From 1993 …

I was moved reading Jennifer Shennan’s recent review from Auckland’s Tempo Festival, in which she discussed Douglas Wright’s latest work, M_Nod, and in which she also referred to Wright’s current health issues. My mind went racing back to 1993—it was the year that Wright’s Gloria was first performed in Sydney as part of a Sydney Dance Company season. Those were the days before things were available online and I hunted out the review I wrote of it for Dance Australia. I clearly remember Gloria (who could forget it?), and The Protecting Veil, the work by Graeme Murphy, with which Gloria shared the stage. I am posting the 1993 review below. Reading it now, 25 years and many, many reviews later, there are sections I would probably phrase differently now, but I have resisted changing anything. And I should add that, even though I am focusing my thoughts on Gloria on this occasion, I am in no way wanting to gloss over Murphy’s work, which was equally as thrilling and moving as Wright’s.

The review was originally published in Dance Australia in the issue of February/March 1994.

Truly thrilling
GLORIA, THE PROTECTING VEIL
Sydney Dance Company
Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House
November 1993

Douglas Wright’s 1990 piece Gloria and Graeme Murphy’s new The Protecting Veil opened what turned out to be a thrilling season of dance. Gloria, performed to Vivaldi’s choral piece of the same name, is Wright’s tribute to a friend who died at twenty. It is, on the one hand, a joyous piece that celebrates life with an outpouring of dance that is full of vigour and vitality.

Part of the joyous feeling that emerges in Gloria stems from the wit of its choreography and from its tongue-in-cheek irreverence towards the classical vocabulary. Here Wright’s work acknowledges a debt to Paul Taylor with whom Wright performed extensively during the 1980s. There is something very Tayloresque about those moments when a split jete, performed flat out, is followed by a jump that looks as though it will be another of the same but instead turns into a delicious movement in which the dancer appears to be running very fast in mid-air. Or in those other moments when a relatively well known step is followed unexpectedly by a hand- or head-stand.

But in addition to its joyous appearance, Gloria also grieves for a particular life cut off in its prime. This dual theme of joy and sorrow is addressed in movement sequences such as the juxtaposition, early in the piece, of a funereal kind of procession of dancers walking in a square formation with another group dancing in circles in and out of and around the sombre square.

A kind of fragmentation also surfaces in the way that the dance connects, or doesn’t connect with the music. Often a particular choreographic sequence will continue during a pause between sections in the music. Often, too, the audience is faced with a darkened stage, devoid of bodies but filled with music.

In the end, however, Gloria is in praise of life. Its constant use of the circle, both as a choreographic theme and in its lighting design by John Rayment, stresses continuity and its final image of rebirth ensures that we come away with a message that is life-affirming.

The Protecting Veil, like Gloria, takes its name from the music that accompanies it, in this case John Taverner’s composition for solo cello and strings inspired by ancient Byzantine church music. Murphy has produced a strong work that is theatrical without being excessively so, and that consolidates his position as a choreographer whose originality constantly astonishes the viewer.

In a structure that recalls last year’s Synergy with Synergy, with its constructions and transitions, The Protecting Veil consists of eight movements separated by what are called in the program “crossings”. In the eight movements, duets, trios and quartets alternate with dances for the whole company. A quartet for Lea Francis, Alfred Taahi, Wakako Asano, and Xue-Jun Wang is memorable for the way in which it combines four individualistic bodies and four equally individualistic ways of moving.

The power of the piece, however, is in the crossings. Here Murphy builds up a tension that aligns itself with the mesmeric aspects of Taverner’s score. All the crossings feature Janet Vernon. They are initially brief, tantalising appearances. But they gradually build in length and complexity, culminating in a duet in which Vernon is, in the beginning, partnered by Carl Plaisted through the veil of a scrim cloth. The shrouded movement that results is intrinsically interesting for its novelty, but it also makes the second section of the duet, performed without the protection of the veil, seem crystalline.

The Protecting Veil also relies for its impact on Murphy’s design concept. In addition to the use of scrims to reveal and conceal, the forest of small lights attached to long wires that are alternately lowered and raised during the piece, and the use of a slit backcloth through which bodies, and seemingly dismembered parts of them, appear and disappear are all part of a play with perception that has frequently characterised Murphy’s work. In The Protecting Veil this approach helps produce a piece that exudes the tension and suspense of a religious ritual.

Sydney Dance is looking great. And that’s not surprising considering the challenges presented to the company by Murphy himself and the choreographers he supports.

Michelle Potter, 12 October 2018

Featured image: The portrait of Douglas Wright contained in the header to this post is by John Savage.

Between Two. Kelly Nash and Douglas Wright

5–13 October, 2018. The Vault, Q Theatre, Auckland. Tempo Dance Festival

Reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

Between Two is a tandem of two 15 minute choreographies. The first, Tipu, is by Kelly Nash. The second, M₋Nod, is by Douglas Wright. Although not designed as such, the two works act as prologue and epilogue to each other. It is a perfect program.

Less than perfect is the venue, a tiny cramped vault in the Q Theatre complex, with the audience sitting in three rows of chairs on the same level as the performance space, and with an overhead stud the lowest since the New Zealand Ballet performed in A&P sheds around the country in 1953. ‘Don’t jump too high dears or you’ll crack your skulls open on the beam that’s two inches above your heads.’

There’s a noisy fan left on throughout the performance blowing cold air into our faces. Why? It’s not a hot night. ‘Oh because the fan’s droning helps block out the voices and footfalls of people in the foyer upstairs. This is a sustained and demanding 15 min solo so the dancer needs to concentrate.’ Well, I can understand the dancer’s need to concentrate, but Wright has for decades been New Zealand’s premier dance-maker, a force of theatre, the most important artist in my and many people’s life, and this dance will be his last. Was there no better space available in all of enormous Auckland for his swansong?

‘May I have a program or cast sheet please?’ (it’s hard to review without one). ‘Oh there isn’t a printed program,’ the box-office informs. Well I don’t believe that and sure enough, after it’s all over we are indeed handed a program. Hence this review.

Kelly Nash, working with Atamira Dance Company, has choreographed a number of memorable works of clear style and coherent proportions. The most recent I saw made a depth-sounding on Maori mythology and had extremely interesting collaboration with taonga puoro and karakia of Maori music. She’s an interesting choreographer who does not repeat herself. What will Tipu (meaning ‘seed’) offer? In a word, magic.

To Eden Mulholland’s inventive soundscape, two women, Nancy Wijohn and Atayla Loveridge, are encased in strong, transparent light-reflecting tights that seem like an otherworldy membrane of gladwrap. They move in sinewy duet, of sustained thread and thrust, suggesting female fecundity. It makes sense then that the two other members of the cast are Milly Kimberly Grant, a beautiful woman who sits, stands and moves about in the shadows upstage, singing snatches of lullaby, sometimes quiet sometimes strong, to Te-Whakanoa-sage, her five-month-old baby in her arms. He listens to her, looks about at the dancers, snuggles in, suckles a little, traces the other breast while doing so, just to check that there will be more milk for later. He strokes his mother’s cheeks and sucks on her chin, looks at the dancers, looks at us. We can’t see Te Whakanoa altogether clearly because our eyes are brimming at his total absence of guile, at his sweet soft gentle exploration of air, movement for its own sake. Who wouldn’t want to slow down time and embrace a five-month-old baby? The first dance.

All four performers take a simple graceful bow and walk quietly away. M_Nod, which is a nod to Morpheus, the god of dreams, opens with the recorded voice of Douglas Wright instructing us ‘Please close your eyes’ and so we do. After a minute or two ‘Please open your eyes’ and so we do. The scene is now set with a prone figure in a shroud, his head beneath a regular kitchen chair. Three knocks of the baroque conductor’s baton on the floor to warn us that the theatre-piece is about to start, that we should steady ourselves, and so we do.

There is text spoken through the muffle of the shroud. ‘I must get up’. But that only results in the dancer bashing his forehead against the seat of the chair. The shroud is pulled down to expose his face which turns towards us, the head shaking slowly as if to say ‘No’ but at ever increasing speed is soon a frantic blur of features. The body wriggles out, removes and tosses away the shroud. There stands Sean MacDonald, tall, dark and handsome, but no stranger to the dance stage here. Last week he was in Black Grace’s Crying Men. Here is rather more comfortably centre-stage, poised and open, ready to perform a solo masterpiece made for him by Douglas, for his protégé, friend and colleague.

Sean wears a black armband and we all know what that means. What follows is a flawless performance that encompasses the shade and light of all there is. The curiosity, the experimentation, the reaction to folly, the fury at incompetence, the search for explanations, the grace and the gladness expressed in strong clean diagonals, both within the body’s held line and gesture, as well as in the sequences of movement that will find the upstage-right to downstage-left diagonal line as a river of sweet strength to bathe in. James Joyce’s voice is heard reading from his Finnegan’s Wake. There will be an excerpt from Stockhausen’s Stimmung. Tuvan throat singing is heard.

Douglas Wright likes to choreograph for the throat, which always reminds me of Lord Krishna whose throat turned blue after he drank all the poisoned ocean so his people would be safe. There are motifs and echoes throughout the dance that refer to several of Wright’s own earlier works—Elegy for example, in atmosphere and costume (a woman’s negligee top and a man’s brown trousers); A Mystery Play in the head bashing (though here, mercifully, it is against the air rather than the wall); Forever and Black Milk and rapt in the arresting opening images; halo in the search for spiritual expression amid daily distractions; Gloria in the eye’s questing for transcendence. We can’t see Sean altogether clearly because our eyes are brimming at his total absence of guile, at the sweet soft gentle exploration of air, movement for its own sake. The last dance.

Fortunately there are four performances of this perfect program across two days and you can see them all because, incomprehensibly, the season is not sold out. There will be four more performances this weekend. By then the queues should be round the block, but who knows? This is Douglas’s last dance. He is in the hospice now—where the last rehearsals for M_Nod took place, all the above managed by rehearsal director Megan Adams who is working quiet miracles to do so.

The work was commissioned by Michael Lett, a young Auckland art gallery director, and had its premiere in the Grey Lynn Public Library hall back in July. Top marks to him, and to Carrie-Rae Cunningham, director of Tempo, for recognizing its importance and including it in the festival. I am assured there will be future performances, and that a good film has been made of the work.

Five of Douglas’ art works are currently hanging in New Zealand Art, an exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery, where they sit alongside Colin McCahon, Jim Allen, Gretchen Albrecht (whose work was used as set design for Douglas’ first full length work, Now is the Hour, with Limbs in late 1980s—and we can rejoice that there is excellent film of that in Nga Taonga Film Archive).

… not to mention Douglas’ three published books, Ghost Dance, Terra Incognito (not a typo) and Black Milk, as well as his three volumes of poetry. Michael Lett is agent for the most recent art works. When I visited Douglas in the hospice, he murmured a worry that his work is not ‘out there’. I could assure him that it is.

Jennifer Shennan, 10 October 2018

Featured image: Sean MacDonald in rehearsal for Douglas Wright’s M_Nod.

Australian Ballet dancers Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo in 'The Sleeping Beauty'. Photo Jeff Busby

World Superstars of Ballet Gala. Bravissimo Productions

2 October 2018. Canberra Theatre

The last ‘superstar’ ballet gala I saw was in New York in 2010. It featured eight male dancers and was called Kings of the dance. Such seasons are not common in Australia, but a new Canberra-based organisation, Bravissimo Productions, has made a commitment to remedying this situation. They have staged a two night, Canberra-only season showcasing ten dancers from Australia, Cuba, Italy and the United States in a program of solos and pas de deux. The ‘superstars’ were joined by senior vocational students from various training establishments in an effort by Bravissimo to allow such students to share the stage with professional dancers.

The evening was in three sections and the most exciting part was the middle one. It began with Moskovsky Waltz danced by American-born, Bolshoi-trained Joy Womack, currently principal dancer with Universal Ballet in Korea, and Italian artist Francesco Daniele Costa. Those of us who remember the first performance in Australia of Spring Waters (choreography Asaf Messerer) when the Bolshoi Ballet visited Australia in the 1960s (or maybe it was even the late 1950s) were transported back to our teenage years. Moskovsky Waltz, with choreography by Vasily Vainonen, had a similar feel. Its fluidity, its freedom, its gorgeous lifts, were beautifully performed by Womak and Costa. It was just stunning.

The middle section concluded with Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo from the Australian Ballet dancing the pas de deux and variations from Le Corsaire. Guo’s interpretation of his role in the pas de deux did not initially have the swashbuckling glamour one often sees. His eyes were often cast down as if acknowledging his love in a demure and quite moving manner. But by the time we got to the variations Guo was at his startling and incredible best as he threw himself into the spectacular jumps and turns that characterise the variations and coda. Breathtaking really. As for Kondo, she scarcely faltered and her technical accomplishments were outstanding. But what really made it such a show-stopper—the audience cheered and shouted throughout— was not only the technical prowess we saw from each dancer, but the relationship between the two of them. They danced together, for each other and with each other.

In between these opening and closing items of the middle section was a great solo from the versatile Costa—Le Bourgeois, danced to a song by Jacques Brel. It was amusing, clever, partly interpretive of the words of the song, and wonderfully performed in a contemporary manner. We also saw another pas de deux from Le Corsaire, the Pas d’esclave danced by Joseph Gatti of United Ballet Theatre in Orlando, Florida, and Cuban-born Venus Villa. This time, coming as it did from a different part of the full-length Corsaire, we did encounter a swashbuckling pirate in Gatti and an up-front slave girl in Villa. The middle section also included a solo by Avery Gay and a group item by senior students from an unidentified establishment (National College of Dance, Newcastle, NSW, I think).

Other items from the first and third sections of the program included Kondo and Guo dancing the Act II pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty—and how beautiful it was to see it without the over decorated set that accompanies it in the recent Australian Ballet production. It was danced against a plain backcloth, lit pale pink, and it was a treat to be able to focus on the choreography, and in particular on the slowly unfolding beauty of Kondo’s movements, which so often seem to be in slow motion. There were also two pas de deux performed by Taras Domitro and Adiarys Almeida, the pas de deux from La Bayadère Act II and the grand pas de deux from Don Quixote; a contemporary pas de deux from Avery Gay and Tristan Ianiero; the pas de deux from Act II of Swan Lake danced by Gatti and Villa; the balcony pas de deux from Romeo and Juliet danced by Costa and Womack; and another amusing solo from Costa entitled Moscate. There was also some student work including a lovely opening sequence, a short Etudes-style work, choreographed by Daniel Convery.

Adiarys Almeida as Kitri in 'Don Quixote' — Adiarys Almeida as Kitri in *Don Quixote.* Photo supplied

This gala was an exceptional initiative by Bravissimo Productions and we can only hope that there will be more. But there were one or two issues that shouldn’t go unmentioned. The stage lighting left something to be desired—there were occasions when the dancers were almost dancing in darkness. There were also a few rather long pauses between items and I thought the music (which was recorded) needed adjusting on some occasions. In particular, the music for the Swan Lake pas de deux was way too loud to the extent that it sounded screechingly awful. It quite took away from the calm serenity that I think should be the overarching mood of the pas de deux. The printed program also needed proof reading to remove the occasional spelling error and inconsistency. And it would be good to have acknowledged specifically where the student dancers came from.

Then, while I admired Convery’s opening item, which was nicely suited to the different ages and expertise of the performers, we could have gone straight into it rather than have several young dancers come out first (in front of the curtain) and do a bit of stretching and limbering. Apart from the fact that they had no space, they had trouble finding their way back behind the front curtain, which didn’t open until they had all left, and it seemed like we were going to be subjected to something quite amateur (which we weren’t). I would also loved to have had some more appropriate images to use. Neither of the images used in this post are specifically from the gala.

One final comment: Bravissimo Productions secured generous sponsorship for the gala from Lennock Škoda, who treated us all to free chocolate coated ice cream bars during the intermission!!

Michelle Potter, 3 October 2018

Featured image: Australian Ballet dancers Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo in The Sleeping Beauty. Photo © Jeff Busby. Courtesy the Australian Ballet

Dance diary. September 2018

What’s coming in 2019

Both the Australian Ballet and Queensland Ballet have announced their 2019 season programs and details can be found on their respective websites: The Australian Ballet; Queensland Ballet. Both companies have an exciting range of works to tempt us in 2019. I am especially looking forward to Dangerous Liaisons, a new work by Liam Scarlett for Queensland Ballet based on a novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, and to The Happy Prince, a new work by Graeme Murphy for the Australian Ballet.—two exceptional choreographers who take us to places we are least expecting.

And on the subject of …

…Liam Scarlett, Queensland Ballet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Queensland Ballet production of Liam Scarlett’s Midsummer Night’s Dream opens in Melbourne shortly. If you live in Melbourne don’t miss it. It’s spectacularly good.

Yanela Pinera as Titania, Queensland Ballet 2016 — Yanela Piñera as Titania in Liam Scarlett’s *A Midsummer Night’s Dream*, Queensland Ballet 2016. Photo: © David Kelly

Here are two reviews, one from New Zealand and one from Australia (It’s a co-production). From New Zealand check this link. From Australia check this link.

From New Zealand: a new book

Sir Jon Trimmer, the extraordinary New Zealand dancer, now approaching 80 and still performing, is the subject of a new book. The book was reviewed by Jennifer Shennan for DANZ. Here is a link to that review.

Why Dance? is available to purchase online at this link. RRP: NZD34

Royal New Zealand Ballet has also announced its 2019 program and appears to have an interesting year ahead. Loughlan Prior’s Hansel and Gretel is something to look forward to I suspect. Details at this link.

The Stars of World Ballet Gala

I have to admit that my heart sank, momentarily, when I heard that Canberra was to get a gala of world stars of ballet. Recent and ongoing visits by Russian ballet companies, with star dancers advertised, have left me unamused to say the least as the standard of dancing has been really poor, in my opinion. But a Canberra-only gala set for 2 & 3 October appears to be something quite different. A preview story I wrote for The Canberra Times is not due for print publication until 1 October, so doesn’t appear in the ‘Press’ section at the end of this September post. But the article has already appeared online at this link. The story was to have the image of Ako Kondo and Chengwu Guo, which appears below, but The Canberra Times had an unfortunate technical issue with reproducing it and was forced to choose another from its archive. Such a shame as the one finally used does no justice to Kondo and Guo. Nevertheless, it will be a treat to see the pair perform in this gala along with dancers from America, Cuba, and Italy. My review of the show will appear in a few days.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive

It has been a while since I have mentioned Jacob’s Pillow in a post, but those who have been following my writing for a while will know that the Pillow holds a special place in my heart. I have just received a link to a collection of filmed excerpts from the Jacob’s Pillow archive, which I would like to share. There is something for everyone to be found. Here is the link.

And I continue to be amazed at what one sees if one looks up in the reading room at Jacob’s Pillow, and by the beauty of the site in Becket, Massachusetts.

Jonathan Taylor: an oral history

In September I had the pleasure of talking to Jonathan Taylor, dancer, choreographer and director, and former artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre, for the National Library of Australia’s oral history project. Taylor was interviewed for the Library back in 1991 by Shirley McKechnie. It was time to do an update, which added a little more about Taylor’s work with ADT and continued with stories from his post-ADT life. More details when the interview appears on the Library catalogue.

Press for September 2018

‘Ballet school showcases rising stars.’ Preview of Showcase 2018 from the Australian Ballet School. The Canberra Times, 18 September 2018, p. 19. Online version

‘Demanding double-act.’ Review of Cockfight (Gavin Webber and Joshua Thomson). The Canberra Times, 28 September 2018, p. 34. Online version

Gavin Webber and Joshua Thomson in 'Cockfight' — Gavin Webber (foreground) and Joshua Thomson in *Cockfight*. Photo: © Darcy Grant

Michelle Potter, 30 September 2019

Featured image: Hero image for Queensland Ballet’s 2019 season.

'Strong and Brave'. QL2 Dance, 2018. Photo: ©Lorna Sim

Strong and Brave. QL2 Dance & National Portrait Gallery

22 & 23 September 2018. National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra has once again supported dance as an adjunct to its exhibition program. In conjunction with So Fine, an exhibition celebrating work made by contemporary women artists, Ruth Osborne has created four short dance pieces under the umbrella title Strong and Brave. The four works reflect selected works from So Fine and use dancers from QL2 Dance—Oongah Slater, Alana Stenning, Serene Lorimer, Akira Byrne and David Windeyer. It perhaps helps to see the exhibition before watching the dance. My observations about the relationships between the art and the dance may not coincide with those of others.

The opening item was, I decided, a reflection on the art of Valerie Kirk who expressed, in captions accompanying the exhibition, her interest in ‘textile tradition and culture’. It was a lovely bit of choreography for three women who often worked together but often also separated from each other and became absorbed in the full skirts of the costume they were wearing. It was eminently watchable dancing, and in the end it didn’t matter so much about the reference.

(left) Art by Valerie Kirk. So fine, National Portrait Gallery, 2018

The most moving dance item for me was the second piece, which clearly related to images by Fiona McMonagle referencing Britain’s child migration scheme by which thousands of children were sent to Australia for ‘a better life’. Two young dancers interacted with pleasure and excitement, two grown ups offered comfort on the one hand, but demanded conformity and obedience on the other. Bouquets in particular to the two young dancers who met, interacted and stood together through it all.

The third work on the program was also moving, although in a somewhat different way. It was largely a solo and seemed quite introspective. It appeared to reflect the art work of Leah King-Smith whose portraits of her Aboriginal mother are presented in the exhibition as layered works using photographs taken by her father, The original photographs have been subjected to a range of contemporary techniques and the finished works have achieved a softly distorted appearance. King-Smith calls her work ‘photography dreaming’. Osborne has used a piece of white, gauzy material to achieve a similar look and the work is dreamlike and emotionally affecting.

Scene from *Strong and Brave*. QL2 Dance 2018. Photo: © Lorna Sim

The final work was the least successful, largely because it lacked the subtlety of the previous three works. It reflected the art work of Linde Ivimey who accompanied a friend on a voyage to the Antarctic and made a series of small sculptures based on that journey.

Art by Linde Ivimey. *So fine*, National Portrait Gallery, 2018

It is a privilege to have seen several of the collaborations that have developed between the National Portrait Gallery and Canberra’s dance organisations. The Gallery now has a new director and will also be closing for several months in 2019 for renovations to the building. I hope in these renewed circumstances dance/art collaborations will continue. It gives us an opportunity to ponder about art in both its visual and performing genres. That can only be a good thing.

Michelle Potter, 26 September 2018