdance National.

Towards the end of her life Greig sent out a newsletter to her friends and colleagues. It was entitled Exit stage left. What a wonderful life. That newsletter also carried photos of Greig in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne with one showing Greig and her partner, Jen Brown, toasting that life with champagne and oysters. Vale Annie Greig. A wonderful life indeed.

Annie Christine Greig: Born Launceston, 15 November 1953; died 2 November 2021

Michelle Potter, 3 November 2021

Featured image: Portrait of Annie Greig, c. 2014. Photographer not identified

Dance diary. October 2021

The Australian Ballet in 2022

The Australian Ballet is returning in 2022 with a program that perhaps more than anything reflects the strong international background of artistic director David Hallberg. One work, John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet, is well-known already to Australian ballet audiences but the rest of the offerings are not quite so well-known.

Anna Karenina is familiar to Australian audiences but not in the version that Hallberg has secured. This Anna Karenina has choreography by Yuri Possokhov and has a commissioned score by Ilya Demutsky, which includes a mezzo-soprano singing live on stage. It was meant to be danced by the Australian Ballet in several locations in 2021 but, in the end, it received just a few performances in Adelaide. It is slated to be seen in 2022 in Melbourne and Sydney and I hope that will eventuate. I tried three times to see it this year but three times I had to cancel! I have been a fan of Possokhov’s work since 2013 when I saw his Rite of Spring for San Francisco Ballet. Bring it on.

A work from a several collaborating choreographers, Paul Lightfoot, Sol León, Marco Goecke and Crystal Pite will also be shown in Melbourne and Sydney. With the name Kunstkamer it promises to be an eye-opener. Originally made for Nederlands Dans Theater, notes on that company’s website say:

Inspired by Albertus Seba’s The Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (1734), the choreographers use the stage to be their own Kunstkamer that presents NDT as its own multifaceted ‘Company of Curiosities’.

Musically eclectic as well (Beethoven, Bach, Purcell, Britten, Janis Joplin, Joby Talbot and others) eye-opener is perhaps too gentle a word?

Dimity Azoury in a study for Kunstkamer, 2021. The Australian Ballet Season 2022. Photo: © Simon Eeles

Then there is the triple bill for the year, Instruments of Dance, a name that I find somewhat unmoving, or at least uninviting. It will feature a new work by Alice Topp, a 2014 work from Justin Peck called Everywhere We Go, and Wayne McGregor’s Obsidian Tear made in 2016 and featuring an all-male cast. While I am a definite fan of McGregor I have seen Obsidian Tear and to me it is not one of his best works. Here is part of what I wrote about the work as danced by the Royal Ballet in 2018:

The opening work, McGregor’s Obsidian Tear, left me a little cold and its choreography seemed stark and emotionless—but then I guess obsidian is a hard substance. Everything seemed to happen suddenly. Lighting cut out rather than faded and movement, while it showed McGregor’s interest in pushing limits, had little that was lyrical.

Royal Ballet artists in 'Obsidian Tear'. © ROH, 2016. Photo: Bill Cooper — Artists of the Royal Ballet in *Obsidian Tear*. © ROH, 2016. Photo: Bill Cooper

My full review of that Royal Ballet season is at this link.

There are aspects of the season that I have not mentioned here. The full story is on the Australian Ballet’s website. My fingers are crossed that 2022 will be the year we go to the ballet!

Wudjang. Not the Past. Bangarra Dance Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company

Bangarra Dance Theatre is joining forces with Sydney Theatre Company to produce a new work by Stephen Page to be shown at the Sydney Festival in January 2022 and then two months later in Adelaide. Page has described it as ‘an epic-scale contemporary corroboree’ and it will be performed by seventeen dancers, four musicians and five actors.

Publicity image for *Wudjang. Not the Past*. Photo: © Daniel Boud

The narrative for the work is written by Page and Alana Valentine and Page has described the inspiration for that narrative:

In the deep darkness just before dawn, workmen find bones while excavating for a dam. Among the workers is Bilin, a Yugambeh man, who convinces his colleagues to let him keep the ancestral remains. This ancestor is Wudjang, who, along with her young companion spirit, Gurai, longs to be reburied in the proper way. With her young companion spirit, Gurai, she dances and teaches and sings of the past, of the earth, of songlines. With grace and authentic power, a new generation is taught how to listen, learn and carry their ancestral energy into the future. Wudjang: Not the Past follows the journey to honour Wudjang with a traditional resting place on Country.

The production features poetry, spoken story-telling, live music and the choreography of Page. Something to look forward to as we (hopefully) come out of the difficulties of the past two years.

QL2 Dance: Not giving in

Like so many dance organisations, QL2 Dance, Canberra’s much-loved youth dance organisation, has had to cancel so many of its activities over the last several months as a result of the ACT’s covid lockdown. Not giving in is the organisation’s answer to the situation. Watch it below. (Link removed. Video no longer available)

Michelle Potter, 31 October 2021

Featured image: Nathan Brook in a study for Instruments of Dance. The Australian Ballet Season 2022. Photo: © Simon Eeles

On View: Panoramic Suite. Sue Healey

Sue Healey has been working on her On View series for several years now. I recall with much pleasure seeing (live—it was pre-Covid!) her very arresting program On View. Live Portraits in 2015, and I also recall, again with pleasure, a number of the portraits of Australian dance ‘icons’ she has made over the years. But Healey has worked on a number of occasions in Japan, Hong Kong and other Asian countries and much her work in the On View series has been collated and edited into an hour-long masterly production called On View: Panoramic Suite, which was recently shown as part of Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art.

This digital presentation began in something of a philosophical way with three performers explaining how they perceived the notion of dance portraiture, which was, at least in part, the focus of the production. ‘The dancer as an expert in being seen,’ said Martin del Amo; ‘How do you see a thought in a gesture?’ asked Nalina Wait; and ‘How are we perceived by others in a changing world?’ mused Shona Erskine.

From there the performance crossed every kind of boundary we might have imagined was possible for a dance on film production. It was panoramic not only in the way the footage was collated from so many different places across three distinct areas—Australia, Hong Kong and Japan—but also because it featured 27 different dancers whose ages ranged from 28 to 106; because the footage was presented from so many different angles, including close-up shots, aerial views and everything in between; and because it was presented with such a variety of screen views including multiple views at any one time.

Several sections stood out for me. I found quite fascinating a section that began with percussionist Laurence Pike playing while seated in a square of light. As he played dancers appeared to be falling from a sheet of white material that gradually transformed into a sheet of blue sky. At one stage Pike disappeared from the screen and his place was taken by shadows of performers whose individual shapes kept changing.

A section filmed on Lake George just north of Canberra, which featured dancer James Batchelor, was also particularly eye-catching. We saw Batchelor from an aerial perspective as a solitary figure in a wide, flat, uninhabited landscape, then on multiple screens sometimes with a screen of footage placed next to a screen that was simply a black space. Occasionally, there were close-up shots showing his hands, or his feet engaging with the dirt of the lake floor. It was an interesting reflection and comment on dance and the environment, a concept that was also mentioned by Shona Erskine in the narration at the beginning of the production. This Lake George section also sat in opposition to the section that preceded it when five dancers performed in a tight environment that consisted of nothing more than a small square of light. Not one dancer moved out of the square as they negotiated each other within that confined space.

Still from *On View: Panoramic Suite*, 2021. Courtesy of Sue Healey

Of the dancers, I found Japanese Butoh artist Nobuyoshi Asai extraordinarily moving. Covered completely in white make-up and wearing only a minimal jock strap-style costume he moved at times as if in a trance, at others like an animal, while at times we saw fury and anger. His performance was intense, potent and physically arresting.

I also enjoyed some moments when Torres Strait Islander dancer, Elma Kris, performed first in a forest of tall, thin tree trunks, and then by the edge of the sea before dancing in the shallows. Again it was partly a reflection of a specific environment.

I have also to acknowledge the entire production/collaborative team for some extraordinary contributions, including Darrin Verhagen for his score and Karen Norris for her lighting. The production was dedicated to the memory of ballerina and esteemed teacher Lucette Aldous who died in June 2021 and who was one of Healey’s Australian dance icons.

Michelle Potter, 30 October 2021

Featured image: Still from On View: Panoramic Suite, 2021. Courtesy of Sue Healey

Mats Ek + Ana Laguna. Baryshnikov Arts Centre Digital Program

This digital stream from New York’s Baryshnikov Arts Centre gives such a beautiful look at two dancers, Mats Ek now in his seventies, and Ana Laguna a little younger in her sixties. Both have had stellar dance careers and have worked across the world and in varied areas of dance, including artistic direction. In this inspiring program, however, we meet them in their summer home in northern Sweden, where they spent many months, including wintery months, in isolation to escape the pandemic. They each perform a solo, with both solos choreographed by Ek, and they speak throughout the film with dance writer and critic Jann Parry.

Ek’s solo is called Whilst, or Medans in Swedish, and is danced to music, La gondole lugubre II, by Franz Liszt. It is a solo in the sense that Ek is the sole dancer, but it might also be called a duet for Ek and a chair. Ek enters and sits on a chair, which we have seen in the performing space from the opening moment. His movements are quite simple to begin with and express a certain amount of boredom or frustration associated with being isolated. He looks at his wrist where a watch would usually be, he runs his hands along his limbs, he crosses and uncrosses his legs. Then the chair becomes part of the movement until it is eventually pushed aside and we watch a freer style of movement, fluid and covering a little more space, and always strongly and precisely performed. He makes a brief escape through a door into another room, but returns and ends standing by a window looking out, perhaps wistfully, perhaps hopefully.

Laguna’s solo is called My Letter, or Mitt Brev in Swedish, and is performed to sections of a Cello Suite by J. S Bach. It revolves around the receipt of a letter and we see a variety of emotions from Laguna, shown brilliantly on her body through Ek’s choreography There is anxiety, there is excitement, there is surprise and perhaps confusion, and finally there is huge pleasure as Laguna finishes the solo standing at window with light pouring into the room as she reads the letter. I loved her fast movements of arms and feet, so full of excitement, and the beautifully fluid bends of the upper body as the arms lifted skywards.

But there is surprise for us the audience too. The letter is at first a blank piece of paper and Laguna handles the letter in various ways, including stuffing it into her mouth. There is even a moment when we wonder if Laguna is about to slit her throat with the letter opener she has used earlier in the piece. But she doesn’t and when she puts the letter opener back in a drawer words have mysteriously appeared on the previously blank sheet of paper.

What follows is a discussion led by Parry with contributions from Laguna and picked up towards the end by Ek. I am not always a fan of hearing what choreographers say their work is about. It so often resonates of that (now old fashioned) concept of intentional fallacy. But the Parry/Laguna/Ek conversation was illuminating. Ek as choreographer didn’t try to tell us what My Letter was about, and why the writing appeared at the end, other than to say simply ‘The letter is written by her dance.’ So it makes sense that we see the writing only when the dance is completed. And given the growing number of groups of older dancers we now have the pleasure of seeing quite often, the discussion of dancing with an ageing body was also illuminating with talk about ‘accepting the limits of an ageing body’ and ‘choosing what is possible’. What an amazing pair of artists they are.

Mats Ek + Ana Laguna is available to watch online until 14 October 2021 via the Baryshnikov Arts Centre website. It is so well worth watching

(Please note: Image above is not a link)

Michelle Potter, 8 October 2021

Featured image: Ana Laguna performing in My letter. Photo: Baryshnikov Arts Centre.