Meryl Tankard reports that her first short documentary film, MAD, has been selected for showing at the 17th World of Women: WOW Film Festival.
MAD focuses on madness and schizophrenia, explored by poet and writer Sandy Jeffs, who has lived with schizophrenia and all its moods for 34 years. It features music by Elena Kats-Chernin and vocals by Mara Kiek both of whom have collaborated with Tankard on numerous previous occasions. Lyrics are by Sandy Jeffs. Jeffs was a featured writer at the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival. She has published five books of poetry.
Sandy Jeffs in Meryl Tankard’s short documentary, MAD
Tankard says she is thrilled that her first documentary has been chosen to be screened at the Festival. She says:
‘I hope this documentary will give viewers a glimpse inside the schizophrenic mind. I have been inspired by Sandy’s works and by Sandy herself, in particular the way she deals with her inner voices and the way she articulates her feelings about her illness.’
MAD will be screened on 9 March 2011 at the Dendy Opera House Quay cinema.
As the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Diaghilev exhibition is being taken down, its curator, Jane Pritchard, has made the startling discovery that there appears to be film footage of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in performance. And we have always thought that no such footage exists! She reports on this remarkable discovery in her latest blog post—’I eat my words’, where you can also view the footage via the website of British Pathé.
Michelle Potter, 27 January 2011
UPDATE 16 June 2020: The footage and blog post is no longer available via the link above. But the footage (lasting just 30 seconds) of a section from Les Sylphides, filmed in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1928, is below.
In an astonishing coup, the Royal New Zealand Ballet has just announced that Ethan Stiefel, currently principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre and dean of the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, will be its next artistic director, taking up the position in the second half of 2011. Stiefel will be joined by Gillian Murphy, his partner in life and also a principal with ABT.
Stiefel’s comments on his appointment are: ‘I am enormously appreciative and enthusiastic about having been appointed the next Artistic Director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Becoming RNZB’s Artistic Director provides me with an exceptional opportunity to professionally and personally evolve and to contribute to the art form I truly love. It is very encouraging to see how much the company has already achieved, the potential it possesses and how the nation embraces its national ballet company. I look forward to building on the company’s fine reputation, while seeking to be a fresh, innovative and inspiring new leader for the RNZB in any way I can. Both myself and my partner in life; American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer, Gillian Murphy, are ready for this new chapter in our lives and wholeheartedly make a commitment to the new adventures and prospects it holds. Finally, I also look forward to connecting with my relatives living in New Zealand today and, being a sports enthusiast with Kiwi blood, I’m also looking forward to supporting the All Blacks!’
I can see that ‘crossing the ditch’ will become more common for Australian dance folk. One of my fondest memories of living in New York between 2006 and 2008 was seeing an ABT production of La Bayadère in which Stiefel danced Solor, Murphy Gamzatti and Diana Vishneva Nikiya.
Inspired by a comment on my August 2010 post regarding Olga Spessivtseva in Australia, I went back to that amazing National Library of Australia resource, Trove, and began looking again for passenger lists around the end of 1934 that might contain the names Olga Spessiva or Leonard G Braun.
It appears that Spessivtseva and Braun left Sydney on board the London-bound R. M. S Orama, a ship of the Orient line, on 22 December 1934. A passenger list including both names appears in The Sydney Morning Herald for that day. The ship passed through Fremantle on 31 December and news of Spessivtseva’s departure was reported in The West Australian on 1 January 1935 in a brief article headed ‘A famous dancer. Olga Spessiva leaves Australia’. In that article the story of the injured leg surfaces again with the reporter noting that her withdrawal from the company was the result of ‘An injury to her left leg, occasioned through over-work’. The article also reports that Spessivtseva was anxious to return to Australia ‘with the object of establishing a school of instruction and of producing ballet with entirely Australian casts’!
What makes this information particularly interesting, however, is that there was almost a full month between the last Sydney performance by the Dandré-Levitoff company on 28 November and the sailing date of 22 December. What did Spessivtseva and Braun do during that time? It appears on the one hand that the Blue Mountains story discussed in a previous post may indeed have a grain of truth, and also that Algeranoff’s information about Spessivtseva having already left by 2 December, also discussed previously, is wrong. Do we assume that there was an effort to cover-up what appears to have been more than an injured leg not only to the press but even to other members of the company?
Michelle Potter, 27 September 2010
With many thanks to Boris Fedoff for spurring me on to keep looking. Read his comment about Spessivtseva and her early departure from a US tour. And here is the full tag archive relating to Spessivtseva and the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet tour to Australia.
The interview with Paul Knobloch recorded by Stateline Canberra during Paul’s recent Australian visit screened on Friday 24 September. Its online availability will, it seems, expire in December so it’s worth having a look before that happens. In addition to the words from Paul and his mentor, Jackie Hallahan, there are some photos of Paul as a student and some tantalisingly short footage of his performance in Webern Opus V as well as snippets from an impromptu dance performed in the studio for the Stateline cameras.
Here is the link. (See update below for new link)
Michelle Potter, 26 September 2010.
UPDATE: 27 July 2013: The video on the link above has been removed although the transcript of the interview is available. The footage, however, is still available at this link from ABC Western Victoria.
For those who may not have read the interview by Alan Helms with dance critic Alastair Macaulay, published recently in the summer issue of the ballet.co magazine, I recommend it. It is quite long but a totally fascinating read.
One of the highlights of my tenure as curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division in New York was the launch of the restored film of George Balanchine’s Don Quixote featuring that amazing ballerina Suzanne Farrell as Dulcinea and Balanchine himself as the Don. Macaulay was invited to speak at the launch. I was familiar with Macaulay’s writing but not with his public speaking style. However, shortly before the launch I heard him honour dance scholar David Vaughan at a forum presented by the Dance Critics’ Association. As one might expect, Macaulay gave an incredibly knowledgeable account of Vaughan’s vast contribution to dance. But it was not simply knowledgeable, it was brilliantly entertaining as well. So he seemed the ideal choice for the Don Q launch. Luckily he accepted.
What he gave us at the launch was an overview of Farrell’s career complete with demonstrations of her technical prowess! It too was brilliantly entertaining and my clearest memory is of Macaulay constantly moving away from the lectern so we could see him quite clearly as he demonstrated this or that step. Of course the words were there too and the combination of his erudition and his willingness to engage with the physicality of dance — despite not being a dancer by training himself — was dazzling. So I was more than interested to read his thoughts in the Alan Helms interview on why he likes to demonstrate in this way, and to notice the emphasis he places throughout the interview on the concept of physicality.
Another aspect of the interview that I personally found inspiring was Macaulay’s brief discussion of finding that what he was writing as a young critic was controversial, and of being on one occasion struck off a press list. Having myself been ‘counselled’ against writing on a certain subject for this (my own) website, and having once been the source of a defamation case as a result of a review I wrote for a newspaper (the claim was unsuccessful), it is always helpful to be reminded, even as an ‘old’ critic as I am, that one needs to be resolute in one’s beliefs.
There are so many other moments in this interview that sparkle with Macaulay’s particular brand of perceptive thought. Definitely worth a read and a bouquet to Bruce Marriott of ballet.co for publishing it.
[Update 30 November 2017: Sadly, the link to Alan Helms’ interview is no longer available]
Liz Lea reports that her show, 120 Birds, has just concluded its run at the Edinburgh Fringe. She says they ‘did well’ but the reviews suggest she and her dancers did a little more than well. It sounds like a knockout. Let’s hope Lea finds an Australian venue for the show.
Liz Lea and company in 120 Birds
Extracts from reviews:
‘Liz Lea mines the very female environment of Anna Pavlova. The world’s most famous ballerina, back in the 1920s she famously crossed the globe in a series of exhausting and exhaustive tours. In 120 Birds, a cast of four recreate both the brutal toughness and the exhilarating glamour of a ballet company out on the road, mixing live performance with vintage film footage.’ (Judith Mackrell, The Guardian)
‘What a treat this invented slice of dance history is. Inspired by the international touring of such dance legends as Anna ‘The Dying Swan’ Pavlova early in the 20th century, Liz Lea has mounted a fabulously ambitious little show for which she co-designed the drop-dead-gorgeous costumes. The glamour puss dancer-choreographer also takes the lead, narrating the saga of a fictional Australian troupe and its breathless adventures on the road. The moves Lea and three fine dancers execute are mainly her smart, stylish take on social dance, ranging from the tango and Charleston to the waltz, with a treasure trove of archival film footage as backdrop.’ (Donald Hutera, The List)
‘Liz Lea’s 120 Birds … draws inspiration—and a fabulously sparkly-swishy array of frocks—from the globe-trotting adventures of 1920s touring dance companies, with Anna Pavlova’s career an especially iconic source. Against a fascinating backdrop of old film clips, Lea and her three dancers fleet-foot it through the various crazes—including the smouldering tango—that were all the rage, while weaving them into a retrospective celebration of how ballet and contemporary dance evolved. Great fun, with some elegant hoofing in there too.’ (Mary Brennan , Herald Scotland)
‘With a little de-cluttering, this tribute to ballet star Anna Pavlova is a five star show waiting to happen. Lea is a true performer with real stage presence, turning her very able hands to acting, dancing, direction, choreography, costume design and writing. As the audience filed out post-show, one word kept coming up time and again—”fabulous”—undeniably the perfect adjective.’ (Kelly Apter, Edinburgh Festivals)
‘120 Birds … choreographed by and starring the pouting, flirting, strutting ‘Madam’ Liz Lea, is a gem. Based on an international tour that Anna Pavlova made in the 1920s to Sydney (travelling with, yes, 120 birds), this story of a young Australian company following in her footsteps is told through dance, fantastic archive footage and fashion from the period. There are more costume changes in 120 Birds than Katy Perry pulled off at last week’s Teen Choice Awards.’ (Chitra Ramaswamy, Scotland on Sunday)
And for a little more on the title, quite by accident I came across the following item in The Sydney Morning Herald for 8 November 1934, a charming story about Pavlova and those birds.
Paul Knobloch, former soloist with the Australian Ballet, is back in Australia briefly to visit his family and conduct master classes in Canberra. Knobloch left the Australian Ballet in 2009 to join Béjart Ballet Lausanne.
Paul Knobloch in ‘Webern Opus 5’
Knobloch counts dancing the opening night of a season in Paris, when he partnered Russian-born Daria Ivanova in Béjart’s Webern Opus 5, as the highlight of his career to date with Béjart Ballet Lausanne. He returns to Switzerland in September when Béjart Ballet Lausanne will begin working with Tokyo Ballet on a joint staging of Béjart’s version of Rite of Spring. Knobloch’s own work Valetta, commissioned by David McAllister for an Australian Ballet gala in 2007, will be on the program for the Australian Ballet School’s graduate exhibition in Melbourne this September.
Last week a group of dancers from Sydney Dance Company (SDC) made a brief guest appearance on So you think you can dance Australia. They performed a short excerpt from 6 Breaths, the most recent work created on them by their artistic director Rafael Bonachela. Without wishing to detract from the six dancers who had reached one of the last stages of the So you think you can dance competition, the SDC dancers were absolutely mesmerising. With their streamlined bodies, clearly defined musculature and eloquent limbs it was clear that they were reaping the benefits of strong leadership and vision and, as well, of a particular kind of dance teaching.
I was lucky that I had an interview set up with Bonachela the following weekend for an article to be published elsewhere, so I couldn’t wait to ask what was happening in the SDC studios. What was producing dancers with such an exceptional capacity to articulate movement and with such a clear sense of focus? I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall (or on the dancers’ bodies) and twigged that Merce Cunningham was in there somewhere.
Bonachela told me that his dancers take both classical ballet and Cunningham technique classes in fairly equal proportions. Cunningham technique, he said, gives the torso extra strength and flexibility. Springing to his feet he demonstrated a classical attitude (think of the familiar statue of Mercury), and then the way the same pose can be used by Cunningham where the spine, still elongated, can be pitched forward in a totally different, contemporary alignment (think of Cunningham’s Beach Birds or Beach Birds for Camera).
Watching 6 Breaths in full shortly afterwards, I looked on with this new knowledge and, while Bonachela is absolutely right about the torso, his dancers also show that every part of the body is an articulate component of the choreography. In addition, they have that rare ability to highlight the space in and through which the body moves and which surrounds each part of the body. Their movements have ‘weight’—and I don’t mean here that they are heavy! Both the notion that every part of the body can be articulate, and that the body moves in space, are deeply embedded in Cunningham’s work.
And lest this should sound as though 6 Breaths is choreographically dry and abstracted, I have to record what is perhaps my favourite moment in the work. Chen Wen enters quietly from a downstage wing. Coming to a halt, still on the side of the stage space, he places two hands on his right hip and slowly lifts his right leg to arabesque, foot flexed at the end of the arabesque line. The ‘hands on the hip’ move is a very deliberate one, as if to show that when the leg lifts to arabesque the pelvis must tilt forward. But as this kind of analytical testing comes to an end when the arabesque reaches full height, Chen Wen’s torso stretches upwards and the breath that gives birth to this expressive and lyrical stretch continues through the neck as the head tilts slightly backwards. From there the movement swirls smoothly into the next phrase. It’s over quite quickly but it is just breathtaking in the way it generates so many thoughts about so many aspects of dance.
6 Breaths is an exquisite work even without any kind of technical analysis. Apart from the choreography and the performance of it, in terms of music and design it looks forward to a new and exciting collaborative aesthetic from Sydney Dance Company. But as I left the theatre I could not help but hope that Bonachela will be that rare kind of artistic director who will always be searching for an understanding of the innate qualities of movement, for whom physicality (not just physical tricks) is what makes dance dance—whatever kind of dance we might be talking about—and who wants his dancers to know these things too and be able to translate that knowledge into movement. Now that would make Sydney Dance a quite remarkable company. It would also make Bonachela one of the very few truly outstanding dance leaders.
Film clip from Stella Motion Pictures, with thanks.
For two months in early 2007 I worked with Anne Bass on the initial stages of what would eventually become Dancing across borders, a documentary film on the career to date of Sokvannara Sar, a dancer who grew up in Cambodia and who is now dancing with Pacific Northwest Ballet. The film has been hugely successful since its release in 2009 and the website that documents its production, and that also gives contextual material about other initiatives including the Khmer Dance Project, is well worth a look.
