Dance diary. December 2024

Karen van Ulzen and Dance Australia

After 35 years as editor of Dance Australia, Karen van Ulzen is moving on. She has been a strong and successful editor and her retirement is a particular loss to the dance community. In a Facebook post, Karen wrote:

Dance is my lifelong love but it is time to hang up the keyboard. I am looking forward,k to indulging my other loves: visual art (specifically painting) and writing. However, dance is still my love and I hope to continue to contribute to the artform in some other way.

Portrait of Karen van Ulzen. From Yaffa/*Dance Australia* online. Photographer not identified

Taking over from Karen is Olivia Weeks whose dance background includes teaching and an extensivebackground with the Royal Academy of Dance. Of her plans she told Dance Australia:

As Editor, I’m excited to contribute to our ever-evolving dance landscape. My goal is to continue to champion the incredible talent Australia has to offer, celebrate the stories that make our industry so unique, and ensure Dance Australia remains a vital platform for our community in 2025 and beyond.

Read more about Olivia Weeks at this link.

I wish Olivia every success and give my sincere thanks to Karen for all she has achieved for dance in Australia, and for her support of my writing over many years.

More on books and reading

After the death of Eileen Kramer I thought it was time to read her autobiography, Walkabout Dancer, a copy of which she kindly gave to me but which I had never taken the time to read. It was published in 2008 in North America and I honestly can’t believe that there was a professional editor at work on the text prior to publication. The text is rife with spelling errors and inconsistencies and inaccuracies in names and places throughout. Perhaps the inaccuracies extend even to aspects of the story itself? To tell the truth, I wish I had never taken on the reading of it. It does nothing to advance the image of Eileen Kramer.

I did, however, enjoy Derek Parker’s 1988 publication, Nijinsky. God of the dance, a copy of which I found in the Harry Hartog Bookshop at the ANU. (That HH bookshop again!). Apart from the fact that it revealed some interesting personal information about ‘the God of the Dance’, it contained some photographs of Nijinsky and his colleagues that I had never seen before. It’s a shame though that some of the photographs on certain pages were positioned very close to the binding and were not always easy to see in full. Well worth a read however.

Vale Arlene Croce (1934-2024)

Renowned American dance critic, Arlene Croce, died in New York in December. She was 90 years old. I never met her, despite having spent some time in New York on various occasions over the past thirty years or so. But I had always enjoyed her writing for various outlets including The New Yorker, Ballet Review, which in fact she co-founded, and other publications. Her background knowledge was wide and very apparent in her dance writing, and I especially admired her exceptional and always appropriate use of descriptive words and her highly analytical approach to her writing.

As part of an obituary, the following words appeared in The New Yorker, issue of 19 December 2024:

Croce took dancing seriously, pulled dances apart and analyzed them rigorously, and her clarity and imagination, her stunning insights, and even her glaring flaws—all this was there on the page. This passion and discipline made her a kind of alter ego of—or perhaps a ministry to—the art. She had an unrelenting determination to say what she had seen.

It is interesting to reread what is one of her best known articles, ‘Discussing the Undiscussable’, which appears in her collection of reviews and articles, Writing in the Dark, Dancing in The New Yorker. In this article she talks about her reasons for refusing to go to, let alone review, a performance of Still/Here by choreographer Bill T. Jones, a work he created involving terminally ill people who speak about the issue of dying. The article caused something of a stir when it was published in The New Yorker in 1994. It still raises many issues about dance and how it is, or has been, perceived.

The original article appears to be available online without a New Yorker subscription. Try this link

Some statistics for 2024

Over the course of 2024 this website received slightly more than 75,000 views. The top five countries making use of the website were (in order) Australia, United States of America, New Zealand, Canada and United Kingdom. Top five cities from which people logged in were Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Brisbane and New York. During 2024, the top post on a northern hemisphere production was Joy Womack: The White Swan; the top Australian-related post was Etudes/Circle Electric. The Australian Balle t; and the top New Zealand post was Swan Lake. Royal New Zealand Ballet.

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A very happy 2025 to all. May the year be filled with dancing.

Michelle Potter, 31 December 2024

Featured image: A young Canberra dance student performing as Triton in a ballet school production of The Little Mermaid, 2023. Photographer not identified

From New Zealand: Dance in 2024

by Jennifer Shennan

It’s always a pleasure to mark the end of the year with a rear vision reminder of the dance highlights we saw. 2024 had the best of the old and the new, with RNZB delivering a triumphant trio of seasons. After some important readjustments into new directions in management, the Company’s year opened with Tutus on Tour’s national itinerary of small venues that Poul Gnatt established back in 1950s. In May, Russell Kerr’s pedigree production of Swan Lake was memorably staged with respect and sensitivity by Turid Revfeim.

Their mid-year triple bill included Wayne MacGregor’s Infra, which I found deeply humane and appreciated very much. Sarah Sproull’s spirited To Hold, and Alice Topp’s High Tide had striking choreography and design, and each proved very popular with audiences.

The Company’s end-of-year season—a return of Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream—showed yet again what a brilliant concept the 29-year-old choreographer brought to this company back in 2015. His loss will reverberate for years, but this production, shared with Queensland Ballet, and Tracy Grant Lord’s stunning design, ensures that we hold him tight.

New Zealand School of Dance continued to display high performance standards in both Liminal, mid-year, and end of year seasons, when students from both classical and contemporary streams gave committed programs. The highlight for me remains NZSD alumnus Taane Mete’s All Eyes Open.

Dancers Aylin Atalay, Trinity Maydon, Anya Down and Lila Brackley in *A/EFFECT*. Choreography by Audrey Stuck. New Zealand School of Dance Choreographic Season 2024. Photo: © Stephen A’Court.

In Homemade Jam the ever enterprising Turid Revfeim combined her Ballet Collective Aotearoa with the local Tawa College dance group to energised effect.

Visiting companies to Wellington for the International Arts Festival included a dramatically different Hatupatu, a fusion of Maori legend into a contemporary love story from Tānemahuta Gray. Malia Johnston’s Belle offered striking airborne beauty combining aerialists and dancers. From afar Akram Khan’s company gave a sophisticated The Jungle Book which astonished many first-time dance-goers.

Later in March, Neil Ieremia of Black Grace staged a production of striking dramatic effect and design, under the title Paradise Rumour. It referenced missionary presence in the early settlement of the Pacific.

Jan Bolwell’s impresssive season of Crow’s Feet, Woman, Life, Freedom, to Gorecki, was a moving witness to the struggles of women in Iranian and migrant communities.

2024 was a special year for Vivek Kinra’s Indian dance company Mudra, beginning with an arangetram (astonishingly, by a mature age Pākeha woman of Irish descent. The world can live as one if we want it enough).

In a later season Vivek choreographed a poetic and colourful Vismaya, the seven emotions of nanikas, with a quartet of stunning visiting musicians, in a national tour under the auspices of Chamber Music New Zealand. We could hope for more seasons of music and dance from these adventurous entrepreneurs.

My subscription to Sky Arts channel is always good value—and this year’s film of Dona Nobis Pacem, Neuemeier’s farewell to Hamburg Ballet, was an exquisitely poignant piece in a combination of J S Bach and John Lennon that I will never forget. It was a masterstroke to also screen the documentary of Neumeier’s dancing life in the same week.

Another very striking film was the Royal Ballet production of Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate. I have family connection to Mexico and it is always welcome to encounter art from that extraordinary country.

This year’s Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts was a tribute to the late and much lamented Sir Jon Trimmer, following an earlier memorial for him staged by Turid Revfeim in the Opera House. Rowena Jackson’s death was another sad event, but an opportunity to recognise her outstanding personal qualities alongside her celebrated performance and teaching career. I join Michelle Potter in lamenting the passing of Joan Acocella, dance writer of highest calibre, and my valued mentor. Edith Campbell, a stalwart arts and community leader, will be much missed in Wellington, and it was an honour to perform French and English baroque dances at her Memorial Service. Edith would have appreciated the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France that these referenced, as she had an admirable knack of contextualising all art events. She taught Scottish Country Dance for 75 years, up until the fortnight before her passing. Requiescant in pace.

I found myself involved in another performance (who says you’re too old to dance? certainly not Eileen Kramer…) in a piece composed by Alison Isadora for The First Smile Indonesian gamelan, and included on the album we have just recorded to mark 50 years of gamelan in Aotearoa New Zealand. (See Rattle Records website). Keep up the good dancing everyone—and you’ll certainly have a Happy New Year.

Jennifer Shennan, 30 December

Featured image: Katherine Minor and Kihiri Kusukami in an excerpt from Swan Lake. Tutus on Tour, Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2024. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Season’s Greetings and some highlights (and other issues) from 2024

Just recently a friend sent me some images she had taken in Adelaide while visiting the exhibition ‘Garden Cycle’ in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. The exhibition consisted of works by American glass artist Dale Chihuly. ‘Is this the kind of thing you saw in Seattle?’ she asked. The question sent me back to my collection of shots taken on a visit to Seattle in 2013 when Chihuly’s work was on display, indoors and outdoors, in the Seattle Space Center.

This was an excuse to use one of my Seattle shots for the header image for this post. Chihuly’s amazing work has to be the best of many aspects of artistic endeavour.

Best production: Coco Chanel. The LIfe of a Fashion Icon. Queensland Ballet

In 2024 audiences were treated to some spectacular new dance—the Australian Ballet’s productions of Oscar and Carmen spring immediately to mind. And I was thrilled by Silence and Rapture, the Sydney Dance Company’s exhilarating collaboration with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. And many more great shows!. But it was definitely Queensland Ballet’s production of Coco Chanel. The Life of a Fashion Icon, from choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, that takes first place for me. I was really pleased too to see that my review of this show for Limelight made the top ten reads of reviews for 2024. It came in as 10th even though it had been available to read for just six or so weeks.

Coco Chanel was beautifully choreographed, fabulously danced and totally absorbing from beginning to end.

Neneka Yoshida as Coco, Patricio Revé as Boy Capel and Darcy Brazier as Etienne Balsan. Photo: © David Kelly

Keep an eye out for …

I am looking forward to seeing how Alice Lee Holland manages her role as artistic director of Canberra’s youth organisation, QL2 Dance, following on from many years of direction by Ruth Osborne.

I am also looking forward to seeing who becomes artistic director of Queensland Ballet after the sudden departure of Leanne Benjamin. It was a thrill to hear that Liam Scarlett’s Dangerous Liaisons, a sensational QB production going back to 2019, is on QB’s 2025 calendar. A good sign that the strength that Li Cunxin brought to the company may continue perhaps?

Obituaries

2024 was a sad year in many respects. The following dancers, choreographers, writers and historians, who have had an influence on my writing and viewing, died during the year. They worked across Australia and elsewhere and I felt as though I was constantly writing obituaries.

Joan Acocella
Edith Campbell
Arlene Croce
Joy Dalgliesh
Roz Hervey
Rowena Jackson
Eileen Kramer
Hilary Trotter
Frank van Straten

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Have a great holiday season, and to all those who have logged on to this site over the past 12 months, my heartfelt thanks.

And more by Chihuly from Seattle.

Michelle Potter, 22 December 2024

Featured image: Dale Chihuly, Section of ‘Persian Ceiling’. Seattle 2013.

Emerging Choreographers, 2024. QL2 Dance

14 December 2024. Gorman Arts Centre, Canberra

Emerging Choreographers is an annual event on the QL2 calendar. It is a mentored program in which a number of senior QL2 dancers try their hand at choreography. They create and present a short work in collaboration with their peers and each choreographer is supported by professional artists in rehearsal and presentation. Many of those who have tested their early approach to choreography over the years have gone on to make significant careers in the dance world. Some have returned to work on various QL2 projects.

I am not in a position to review this year’s event given that I have a family member closely involved in the program. So I am simply presenting below a very small selection of images from the event.

Those emerging artists who created works for the 2024 program are: AKIRA BYRNE, ALEX POTTER, ARSHIYA ABHISHREE, CALYPSO EFKARPIDIS, CHARLIE THOMSON, CHRIS WADE, JAHNA LUGNAN, MAGNUS MEAGHER and SAM TONNA.

A link to a review of the 2024 program, written by Samara Purnell for CBR CityNews, is at the end of this post.

Scene from Calypso Efkarpidis’ *DreamScape*

Coral Onn and Juliet Hall in Alex Potter’s *Dominion (Pupa*)

Scene from Sam Tonna’s *Chromed and Polished*

Dancers and choreographers acknowledge tech staff at the end of the opening show

The review on CBR CityNews is at this link.

All photos: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

Michelle Potter, 15 December 2024

Featured image: A moment from the film Catch and Release from Christopher Wade and Magnus Meagher

Dance diary. November 2024

Vale Roz Hervey

It was sad news to discover that Roz Hervey had died early in November. She made a huge contribution to dance in Australia, especially in South Australia. But she also made a huge impact in Canberra where she danced with the Meryl Tankard Company. The National Library has a selection of images taken by Régis Lansac of the works in which she performed in Canberra. Two are below. Nuti on the left was one of Tankard’s most visually beautiful productions and was presented in 1990 at the National Gallery of Australia in conjunction with an exhibition of works on loan from the British Museum. Pile Up on the right was a work by Graeme Watson, which shared a double bill with Tankard’s Kikimora also in 1990.

Read an acknowledgment of Roz Hervey’s contribution to dance in Australia at this link.

Coralie Hinkley: a manuscript collection

The National Library of Australia has completed the cataloguing of the Papers of Coralie Hinkley, which were sorted beautifully and donated to the NLA by Coralie’s daughter after her mother’s death. Here is a link to the catalogue details, including the finding aid. Coralie had an astonishingly varied dance career as the finding aid indicates.

Coralie Hinkley in a study for the Bodenwieser Ballet production, *Indian Boy*, ca. 1952. Photo: © Margaret Michaelis. National Library of Australia

Some reading news

Harry Hartog Bookshop at the Australian National University always has an interesting collection of secondhand dance books. ‘Oh they come from all over the place,’ a sales person once told me. The most recent addition to my book collection from that bookshop was The Helpman Family Story by Mary Helpman, which covers the period 1796 to 1964. While it probably isn’t the most analytical discussion of that story I have come across, it was full of surprises especially about the extent of the theatricality that characterised the lives of many of the family. It was not just Bob (as Robert Helpmann is referred to throughout the book) but other family members as well.

Press for November 2024

– ‘Tale of a turtle engages children—and adults (Bangarra Dance Theatre)’. CBR CityNews, 7 November 2024 . Online at this link. (And in a slightly enlarged form here.)

– ‘Community dancing with an Olympic theme’. CBR CityNews, 23 November 2024. Online at this link. (And in a slightly enlarged form here.)

Michelle Potter, 30 November 2024

Featured image: Roz Hervey (centre) and dancers from the Meryl Tankard Company in a scene from Kikimora, Canberra 1990. Photo: © Régis Lansac

Eileen Kramer (1914–2024)

Dancer, visual artist, choreographer and writer Eileen Kramer has died in Sydney at the age of 110. Born in Sydney, Eileen spent her early years in the suburb of Mosman and then, after her parents’ divorce, in Coogee. After leaving school at the early age of 13, she eventually began studying singing, piano and theory at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music but did not take up dancing until she was in her twenties when she saw a performance of The Blue Danube and other works from the Bodenwieser Ballet. Of that experience she has said:

Well, Blue Danube is beautiful and flowing and expressive and not at all tight and rigid, so I just fell in love with it. Another dance they performed at that concert was the Slavonic, those great big skirts with big motifs on them, and that struck me because when they came onto the floor they took wonderful poses that looked as though they were accidental. But of course it was art, so I went immediately to become a student.

She was accepted as a student by Gertrud Bodenwieser and later became a company dancer touring with the troupe around Australia and overseas for the next decade. Of her time with Bodenwieser she recorded:

Well, to us [Bodenwieser] was exotic and wonderful and we felt she was teaching us not only dance but about European culture and sophistication as well. And she also recognised each one’s quality. So while we learned to work as a group, she also developed our qualities, which was quite wonderful. So then she’d give solo dances inspired by us, not something that she got from somewhere else. My dance that I loved most of all was Indian Love Song. I wasn’t doing a traditional Indian movement but it was inspired by Indian poetry and some Indian postures, but I had to sing the song with that.

Eileen Kramer in 'Indian Love Song', 1952. Photo: Noel Rubie — Eileen Kramer in *Indian Love Song*, 195Os. Photo: © Noel Rubie. Papers of Gertrud Bodenwieser, National Library of Australian, MS 9263

For Bodenwieser, and for the rest of her life, Eileen was a designer of costumes. Speaking of her interest in design she said:

I didn’t make so many drawings and that upset Madame a little bit, because she liked to see what she was getting, but I worked in a way of giving more freedom to the fabric so I would make it on the figure and not so much from drawings, although generally you had to have an idea of what you were doing and make a kind of a sketch, but not a detailed sketch. I have been doing this since I was about five years old, making dolls’ clothes and then eventually making my own clothes and making backyard concert clothes.

Eileen Kramer, design for a character in *O World*. Papers of Gertrud Bodenwieser, National Library of Australian, MS 9263

After leaving the Bodenwieser Ballet she lived and worked in India, France and the United States for the next 60 years. Those years included relationships of various kinds including with her husband Baruch Shadmi, whom she met in Paris. They collaborated on a number of activities but he suffered a stroke and she gave up her career to nurse him until his death.

On her departure from Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where she had spent the last several years of her career the local newspaper wrote:

A crowd of costumed friends gave one of Lewisburg’s most colorful residents, Eileen Kramer, a wonderful send-off at the Greenbrier Valley Airport Wednesday afternoon upon her departure for Australia. Garbed in attire designed and sewn by Eileen from Trillium performances over the years, and bearing large masks she’d painted, the gathering lovingly gave tribute to say “Thank you” and “We love you” and “We will miss you.’ Fare thee well, Lovely Lady Mountain Messenger, Lewisberg, 9 September 2013 https://mountainmessenger.com/fare-thee-well-lovely-lady-2/

Eileen lived in Sydney from 2013 until her death. In those last 11 years she continued to create. Her activities are recalled on her website, Eileen Kramer. Of the many activities in which she was involved during those last years, perhaps my favourite is the beautiful film by Sue Healey made for the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, available at this link. See also my thoughts on the film here.

Vale Eileen. How lucky I was to meet you when and how I did. When we spoke last you recalled the oral history we did—now more than 20 years ago. You remembered that we lunched in between sessions. You said that no other interviewer had done that! Well I loved that I was able to do so.

Eileen Kramer: born Sydney, 8 November 1914; died Sydney, 15 November 2024

Michelle Potter, 17 November 2024

For other posts about Eileen on this website, follow this tag.

Unless otherwise identified, quotes from Eileen in this post are from an oral history I recorded with her in 2003 for the National Library of Australia, TRC 4923, available online at this link. Eileen’s autobiography, Walkabout Dancer was published in 2008 by Trafford Publishing.

Featured image: From Sue Healey’s film Eileen, 2017. See this link to view the film.

Update: When I first posted this obituary I added an image that was purported to be of Eileen as a baby along with her father and mother. Well, when I looked through Walkabout Dancer, the autobiography, it turned out that it wasn’t Eileen as a baby but Edward (her brother). I am assuming Eileen knew who it was and that the source I used got it wrong! So I have removed the image from the post proper but have included it below. The photographer has not been identified but the date would be 1913.

Dance diary. October 2024

West Australian Ballet in 2025

I was interested to hear the latest from West Australian Ballet (WAB), perhaps in particular that David McAllister will continue to direct WAB for another year. The media information says that he will work with the Board on the search for a new artistic director, and that he will also help develop a new strategic plan for WAB for the next five years as well as programming the season for 2026. McAllister was brought up in Perth, home city of WAB, before moving to Melbourne to join the Australian Ballet School and then the Australian Ballet in 1983. It is hard not to wonder whether McAllister’s current role at WAB will become permanent?

But in addition, it was good to see that Alice Topp will present Butterfly Effect, a new commission from WAB and a new take on the opera Madame Butterfly. Topp’s Butterfly Effect will premiere in Perth in September and will recontextualise the well-known narrative as a ‘story for modern audiences, weaving together threads from the old and the new, through themes of love, loss, and shattering betrayal, and Puccini’s classical score.’ I will be especially interested to see where the work is set (if indeed it is set in a specific country?).

News from James Batchelor

James Batchelor, who works between Australia and Europe, has been in Australia recently teaching at the Victorian College of the Arts and Sydney Dance Company. In addition, he has been developing new works, in particular a piece he is calling Resonance, which grew out of an invitation by the Tanja Liedtke Foundation, and which examines how Liedtke’s work has impacted the course of contemporary dance in Australia. (Dancer and choreographer Tanja Liedtke died in Sydney in 2007 following a road accident. She was the incoming director of Sydney Dance Company but never had the chance to take on the role).

James Batchelor at Mulligan’s Flat, 2024. Photo: © Akali (Yao Yao) Guan. Mulligan’s Flat is a wildlife park in the north-east of Canberra.

Batchelor will be back in Europe for the last several weeks of 2024 where Shortcuts to Familiar Places will have a season in Italy, and where, in Berlin, he will continue to work on the development of Resonance. He will then head back to Australia for projects in January.

A Stellar Lineup—Olympic Edition

Liz Lea continues her development of community dance in Canberra with a presentation of A Stellar Lineup—Olympic Edition. She writes:

We are thrilled to bring you another stunning lineup of Canberra’s most engaging community dance companies, celebrating the power of inclusion and imperative for excellence. This year we return to Belco Arts to mark the Olympic Games and the sporting achievements of our many performers including Olympians and Paralympians. Our program features Project Dust, Dance4Me, Taylor Mingle, ZEST Dance for Wellbeing, the GOLD Company, Deaf Butterflies, Rachael Hilton, Fresh Funk and the Chamaeleon Collective.

Dancers from *A Stellar Lineup*, 2024. Photo: © O&J Wikner Photography

Performances of A Stellar Lineup—Olympic Edition will be presented at the Belconnen Arts Centre, 22-23 November 2024. Further information is at this link.

Forgotten Impresario. Discovering Daphne Deane

Back in 2022 I posted a note about a beautifully researched e-book, Forgotten Impresario. Discovering Daphne Deane, by John Anderson. The book followed the diverse theatrical career of Queensland-born Daphne Deane, a career that Anderson rightly believed had been largely ignored. Recently, Anderson updated aspects of his book to include more information about Deane’s experiences during World War II; her trial in France for a ‘contractual breach of trust’, which brought aspects of her career to an end; and her connections with Marie Rambert.

The revised edition is available to read, at no cost, at this link.

Farewell to Ruth Osborne

Ruth Osborne at Gorman Arts Centre, 2024. Photo: © Olivia Wikner, O&J Wikner Photography

In October a large gathering of Canberra’s dance community said farewell to Ruth Osborne as director of QL2 Dance. The farewell event was held at Gorman Arts Centre, home of QL2 Dance (and a variety of other arts focused organisations), and featured speeches from some of those who had been associated with Osborne over the years. Speakers included Richard Refschauge, current Chair of the Board of Ql2 Dance, who gave an outline of Osborne’s career and input into the development and growth of QL2 Dance, and Daniel Riley, former student at QL2 Dance and current artistic director of the Adelaide-based Australian Dance Theatre, who spoke about his experiences as a young, emerging dancer at QL2 Dance and his resulting dance career.

The afternoon also included two performances from QL2 dancers, which were performed in one of the beautiful courtyards of Gorman Arts Centre. One was choreographed by Alice Lee Holland, and consisted of extracts from her work Earth, which we saw recently as part of the Elemental program. The other was one of Osborne’s works from the past repertoire of QL2 Dance.

QL2 dancers performing extracts from *Earth* in the courtyard, Gorman Arts Centre, 2024. Photos: © Michelle Potter

Press for October 2024

– ‘Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon (Queensland Ballet)’. Limelight, 6 October 2024 . Online at this link. (And in a slightly enlarged form here.)
– ‘Chaos, a dance project of highs and lows.’ Review of Elemental. QL2 Dance, Chaos Project. CBR City News, 19 October 2024. Online at this link. (And in a slightly enlarged form here.)

And it’s Halloween again …

Michelle Potter, 31 October 2024

Featured image: Publicity image from WAB for Alice Topp’s Butterfly Effect. Photographer not identified.

Youth Dance Festival turns 40

Canberra’s Youth Dance Festival has been a significant part of the city’s dance scene for an impressive four decades. It will shortly celebrate its 40th birthday with a program featuring a total of 45 short works danced over three nights by an incredible 800 students from 28 Canberra and district schools. Put together by Cathy Adamek, current director of Ausdance ACT, the 2024 program is called ‘What do you dream?’ and focuses on personal choices as life slowly returns to a stage where COVID no longer rules our lifestyle. As Adamek tells me, ‘This is the first time that the current generation can think about their future in terms of stability, in a way that is not inhibited.’

The 2024 theme follows on from those of 2021–2023 with the 2021 Festival, the first directed by Adamek, needing to be created as a digital production as a result of the COVID pandemic. The Festivals of 2022 and 2023 were live events but, nevertheless, their themes reflected the difficulties that had arisen as a result of the pandemic.

Dancers from Gungahlin College in their work from the 2021 Festival. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski, Art Atelier Photography

The process of getting the works onstage is a complex one, identified by Adamek as a matter of ‘co-creativity’. She suggests that it is this structured process that has made the project a durable one over the years. The choreography is largely student-led but the Festival has a group of mentors who visit schools to assist and advise, and who provide support and guidance to the students as they prepare their works for the performance. In addition, and as the result of a specific donation, the Festival will have (for the first time since 2021) a special opening work choreographed jointly by KG from Passion & Purpose Academy, Caroline Wall from Fresh Funk and Francis Owusu from Kulture Break.

I am fascinated too by the importance during the development process of a graphic item, in 2024 designed by Japanese-Australian artist Natsuko Yonezawa. ‘The graphic is part of the creative impetus,’ Adamek says. ‘I always suggest that creators use it if they want an inspiration for things like colours, tones, costumes. It’s part of giving the participants an awareness that creating a piece of dance theatre is not just about choreography.’

The graphic designed by Natsuko Yonezawa for the 2024 Youth Dance Festival

Canberra’s Youth Dance Festival began back in 1984 as the High Schools Dance Competition, an initiative of Melba High School teacher Marie de Blasio. It was supported by Audsance (then known as the Australian Association for Dance Education) and by the city’s two dance companies, Canberra Dance Theatre and Human Veins Dance Theatre. What followed in 1985 was a slightly changed format. As a result of an Ausdance survey of Australian dance, and spurred on by having seen a youth dance festival in Perth, run by the West Australian Department of Education for regional schools, Julie Dyson and Hilary Trotter worked with the then president of Ausdance, Annette Douglas (also a dance teacher at Dickson College), to set up a non-competitive, student-led event that would focus on dance but embrace other art forms such as poetry, music and design. Teachers were offered mentoring and the event would be held in a professional venue with professional lighting and an experienced producer. Further changes were made in 1987 when a time limit was set for each work.

(left) Finale from Youth Dance Festival, 1986. Theme: Peace in what was the International Year of Peace; (right) Dancers from Canberra High School, Youth Dance Festival 1987. Theme: Discovery. Photographers not identified.

Since those early years the concept of a non-competitive, student-led arts/dance festival remains. The 2024 Youth Dance Festival takes place over three nights, 6-8 November, with each night having different schools performing. See this link for booking information and for a list of schools performing on specific nights.

To support the Youth Dance Festival so it might continue its work see this link to an Australian Cultural Fund project.

Michelle Potter, 22 October 2024
with thanks to Cathy Adamek, Emma Dykes and Julie Dyson for their input into this post.

Featured image: Scene from Debora di Centa’s opening work at the Youth Dance Festival 2021. Theme: Digital Dystopia Utopia. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski, Art Atelier Photography

Dance diary. September 2024

The Australian Ballet and Canberra

In September the Australian Ballet announced its 2025 season and, amazingly, the season includes a visit to Canberra. The company has largely avoided the national capital for years now with various reasons given, none of which ever mentions a major, contentious situation that developed relating to orchestral involvement. That aside, it is also amazing that the company is bringing to Canberra Johan Inger’s magnificent Carmen rather than an ‘old favourite’ like The Merry Widow. See this link for my review of Inger’s production of Carmen from the Australian Ballet’s 2024 Sydney season.

The Canberra Symphony Orchestra will accompany the performances, which pushes the contentious issue alluded to above into the background, thankfully. Here’s hoping we are back on track and that the national company will continue to include, frequently, the national capital in its annual seasons. See the company’s website for details of the complete 2025 season.

Akira Isogawa

It was a thrill to see designer Akira Isogawa collaborating again with Melanie Lane on Love Lock, Lane’s recent work for Sydney Dance Company. Isogawa’s previous collaborations with Lane have included Slow Haunt for West Australian Ballet in 2021, and MOUNTAIN, an independent work from 2023.

Isogawa has also worked often with Graeme Murphy, both for works Murphy made for Sydney Dance Company while that company’s artistic director, and for Murphy’s production of Romeo and Juliet for the Australian Ballet. Some of Isogawa’s distinctive and intricate costumes, including items for Romeo and Juliet, were seen close-up in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria back in 2013. See this link.

Dance diary. August 2024

Rowena Jackson (1926-2024)

Dancer Rowena Jackson has died at the age of 98 in her home on the Gold Coast, Queensland. Jackson had an exceptional career with London’s Royal Ballet before returning to New Zealand, where she was born and where she and her husband, Philip Chatfield (1927-2021), became involved with a variety of dance activities. In 1993 Jackson and Chatfield moved to Queensland, to be closer to their family.

Jackson first came to Australia as a professional performer in 1957 to dance in Sydney and Melbourne as a guest artist with the Borovansky Ballet in a season that featured Margot Fonteyn. Her performances in Australia in 1957 were widely praised by critics with one writer remarking of Jackson and Bryan Ashbridge in the pas de deux from Don Quixote:

New Zealand can take a bow for Rowena Jackson and Bryan Ashbridge. Their pas de deux was an interlude of perfection. Two rubies in a velvet case … Precise and thrilling, their artistry was incontestable.*

Jackson returned to the southern hemisphere when the Royal Ballet toured to Australia and New Zealand in 1958-1959. Jackson and Chatfield led the company on that occasion and, during that tour, Jackson’s dancing was regarded as technically faultless. She had particular success as Swanilda in Coppélia often dancing alongside Robert Helpmann as Dr Coppélius.

Rowena Jackson as Swanilda with Philip Chatfield as Franz in *Coppélia*, Melbourne 1958. Photos: © Walter Stringer/National Library of Australia

Rowena Jackson died on 15 August 2024. Follow this link to read Jennifer Shennan’s obituary published in New Zealand by The Post on 2 September 2024.

Voices of the Italian Baroque

I don’t usually review music performances but circumstances were such that I ended up reviewing a one-performance-only event in Canberra by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. I really enjoyed the program, Voices of the Italian Baroque, and it was in fact the word ‘Baroque’ in the title that made me, hesitantly I have to say, volunteer to do it when no one else was available. The Baroque era, in terms of art and architecture, has long interested me, and I was curious to know whether the characteristics I associate with the art and architecture of the Baroque era were also present in music from the period. Here is a link to the review.

In the review I mention a sculpture by Bernini, which took my breath away when I saw it in real life (after paying to turn on a light so it could be seen properly!). Below is an image of that sculpture, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. It is often thought to have sexual undertones and is in a church in Rome, Santa Maria della Vittoria.

I may never review another music performance, who knows? But I am glad of the experience I had with Voices of the Italian Baroque, including being present in a relatively new theatre space in Canberra, the Snow Concert Hall, with its exceptional use of wood as the stage floor, and as a decorative item on the walls.

*Voices of the Italian Baroque*. Sydney Phiharmonia Choirs and Sydney Philharmonia Baroque Ensemble conducted by Brett Weymark. Photo: © Peter Hislop

Coco Chanel. Life of a fashion icon

I am looking forward to seeing Queensland Ballet’s production of Coco Chanel. Life of a fashion icon, which takes the stage in Brisbane in October. Choreographed by Belgian-Columbian artist Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, it has already been seen, as it is a co-production, in Hong Kong and Atlanta.

As these things happen, however, Chanel’s connections with the dance world have surfaced on and off as I have continued my reading of books that have sat unread on my bookshelves for a number of years. At the moment I am reading Richard Buckle’s In the wake of Diaghilev and have discovered that Chanel subsidised the Massine revival of The Rite of Spring in 1920 when (according to Buckle) no one could remember the Nijinsky choreography. Chanel also visited Diaghilev in his hotel the day before he died in August 1929. She also donated 10,000 French francs to the effort by Boris Kochno and George Balanchine to start up a new company following Diaghilev’s death.** (10,000 French francs was a large amount of money given that with 100 French francs you could, at the time, buy around a year’s worth of milk, or butter plus sugar, or 6 months of bread—according to information found on the web).

Just how much of Chanel’s diverse career and political life will be featured in the ballet is yet to be seen. Such is the interest in the work, however, that some nights in the season are already sold out!

Yanela Piñera in a publicity shot for Queensland Ballet’s *Coco Chanel. Life of a fashion icon*. Photo: © David Kelly

Press for August 2024

– ‘Review: Royal New Zealand Ballet.’ Review of Solace, Royal New Zealand Ballet. Dance Australia, 5 August 2024. Online at this link.
– ‘A five-star show when dance meets music.’ Review of Silence & Rapture, Australian Chamber Orchestra & Sydney Dance Company. CBR CityNews, 18 August 2024. Online at this link.
– ‘Uneasy show that pulled no punches in its message.’ Review of Jurrungu Ngan-Ga [Straight Talk], Marrugeku. CBR CityNews, 24 August 2024. Online at this link.
– ‘Voices bring beauty to music of Italian Baroque.’ Review of Voices of the Italian Baroque, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. CBR City News, 25 August 2024. Online at this link.

Michelle Potter, 30 August 2024

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References
*Quoted in Edward H Pask, Ballet in Australia. The second act 1940-1980 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982) p. 85.

**Quoted in Richard Buckle, In the wake of Diaghilev (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982) pp. 21, 24, 31.