To establish a new choreographic venture, the Sydney Choreographic Centre, Francesco Ventriglia, formerly artistic director of Royal New Zealand Ballet, has returned to the southern hemisphere after leaving New Zealand ‘to pursue opportunities overseas’. The Centre, co-founded by Neil Christopher as its general manager, is located in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria and will open in March with an intensive program for emerging choreographers and the opportunity to take class with the resident dancers of the Centre: Ariella Casu, Victor Zarallo, Holly Doyle, Brittany-jayde Duwner and Alex Borg.
The Centre’s first production, Grimm, with choreography by Ventriglia, will open in April at the Lennox Theatre, Riverside Theatres Parramatta. ‘Expect the unexpected in this very modern version of old stories,’ we are told.
For more on the Centre and its programs, and on the new ballet Grimm, visit the Centre’s website.
In 2014 I had the pleasure of interviewing Ventriglia in Wellington for Dance Tabs. Follow this link to retrieve the DanceTabs article.
Oral history news
After an hiatus of very close to 12 months, I was finally able to get back to recording oral history interviews. Given the problems associated with dance in the media, oral history is one very significant way in which careers of those in the dance world can be documented for posterity. Early in February I interviewed Ruth Osborne, artistic director of Canberra’s youth dance organisation, QL2. The interview focused largely on Ruth’s connections with the choreography of Gertrud Bodenwieser and those who carried on her legacy in Australia, in particular Margaret Chapple and Keith Bain. The interview is yet to be fully processed but when that process is completed it will be available online through the National Library’s catalogue.
A little later in the month I recorded Part 1 of what is potentially a two part interview with fashion designer Linda Jackson. Her colleague, the remarkable Jenny Kee, is lined up for April.
Tanya Pearson, OAM (1937-2021)
The much admired Sydney-based teacher Tanya Pearson died in February. See an obituary for her in Dance Australia at this link, and watch a lovely 30 minute tribute, filmed in 2012.
Kristian Fredrikson. Designer. More reviews and comments
Another review, this time from Lee Christofis, appeared in the March issue of Limelight Magazine. It is a rather special review as Christofis knows something of the backstory behind the National Library’s Papers of Kristian Fredrikson, as his opening paragraph reveals. The online version is locked to non-subscribers but see this link for a taster. The full review is also available in the print edition for March.
17 February 2021. Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay
A year ago Sydney Dance Company was just days away from its first program for 2020, which was to include a new work, Impermanence, by Rafael Bonachela as part of a mixed bill program. But the pandemic struck and the program was cancelled. Impermanence was being created to a score co-commissioned by Sydney Dance Company and the Australian String Quartet from Bryce Dessner, an American composer based in Paris. The work was initially inspired by the fire that almost destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, and by the Australian bush fires that began in late 2019. After the program was cancelled Bonachela and Dessner decided to continue their collaboration and develop the work into a full length one. This is the show that opened on 17 February 2021.
Publicity tells us that the work is about transience and fragility, but Dessner’s powerful, driving score, played onstage by the Australian String Quartet seated in an upstage corner, felt to me more like determination to overcome. Similarly, for the most part Bonachela’s choreography was fast-paced, dramatic and powerful and with Damien Cooper’s moody lighting design, with constantly changing colour effects strongly apparent, I found it hard to see the impermanence of it all.
But this is not to say that the work was not engaging. It was. I love watching Bonachela’s amazing ability to show us the unexpected in movement. I love those moments when he has the whole company onstage when we can see unison. Sometimes he has the entire company dancing as one, at other times two groups show us two separate, but still compelling instances of choreographic unison. And having live music played onstage is always something to look forward to, and something on which Bonachela seems to thrive.
As ever, all the dancers performed with their usual and incredible technical skills. But two stood out for me. I couldn’t stop looking at Emily Seymour whose strong balletic background was so clear. Her turns were spectacular and were, although in contemporary mode, perfectly placed and finished. Her truly beautiful rounded arms and smooth line through the body were just breathtaking. Then Jesse Scales looked as though they were so thrilled to be back on stage. Even when standing at the side of stage waiting for their next move their body glowed with pleasure. And Scales used every part of their body to give shape and meaning to the choreography.
The Roslyn Packer Theatre had its COVID plan in place for Impermanence. We checked in with our phones and QR code, there was no mingling in the foyer, we were distanced (slightly) from other audience members, and we were masked-up for the entire show. But what a thrill it was to be back in a live environment watching the kind of spectacular performance we have come to expect from Sydney Dance Company. Jesse Scales said it all with their exceptionally detailed movement and their obvious pleasure in performing for an audience again.
Paris Opera Ballet’s 2021 opening gala began with Le grand défilé, a defining item for the Paris company in which simply attired dancers from across the ranks of the ballet company, along with students from the Paris Opera Ballet School, proudly present the company and school to an audience. I have discussed the origins of the grand défilé in an earlier post (see this link). But on this occasion all the dancers wore masks; the beautiful Palais Garnier was completely empty of an audience; and the dancers made their reverences without applause of any kind. It was a shock to begin with, but ultimately it was such an incredible statement on how events have shaped our lives over the past year. I am sure the footage of this unusual and remarkable défilé will speak forcefully to future generations.
The défilé was followed by Victor Gsovsky’s Grand Pas classique danced by étoiles Valentine Colasante and Hugo Marchand, both wearing elegant, sparkling, deep blue costumes designed by La Maison Chanel. This grand pas followed the Petipa structure of pas de deux, variations and coda, which we know so well. But it was especially interesting to see it because Gsovsky’s choreography was uniquely his own with beautiful balances in a range of positions for Colasante and magnificent combinations of beats for Marchand. There was also a strong emotional connection between Colasante and Marchand, even when they took their applause-less curtain calls.
Following the Grand Pas classique there was an inspired performance of Jerome Robbins’ In the Night, with its three pas de deux exploring three different kinds of male/female relationships. In the first, danced by Ludmila Pagliero and Mathieu Ganio, we saw a couple in the early stages of a relationship. So much of their young love was expressed with Robbins’ choreography for the arms. They touched, reached, enveloped, moved in unison, always lyrical. But there were of course some gorgeous lifts and individual moments of expressive dancing.
The second section of In the Night, with Léonore Baulac and Germain Louvel, showed a couple secure in their love for each other, confident in how they acted together, proud even of their relationship. Baulac was especially impressive with her poised upper body and beautifully placed arms. Anthony Dowell’s brown/gold costumes added a special glow to this section.
Alice Renavand and Stéphane Bullion danced the third section, in which the movement was less lyrical and more strident. Here was a couple about to break up, although did they end up separating? More than once they parted, then returned to be together onstage. Arguments and reconciliations? Their relationship was tempestuous and that feature was shown well in the choreography and in the performance of it.
We met them all again in the finale when they acknowledged each other, sometimes performed the same steps, but eventually left separately. But for me the mystery of the third couple remained. Great work from Renavand and Bullion to maintain the mystery of this relationship.
Completing the program was William Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude danced by three étoiles, Amandine Albison, Ludmila Pagliero, and Paul Marque, and two premiers danseurs, Hannah O’Neill and Pablo Legasa. It was just plain exciting to see this work again with its fast-paced choreography that focuses on bringing every part of the body into play, and with its fascinating, ever-changing groupings of just five dancers. And what a thrill it was to see O’Neill so at home in the company and dancing so incredibly well.
I loved the selection of short works that followed Le grand Défilé. It showed such a beautiful range of balletic choreography, from the classicism of Gsovky’s work, to the lyricism and emotional underpinnings of Robbins’ approach, and on to the contemporary exploration of classicism by Forsythe. Congratulations to POB’s director, Aurélie Dupont, for her foresight and of course congratulations to the stunning POB dancers who presented the program so magnificently and to the orchestra, especially the solo pianists for In the Night, for their musical support.
I have to admit to being slightly taken aback when I heard that Garry Stewart would relinquish his directorship of Australian Dance Theatre at the end of 2021. He leaves behind an incredible legacy I think. My first recollection of his choreography goes back to the time in the 1990s when he was running a company called Thwack! I recall in particular a production called Plastic Space, which was shown at the 1999 Melbourne Festival. It examined our preoccupation with aliens and I wrote in The Canberra Times, ‘[Stewart’s] dance-making is risky, physically daring and draws on a variety of sources….’ I also wrote program notes for that Melbourne Festival and remarked on three preoccupations I saw in his work. They were physical virtuosity, thematic abstraction and technology as a choreographic tool. Most of Stewart’s work that I have seen with ADT has continued to embody those concepts.
Although since the 1990s I have seen fewer Stewart works than I would have liked, the three that have engaged me most of all have beenG (2008), Monument (2013), which I regret was never seen outside Canberra, and The Beginning of Nature (2018), which won the 2018 Australian Dance Award for Outstanding Performance by a Company.
At this stage I don’t know where life will lead Garry Stewart after 2021 but I wish him every success. His contribution to dance in Australia has been exceptional.
Marguerite and Armand. The Royal Ballet Digital Season
The last time I saw Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand, made in 1963 for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, was in 2018. Then I had the good fortune to see Alessandra Ferri and Federico Bonelli leading a strong Royal Ballet cast. It was in fact the standout performance on a triple bill. I also remember seeing a remarkable performance by Sylvia Guillem as Marguerite when the Royal visited Australia in 2002, although I was not so impressed with her partners. (I saw two performances with different dancers taking the male role on each of those occasions).
Zenaida Yanowsky and Roberto Bolle in Marguerite and Armand. The Royal Ballet, 2017. From the Royal Ballet website
The streamed performance offered by the Royal Ballet recently featured Zenaida Yanowsky and Roberto Bolle. It was filmed in 2017 and was Yanowsky’s farewell performance with the Royal Ballet. She is a strong technician and a wonderful actor and her performance was exceptional in both those areas. Yet, I was somewhat disappointed. Bolle was perhaps not her ideal partner. Yanowsky is quite tall and seemed at times to overpower Bolle. But in addition I found her take on the role a little cold. She was extraordinarily elegant but I missed a certain emotional, perhaps even guileless quality that I saw in Ferri and Guillem.
La Fille mal gardée. The Royal Ballet
The Royal Ballet is once more streaming a performance of Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée, this time featuring Steven McRae and Natalia Osipova in the leading roles. But, as I was investigating the streaming conditions and watching the trailer, I came across a twelve minute mini-documentary about the ballet, focusing especially on its English qualities. It is a really entertaining and informative twelves minutes and includes footage of the beautifully groomed white pony, called Peregrine, who has a role in the ballet. We see him entering the Royal Opera House via the stage door and climbing the stairs to the stage area. Isn’t there a adage that says never share the stage with children or animals? Well Peregrine steals the show in this documentary! But there are many other moments of informative and lively discussion about the ballet and the documentary is worth watching. Link below.
The Australian Ballet on the International Stage. Lisa Tomasetti’s new book
Lisa Tomasetti is a photographer whose work I have admired for some time. She has a great eye for catching an unusual perspective on whatever she photographs. Late in 2020 she issued a book of photographs of the Australian Ballet on various of its international tours, including visits to London, New York (and elsewhere in the United States), Beijing, Tokyo and Paris. This book of exceptional images is available from Tomasetti’s website at this link.
Coming in April: The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet
The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet has been a long-time in production but it will be released in April. The book is extensive in scope with a wide list of contributors including scholars, critics and choreographers from across the world. Here is a link to information about the publication. The list of contents, extracted from the link, is at the end of this post.
Sir Robert Cohan (1925-2021)
I was sorry to hear that Sir Robert Cohan had died recently. He made a huge impact on contemporary dance and its development in the United Kingdom, and his influence on many Australian dancers and choreographers, including Sydney-based artists Patrick Harding-Irmer and Anca Frankenhaeuser, was exceptional. An obituary in The Guardian, written by Jane Pritchard, is at this link.
Kristian Fredrikson. Designer. More reviews and comments
The Canberra Times recently published a review of Kristian Fredrikson. Designer in its Saturday supplement, Panorama. The review was written by Emeritus Professor of Art History at the Australian National University, Sasha Grishin. Here is the review as it appeared in the print run of the paper on 16 January 2021.
The review is also available online at this link and is perhaps easier to read there.
Photos by www.facebook.com/meaghancoles.nowandthenphotography
CONTENTS FOR THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CONTEMPORARY BALLET
Acknowledgments About the Contributors Introduction On Contemporaneity in Ballet: Exchanges, Connections, and Directions in Form Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel and Jill Nunes Jensen Part I: Pioneers, or Game Changers Chapter 1: William Forsythe: Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and the Forsythescape Ann Nugent Chapter 2: Hans van Manen: Between Austerity and Expression Anna Seidl Chapter 3: Twyla Tharp’s Classical Impulse Kyle Bukhari Chapter 4: Ballet at the Margins: Karole Armitage and Bronislava Nijinska Molly Faulkner and Julia Gleich Chapter 5: Maguy Marin’s Social and Aesthetic Critique Mara Mandradjieff Chapter 6: Fusion and Renewal in the Works of Jiří Kylián Katja Vaghi Chapter 7: Wayne McGregor: Thwarting Expectation at The Royal Ballet Jo Butterworth and Wayne McGregor Part II: Reimaginings Chapter 8: Feminist Practices in Ballet: Katy Pyle and Ballez Gretchen Alterowitz Chapter 9: Contemporary Repetitions: Rhetorical Potential and The Nutcracker Michelle LaVigne Chapter 10: Mauro Bigonzetti: Reimagining Les Noces (1923) Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel Chapter 11: New Narratives from Old Texts: Contemporary Ballet in Australia Michelle Potter Chapter 12: Cathy Marston: Writing Ballets for Literary Dance(r)s Deborah Kate Norris Chapter 13: Jean-Christophe Maillot: Ballet, Untamed Laura Cappelle Chapter 14: Ballet Gone Wrong: Michael Clark’s Classical Deviations Arabella Stanger Part III: It’s Time Chapter 15: Dance Theatre of Harlem: Radical Black Female Bodies in Ballet Tanya Wideman-Davis Chapter 16: Huff! Puff! And Blow the House Down: Contemporary Ballet in South Africa Gerard M. Samuel Chapter 17: The Cuban Diaspora: Stories of Defection, Brain Drain and Brain Gain Lester Tomé Chapter 18: Balancing Reconciliation at The Royal Winnipeg Ballet Bridget Cauthery and Shawn Newman Chapter 19: Ballet Austin: So You Think You Can Choreograph Caroline Sutton Clark Chapter 20: Gender Progress and Interpretation in Ballet Duets Jennifer Fisher Chapter 21: John Cranko’s Stuttgart Ballet: A Legacy E. Hollister Mathis-Masury Chapter 22: “Ballet” Is a Dirty Word: Where Is Ballet in São Paulo? Henrique Rochelle Part IV: Composition Chapter 23: William Forsythe: Creating Ballet Anew Susan Leigh Foster Chapter 24: Amy Seiwert: Okay, Go! Improvising the Future of Ballet Ann Murphy Chapter 25: Costume Caroline O’Brien Chapter 26: Shapeshifters and Colombe’s Folds: Collective Affinities of Issey Miyake and William Forsythe Tamara Tomić-Vajagić Chapter 27: On Physicality and Narrative: Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern (2017) Lucía Piquero Álvarez Chapter 28: Living in Counterpoint Norah Zuniga Shaw Chapter 29: Alexei Ratmansky’s Abstract-Narrative Ballet Anne Searcy Chapter 30: Talking Shop: Interviews with Justin Peck, Benjamin Millepied, and Troy Schumacher Roslyn Sulcas Part V: Exchanges Inform Chapter 31: Royal Ballet Flanders under Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui Lise Uytterhoeven Chapter 32: Akram Khan and English National Ballet Graham Watts Chapter 33: The Race of Contemporary Ballet: Interpellations of Africanist Aesthetics Thomas F. DeFrantz Chapter 34: Copy Rites Rachana Vajjhala Chapter 35: Transmitting Passione: Emio Greco and the Ballet National de Marseille Sarah Pini and John Sutton Chapter 36: Narratives of Progress and Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal Melissa Templeton Chapter 37: Mark Morris: Clarity, a Dash of Magic, and No Phony Baloney Gia Kourlas Part VI: The More Things Change . . . Chapter 38: Ratmansky: From Petipa to Now Apollinaire Scherr Chapter 39: James Kudelka: Love, Sex, and Death Amy Bowring and Tanya Evidente Chapter 40: Liam Scarlett: “Classicist’s Eye . . . Innovator’s Urge” Susan Cooper Chapter 41: Performing the Past in the Present: Uncovering the Foundations of Chinese Contemporary Ballet Rowan McLelland Chapter 42: Between Two Worlds: Christopher Wheeldon and The Royal Ballet Zoë Anderson Chapter 43: Christopher Wheeldon: An Englishman in New York Rachel Straus Chapter 44: The Disappearance of Poetry and the Very, Very Good Idea Freya Vass Chapter 45: Justin Peck: Everywhere We Go (2014), a Ballet Epic for Our Time Mindy Aloff Part VII: In Process Chapter 46: Weaving Apollo: Women’s Authorship and Neoclassical Ballet Emily Coates Chapter 47: What Is a Rehearsal in Ballet? Janice Ross Chapter 48: Gods, Angels, and Björk: David Dawson, Arthur Pita, and Contemporary Ballet Jennie Scholick Chapter 49: Alonzo King LINES Ballet: Voicing Dance Jill Nunes Jensen Chapter 50: Inside Enemy Thomas McManus Chapter 51: On “Contemporaneity” in Ballet and Contemporary Dance: Jeux in 1913 and 2016 Hanna Järvinen Chapter 52: Reclaiming the Studio: Observing the Choreographic Processes of Cathy Marston and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa Carrie Gaiser Casey Chapter 53: Contemporary Partnerships Russell Janzen Index
QL2 Dance has, over the years, produced a number of memorable productions associated with exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery. Most recently Ruth Osborne, in association with Olivia Fyfe, presented My place inspired by the exhibition, This is my place. This particular exhibition sets out to present what the NPG calls an ‘intimate focus to the places that define who we are—our spiritual homes, habitats and workspaces.’ The exhibition contains a varied collection of art works across a number of formats. It shows, within those formats, visual artists, sports people, writers, politicians, Indigenous leaders, even a phrenologist and mesmerist from 1870. No dancers though!
Osborne and Fyfe worked with seven recent tertiary dance graduates to develop this work, which was in four parts. The first took place in the space outside the entrance to the NPG. It was, I think, an improvised part of the whole, although this was not clearly explained. Then followed three separate sections performed in Gordon Darling Hall, the grand entrance to the Gallery. I would have liked to have known how the work was divided between Osborne and Fyfe, but this aspect of the production was not clearly explained either.
All four sections of dance suggested various themes of the portrait exhibition. But basically the dance work juxtaposed, I think, the notion of public lives versus private spaces. The opening improvisation suggested creativity to me, and most of those represented in the portrait exhibition were engaged in some kind of creativity. The first indoor section focused in a choreographic sense on group structures—bodies building upon bodies. I thought of collaborative endeavours. Following on was a fast-paced section in which the seven dancers donned coats and caps and proceeded to dance across the performing space as if out in the world, walking the streets. The final section, which I enjoyed most of all, was filled with slow movements that unfolded lyrically on individual dancers. This was private, individual enterprise to me.
As is ever the case with QL2 Dance productions, the performance was strongly danced by all seven dancers. I enjoyed immensely, again as ever, the way the choreography filled the available space. But who did what choreographically? I really love making up my own narrative when I watch dance that is not telling us a given story, but I also like to know a little more than we were given on this occasion, including what was the music used, for example? A single sheet of paper with a bit of information please. Even something online?
