31 October 2026. Black Grace Fale, Auckland reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
The Eggyssey is the first season in the new Black Grace Fale (home), their newly converted premises near Karangahape Rd. Newton in Auckland, the first they have owned, after decades of renting elsewhere around town. Studios double as performance areas, and management, study, library and archive facilities are all housed there. There’s a lean and very hardworking directorate (Neil and Abby Ieremia) who keep a tight rein on everything, regular international appearances included. The entrance area to the Fale is a welcoming space resembling a marae, so audiences and performers can mingle easily after the show. Well done Black Grace. Talofa lava.
Two large murals are up on the walls of the entrance—one is of a traditional Samoan orator wearing the distinctive bright red ula fala, pandanus seedpod necklace. He represents the past and the present. Opposite is a bright-eyed boy wearing a space helmet and an ula fale. He represents the present and the future. Nice one.
The Eggyssey is a witty parody of The Odyssey (though not nearly as long). The one hour-long action-packed show is underway and the capacity audience is spared no quarter as wild and wonderful party dancing builds (except it only looks like party dancing as many of the sequences are immaculately synchronised). The Company B cast are graduates of the year’s first full-time intensive training course, joined by members of the Black Grace company. All of them perform at full-speed high-octane energy levels that make you feel younger just by being in the audience. Their stamina, precision and focus are faultless. It’s a helter-skelter and we are on it, holding tight and laughing, or maybe crying, as we head towards Ithaca.
The program note reads:
In The Eggyssey we look at which came first, the chicken or the egg? A seemingly simple question opens the door to a journey into the unknown. Inspired by The Odyssey, The Eggyssey invites us to embrace curiosity, challenge assumptions and question the very nature of our existence. Who are we before we know who we are? What comes first: our purpose or our being? Perhaps the answers matter less than the questions themselves. After all the journey of existence begins with the courage to wonder
In the second to last scene, the torrid pace turns quiet and everything stops as one performer then another quietly walks forward holding a placard or a one-word message to let us know the values they actually stand by or aspire to, behind all their youthful ebullience. The silence is deafening. The words are: Peace, Love, Compassion, Perspective, Empathy, Equity, Understanding, Representation, Yeah Nah, Passion. Says it all really.
29 October 2026. St James Theatre, Wellington reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
This season of The Sleeping Beauty is a restaging of RNZB’s spirited production from 2011, and artistic director Ty King-Wall has ingeniously invited back a number of the original players for the project. That’s not just a matter of nostalgia but brings mana to the stage, and echoes the Royal Danish Ballet’s practice of incorporating mature dancers as character artists in their productions. This company was founded by Danish dancer Poul Gnatt over 70 years ago, and the fact that Gnatt was one of the most renowned Bluebird dancers in Europe in his day is not lost on us either.
This production scores on many levels, and does RNZB and NZSO proud. There is an extensive national tour to seven cities across as many weeks, the logistics of which, for a production on this scale, including different orchestras in various centres, are staggering. This Company has never been cowed by challenges however (remember RNZB is the ‘most touring’ ballet company in the world) and while that is not the focus of the opening night, I thought I’d mention it anyway.
Choreographic treatment ‘after Petipa’, is by Greg Horsman, (former ballet-master at RNZB, later associate-artistic-director at Queensland Ballet), with set and costume design by Gary Harris (former artistic director of RNZB). Between them they create an assured elegance and classicism, with an impressively mobile set (dancers cleverly doubling as stage hands), of mediaeval grandeur (originally inspired by First Church, Dunedin), leavened with colour, much mischief, and a ditzy cat.
Tightened dramaturgy gives sustained roles to several characters traditionally only encountered as entertainers in the final wedding scene. Catalabutte the cat is Private Secretary to the King and responsible for all the mayhem that follows from getting the christening guest list wrong. A pair of caged Bluebirds are the parents’ wedding gift, the bluebirds of happiness encountered in many literary and visual art representations… even if the crazy cat has a different quest in mind all evening.
Such innovations are all of course bound by Tchaikovsky, and the over-long original score, arranged by Nigel Gaynor (former music director at RNZB, then with Queensland Ballet), is as keen and skilful as was all his work in his time here with Company.
The classic fairy-tale is known in early European iterations, some of them horrifyingly macabre, from wildly Gothic Charles Perrault, to the somewhat milder version by the Brothers Grimm. My young grand-daughter helpfully brings me up to date with Walt Disney’s additions of The Shield of Protection, The Sword of Truth, and The Fiery Dragon, though we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Does it all make for good theatre? Yes, it does.
This allegory of parents’ concern for the wellbeing of their children starts with joy at the birth of a first baby, turning to terror when a curse is visited on the child’s health and future. The death sentence is commuted to a life sentence, the child will come of age at 16, there will be blood, no longer a child, followed by a 100 year wait for true love, which as we know can take at least that long in the world off-stage.
The opening scene has the King played by guest artist Vivencio Samblaceno (formerly a valued dancer with RNZB). His superb timing of gestures is the ‘Once upon a time’ of the evening. Alone in a room of the palace, nervously pacing the floor, as does every father of a first-born, while his wife is in labour (off-stage!). To help calm his nerves the King engages Catalabutte, to prepare the invitation list for the forthcoming christening. Here’s trouble for a nervous king and a ditzy cat.
The full cast rich with colour and character make poignant contrast to the central role of the Princess Aurora, Mayu Tanigaito. She keeps her fabulous technique discreet while her musicality and sense of alignment bring the poetry and delicacy of her interpretation to the fore. Her Rose Adagio is exquisitely danced. Later the pairing with the Prince, Laurynas Vejalis, brings pas de deux of real rapport and deep joy, greater than the sum of its steps. His dancing is equally pedigree, always avoiding the distractions of bravura. Theirs is a partnership of consummate quality in the ballet canon. Tell your grandchildren you saw them dance.
The line-up of fairies, colour coded to the gifts they bring, deliver attractive solos each of distinctive quality. Lilac Fairy, by Ana Gallardo Lobaina, another artist of formidable technical ability, is beautifully danced with calm authority and grace throughout.
So now to Carabosse, pure evil disguised as great beauty, beware of that, the thorn on the stem of the black crystal rose. Kirby Selchow always delivers the drama of a character centre stage and in this role, tailor-made for her, she excels. But good eventually prevails, sealed with a kiss (and what a kiss!), and Carabosse is banished to the realm of war-mongering dogs this world knows too well.
There are multiple changes of cast throughout the extended season. We do not get cast lists except online, but we’re required to turn our cell phones off before curtain up ̶̶̶ so how do we know who is playing Catalabutte tonight with such hilarious timing and ubiquitous presence? Aha, we find out later, and are not surprised that it is Kohei Iwamotu, the adored dancer (formerly with RNZB, later with Queensland Ballet) who was Puck and Mercutio and more besides when he was here. Never forgotten.
Hamish McKeich is conducting the NZSO, impeccably of course, using the one arm that works. Let that be an example to us all.
Li Cunxin, known from his memoir and the associated film as Mao’s Last Dancer (Viking/Penguin 2003) now goes by another name as well—The Lucky Son, which is the title of his memoir sequel, recently published (Penguin, 2026).
This second book, artfully because briefly, summarises the first one for anyone who may not have read it, and then continues the subsequent professional career, primarily at Queensland Ballet, which he shared with his wife, the dancer Mary Li (whose own memoir, Mary’s Last Dance, has also been published by Penguin, 2020).
There are insights into the ballet world, and how its politics and culture play out in different countries and different companies. Li’s and Mary’s shared dance careers as performers, directors and teachers, are stellar by any measure, but it is in fact the family’s personal story that turns the pages. The book traces their fortunes and luck, both good and bad, sharing with a remarkable honesty, how they made it through some seriously dark times of family health and welfare challenges. Always their combined indomitable spirit rises to the surface, and they move forwards, because moving backwards is not an option. Li counts his blessings and considers himself, on balance, a lucky son.
Li was a guest of the RAD in Wellington recently, as they marked the 91 years of their operation in New Zealand. At a gala event (at which Anne Rowse was made an Honorary Fellow of the RAD for her stirling service to dance in New Zealand for decades), Li spoke to the guests in a way that was focused yet modest, supportive, encouraging, humane—for at least 10 minutes, with no notes in sight. That rarely happens, so you know that when it does, the speaker is someone who knows how to make his words mean something.
No point in my paraphrasing The Lucky Son. Best you read it for yourself
Jennifer Shennan, 23 October 2026
Featured image: Li Cunxin from the cover of The Lucky Son
17 October 2026. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
Melanie Lane’s MOUNTAIN is, once again, a magnificent example of the work of an exceptional choreographer. Lane has a huge ability to create a complete work of art in which the audience can become fully immersed.
Made on five dancers, in this case Sara Black, Max Burgess, Tyrel Dulvarie, Madeleine Bowman and Yolanda Lowatta, MOUNTAIN was inspired, metaphorically, by the Brindabella range of mountains that is on the outskirts of Canberra where Lane grew up. The work examines the struggle to move up in life along with issues that arise as that movement proceeds. Choreographically there were examples of groupings that often recalled small, mountain-like structures, interspersed with solos and duets that recalled a variety of human activities and responses (triumphant and the opposite) to the climb .
Sara Black stood out for me for the beautiful fluidity of her movements in whatever mood was being suggested by the choreography. Bur every dancer was an absolute joy to watch, again whatever mood was being suggested.
Costumes were from Akira Isogawa and were quite varied across the 60 minutes that made up the performance. Initially the costumes were quite complex and made of different materials from blue denim to softer, more transparent fabric. The blue colour recalled, at least for Canberra viewers, the colour that is often a characteristic of the Brindabellas when seen from a distance. But as the work progressed the blue outfit was slowly removed to reveal a decorative, but close-fitting ‘all-over’ item.
By the time the work was nearing it’s final section the costumes had changed to translucent tops over skin coloured, close fitting leotard-like items that were somewhat revealing.
Adding to the quality of the dancing and the costuming was the music that varied between a recorded electronic sound from English artist CLARK, with whom Lane frequently works, to an onstage performance from five musicians from the Canberra Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble—two violins, a viola, a cello and a keyboard.
I can only rejoice that Canberra audiences saw this remarkable work, outstandingly produced by independent production company Visions. It is a shame that MOUNTAIN had just one performance in Canberra.
Michelle Potter, 23 October 2026
Featured image: A moment from the last section of MOUNTAIN. Photographer not identified
I was a guest of the Canberra Theatre Centre for this production.
With apologies, this review is late in being posted and is, perhaps, not as analytically written as is my wont. Managing an incident of social media abuse got in the way, momentarily.
My review of We Come Together to Dance was published online by CBR CityNews on 17 October 2026, following its premiere performance on 16 October. The review below is a slightly enlarged version of the CityNews post. Followthis linkto the CityNews review.
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16 October 2026. Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra
We Come Together to Dance is the 2026 production for Quantum Leap Australia’s Chaos project. Chaos has been an annual event for Quantum Leap Australia for many years now and the 2026 production sets out to show different aspects of why and how the art of dance engages aspiring artists of various genders and ages.
Four professional dancers and choreographers, including Pat Hayes Cavanagh, Gabriel Sinclair and Isabella Stone, worked with a cast of 40 dancers of various ages. The choreographers, with input from the dancers as is the usual process, created an opening and a closing piece along with five sections in between. These mid-sections focused on different reasons for coming together: To Dance ‘Til We Drop, To Grow, To Come Together, To Be Who We Are, and To Belong.
Choreographically, I thought We Come Together to Dance was quite repetitive. My impression was that the hand and arm movements were quite sharp and geometric in pretty much every section. There was also a lot of running across the stage space and several occasions when gymnastic movements, such as hand stands, cartwheels and forward rolls, were inserted. In addition, in the past I have always enjoyed the way Chaos projects have created various arrangements of dancers in appealing groupings. Sometimes these groupings have been stationary: at other times they have moved around the stage. But they have mostly been well maintained over a period of time and thus always became an impressive choreographic addition. There were efforts to do this at various stages of We Come Together to Dance, but the appeal was lost when the dancers had not been rehearsed sufficiently to hold the groupings together in an adequate manner. The entire program appears to have been created in just 10 or so days (as mentioned in the program). This is not enough time, in my opinion, to put together an hour long production when working with young people, some of whom have hardly any performance experience..
Lighting by Owen Davis (and the choreographers as the program notes state) was a highlight. It often took in the audience in a small but not overly annoying manner, which perhaps suggested that we too had come together if not to dance but at least to watch others dance. Sound, as mastered by Kimmo Vennonen, was contemporary and varied and came from composers from around the world, including from Belgian musician Stromae and the English band Spandau Ballet. Costuming was attractive at times, especially in parts of To Be Who We Are where black, gold and sparkly items were apparent.
But in many sections the costuming was overly varied in colour and style. Simplicity and similarity are often better as was very clear with the simple jackets for Gabriel Sinclair’s We Dance to Come Together. They added so strongly to the idea behind his work that environments develop that may mean that dance is forgotten.
The opening section, in which all 40 dancers occupied the performing space, and in which all 40 of them were wearing sunglasses (as they were in the closing moments as well), was definitely a somewhat startling beginning. But We Come Together to Dance was far from my favourite Chaos project from the many I have seen over the years.
The use of the word chaos as the title for an ongoing production idea has always made me think of the development process. But for me this 2026 Chaos project was chaotic on stage as well. I’m hoping that next year’s Chaos project will feature a stronger overall appearance and less repetitive movement.
Little Theatre, Lower Hutt. 27 September 2026 reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
Varshita is a graduating student from Mudra Dance Academy in Wellington, where for over 30 years Sri Vivek Kinra has taught hundreds of pupils the technique and art of Bharata Natyam, classical Indian dance. Himself a graduate of the renowned Kalakshetra school in Chennai, Vivek has prepared close to 50 pupils to perform their arangetram—a two-hour solo recital, demanding remarkable physical stamina, mental focus and memory skills. It is usually ten years in the making.
An arangetram is offered once a pupil has reached the required level to join Mudra Dance company. Think Solo Seal in Ballet, an audition to join a professional company, plus a doctorate in the dance and music arts of India—delivered with all the beauty of a lotus flower, the grace of a young garuda, with perfect geometric precision and mastery of intricate musicality, dramatic then beguiling facial expressions flashing from serene to angry to scornful to grateful—with numerous narrative references to the Hindu pantheon of deities of whom there are 600,000 manifestations.
Varshita is a 17 year old school student at Newlands College, interested in biology and chemistry and hoping to follow a science training and career. You could re-read the previous paragraph, and trust me that I am not exaggerating or over-writing what is involved in combining dance arts and education. Would that our politicians were listening…
There is evidence of much family and community support in the foyer beautifully adorned with flowers and photographs. The stage is set with embroidered banners, and in the corner is a shrine with a statue of Shiva as Nataraj, Lord of the Dance, as spiritual overseer of the proceedings. Something exquisite this way comes, restoring hope in education and arts for young people, and you have to feel blessed to be invited to share the event.
I am to be the guest speaker at the occasion. Whatever I wear, I’ll be underdressed among the radiant sapphire, crimson, emerald, torquoise, gold and purple saris and kurtas that will fill the theatre. The previous day I had found a purple pashmina shawl in an op(portunity) shop, with sparkling sequins spelling out the word Hope. That will do.
More importantly, what will I say? No need to tell this capacity audience about the intricacies of Bharata Natyam, you’d be preaching to the converted, and anyway there are extensive essays on each of the various dance forms in the printed program. Varshita dances the striking clarity of an alarippu that turns the dancing body from a bud into a bloom. Her majestic and sustained varnam has dramatic urgency in the love theme of its song text—Oh Shiva, why are you angry with me? Cupid is shooting his flowery arrows at me in excess. Don’t be in indifferent towards me. Please come and accept me. There’s poetry in the dance and drama, and the thrilling thillana that will end the performance suggests that Shiva has by now stopped testing and teasing Varshita and removed all her woes. The program has not been a string of separate items but rather a single journey towards the triumphant outcome. Most of the items are choreographed by Kinra, to music especially recorded in India, languages of song texts in Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil or Hindi. Three changes of beautiful costume are used, all of ravishing colours.
What I can do in a speech is refer to a number of connections between India and New Zealand. Kinra’s contribution here has been well recognised in various honours, as well as by the larger community. Who knew though, that the local leading engineering firm BECA, recently celebrated 25 years of shared education between New Zealand and India of the technology of the base isolaters that save lives in earthquakes? A half-hour visit to the office of President Modi was included in the celebration.
The previous week had seen the Mudra Academy performance with many youngsters on stage at Whirinaki theatre. The representative from the Indian High Commission gave the speech on that occasion, and used the word tamariki, which is Maori for children (a token maybe, but underscoring the wisdom in encouraging respect for an indigenous language. Would that our politicians were listening. Our children, plus continuing education for all of us. What else is there?).
I am gifted a beautiful sari cloth in wine red and gold. I won’t be wearing it but it is already draped over my shelf of dance books and glinting in reflected sunlight. The name Varshita is Sanskrit for rain, plenty, abundance, fertility. We had ventured through a wild Spring rainstorm to reach the theatre, so the day in every sense belonged to the dancer and the dance. How can we know the one from the other? We can’t.
My review of The Whole Cake was published online by CBR CityNews on 28 September 2026, following its premiere performance on 27 September. The review below is a slightly enlarged version of the CityNews post. Followthis linkto the CityNews review.
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27 September 2026. The Hall Pavilion, Hall ACT
It would be hard to envisage a more unusual dance performance than The Whole Cake. Created and choreographed by Vivienne Rogis, it sets out to examine her experiences as a woman engaging with life over several decades. There is dance of course, but the whole consists of six episodes that also give a verbal outline of specific periods in Rogis’ life (and by extension periods in female life in general). Then, at the end of each section Rogis cuts six separate cakes and, after donning on an apron, distributes slices to the audience.
Rogis defines the six episodes as expressing ‘the difficulties and joys of managing diverse roles within family, work, community, and friendship, while maintaining a sense of individuality.’ Each of the six episodes follows a similar framework: a danced section, a verbal discussion with personal references to Rogis’ own experiences, and the cutting and serving of slices of the relevant cake to the audience seated at small tables situated at the edge of the performance space. Each table accommodates just three or four people.
The outstanding overall feature of the work is the manner in which Rogis shows the different emotional and physical aspects of each of her difficulties and/or joys.
In dance terms an early section shows a balletic movement focus, which moves on to a more contemporary style, showing the growth of Rogis’ personal dance practice. A little later there is a kind of personal freedom and joy in the movement we encounter. Rogis’ life grows and develops. She marries and has children. Her life becomes filled with complications and the story continues to move on.
Towards the end there is movement that is more bent over and slow with the apparent intervention of ageing and the need to manage life as a mother, partner and housekeeper. She shows us some of her activities in various ways including some of the more annoying necessities of life such as dealing with the washing.
At the very end the movement contains shapes that are uplifting suggesting that Rogis has conquered her problems.
But beyond the physicality of the body itself, Rogis also uses facial and verbal expression to add highlights to what the body expresses. It is perhaps most noticeable towards the end when Rogis is struggling to overcome her anger at the situation in which she finds herself. Her voice becomes sharper, her face shows annoyance and she cuts the relevant cake swiftly and sharply without consideration for what the slice might look like. Even the way she serves the slices to audience members lacks a certain calm.
As for the cakes, made by Sweet Bones Bakery and Cafe in the suburb of Scullin, there is universal agreement that they are delicious. But they too follow the changing patterns Rogis examines. They include, for example, The Cake of Love and Life containing a delicious chocolate mousse and The Cake of Motherhood consisting of a selection of cupcakes. All the cakes have appropriate connections to the narrative.
The Whole Cake is, to a certain extent, a solo performance. Rogis is the star and is an expert performer whether dancing, speaking, dramatising situations, or serving cake! But there is a definite role for the audience as well and the work is beyond doubt an immersive and engaging experience. The Whole Cake is definitely a show worth seeing.
22 August 2026. Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
Turid Revfeim is director of Ballet Collective Aotearoa and she never says No to a challenge, which leads to a range of interesting projects for the collective, both locally and nationally. Tānemahuta Gray is an established free-lance choreographer and force majeure for integration of Maori history and myths into the contemporary political, civic and artistic culture of Aotearoa New Zealand.
The evening at this concert began very well indeed with what was probably the best and most informative pre-performance talk I can remember (which was consoling because the last ppt I had attended, by a different group across town, was probably the worst and least informative I’ve ever known). Orchestra Wellington’s director-conductor, Marc Taddei, interviewed Tānemahuta for insight into the choreographic process of his dance work to Darius Milhaud’s Creation.
The Michael Fowler Centre is not an easy space to stage dance, but it is the home venue for Orchestra Wellington concerts so there was some degree of anticipation as to how the musicians and dancers would share the stage. (An earlier project between OW and BCA involved Bartok’s The Miraculous Mandarin, and the staging of that work, dancing in two dimensions up in the choir seats above the orchestra, was itself something of a miracle).
Milhaud’s music has an atmosphere of 1920s Paris, jazz, rhythms of African percussion and its own air of modernism. Gray confessed that despite listening to the music for 1001 nights he could not source a libretto of a creation story in it. He instead resorted to a selection of themes from Maori mythology of the creation of the world, the separation of Papatuanuku-Earth Mother, from Ranginui-Sky Father, and the role their children played in that cataclysm. Gray then ingeniously wound time back to the original attraction between Rangi and Papa, to the conception and procreation of their children. In other words, the birth of a child was presented as the original creative act. (The truth is that all cultures’ creation stories involve some form of incest to procreate the human race but it was movingly explained in the pre-performance talk that Maori myth accepts that as a reality, unlike most codified religions which ignore the biological necessity). That insight definitely helped us to follow the choreographic play in performance.
The front of the auditorium was treated as the Underworld, so dancers climbing up onto the stage were entering the world of light. Gray stood to chant a powerful karakia before the orchestra began the Milhaud score. The team of seven dancers adopted different forms of stylised movement that broadened the reference beyond Te Ao Maori. The inventive work was focussed and well-carried and arrived at a final sculptured grouping that reminded me of Maori carved figures in a traditional lintel. It was a masterstroke to have Gray again chanting a closing poem after the Milhaud had ended, cadencing in the repeated mantra of Hi ! Ha ! —with the group of dancers rising and lowering in subtle but powerful breathing, in and out, as the first act of life. That image will stay with all who recognised it. Tihei mauriora, the breath of life.
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I found extra resonance in another work on the program, Bela Bartok’s Concerto for two pianos, percussion and orchestra—since that had been the music chosen by Ashley Killar when Artistic Director of RNZBallet back in the early 90’s—for his one-act ballet Dark Waves. After a Nabokov short story, it gave Jon Trimmer one of his finest roles as the blind husband, fearing that his much younger wife was having an affair. The work was only performed on the company’s tour to America (to great acclaim as it happens) but never publicly in New Zealand (I had been privileged to see a studio rehearsal before the tour). Upon return, a rescheduling of repertoire was Killar’s desperate attempt to survive the scandalous chapter when the Arts Council of the day tried to close the Company down. They were unsuccessful of course (nobody closes down the New Zealand Ballet that Poul Gnatt formed in 1953) but that remarkable Dark Waves was lost in the struggle of survival. Jon Trimmer is dead but Killar is not—Sonya Behrnes and Kim Broad played leading roles, are around and could help with staging. It should not be impossible to hope for a revival since historical masterworks in the repertoire are what define a company’s identity.
My review of All in was published online by CBR CityNews on 25 September 2026, following its opening performance in Canberra on 24 September. The review below is a slightly enlarged version of the CityNews post. Followthis link to the CityNews review.
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24 September 2026. The Theatre, Belconnen Arts Centrre, Canberra
All in from Dance Makers Collective, a Western Sydney-based company directed by Miranda Wheen, was first performed in Sydney in early 2025 and has since been touring to various locations, each time including dancers from various local companies. The Canberra performances over three days included dancers from the First Nations contemporary dance group Project Dust, the classical Indian group Apsaras Arts, and the youth group Quantum Leap Australia. As the name of the work suggests, All in, choreographed by Wheen, focuses on the concept of connections.
After a short introduction in which performers from all groups were briefly seen together, the work proper began with extraordinarily powerful dancing from seven dancers representing Dance Makers Collective. They twisted and turned, jumped and lent from side to side, made absorbing use of arms and hands, and interacted in a choreographic sense with each other. It was a long sequence and the dancers continued to move with intensity while also making ongoing facial contact with the audience. They smiled directly at individual people, inviting us to be involved (in an emotional sense). With the audience seated on two opposite sides of the performing space, the focus of the dancers moved from side to side so all audience members were involved.
Then followed performances by dancers from the Canberra groups, with the strongest input from the Apsaras Arts dancers who work in Bharatanatyam style. Their dancing was exceptional and also took into account the spread of audience members across the space. Their connection to the audience was made with invitingly beautiful eyes and lots of smiles, but also with the strength of their dancing and with the somewhat geometric structure of the work.
There was also a rather hilarious short section when a voice-over spoke about the nature of dance and the role it has in the life of some, including those who find the art form of dance impossible to understand. This section was accompanied by efforts from dancers to show unusual aspects of movement.
But the highlight of the ‘all in’ concept came at the end of the show when the audience was invited to join the dancing. Pretty much the entire audience, young and old, rose from their seats and joined the dancers in the performing space. The space was not huge and was extraordinarily crowded. This section was also very noisy considering the small performing space of the Belco venue. Those features concerned no one, however, except perhaps those who declined to join in the dancing. There were instructions for the people on the floor to follow, which were screened at one end of the theatre: ‘Go left’, ‘go right’, ‘make a circle’, ‘dance with the person next to you’ and so forth. And everyone followed the instructions with enthusiasm.
All in is very much a show that does indeed make connections between those involved, including the audience. But the choreography for the Canberra showing was quite different from what was seen in Sydney. And in particular, in the Sydney showing there were close connections between the dancers from the various groups, which unfortunately did not eventuate to the same extent in Canberra. I suspect this different focus reflected a lack of rehearsal time between the local groups and Wheen and her dancers. All in is nevertheless a show that is worth seeing, and in which it is fun to be involved.
My review of Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique was published online by CBR CityNews on 7 September 2026, following the initiative in which James Batchelor’s work for a Masters degree relating to the technique of Gertrud Bodenwieser was discussed. The review below is a slightly enlarged version of the CityNews post. Followthis linkto the CityNews review.
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3 September 2026. The Street Theatre, Canberra
Canberra’s dance community gathered recently at The Street Theatre for an event in the series Wellspring: Inquiry and Exchange, a regular collaborative endeavour between The Street and the ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics. This particular Wellspring occasion had the specific name ‘Reviewing a Pedagogy for the Bodenwieser Technique’ and was part of the ANU Masters degree program being undertaken by choreographer James Batchelor.
The evening was introduced by ANU researcher and coordinator of the Wellspring program, Leslie Barnes, and was sponsored by the ANU and the team at The Street via Caroline Stacey. The main participants were Batchelor himself; Ruth Osborne, a former student of the Bodenwieser style and also a former artistic director of Quantum Leap Australia and teacher of the Bodenwieser technique; and Wesley Lim, senior lecturer at the ANU and supervisor of Batchelor’s research.
The program for the evening consisted of a spoken introduction from Lim on the history of Bodenwieser technique, especially in Australia. It was followed by a further introduction from Osborne of specific aspects of the technique; and then a demonstration, led by Osborne and performed by a small group of dancers, including Batchelor and Lim, of certain elements of the technique. Finally, we watched a solo, created and performed by Batchelor, on aspects of the technique that had been previously discussed. A Q&A session concluded the evening.
While both the discussion and performances, especially the group dancing demonstrating Bodenwieser’s use of a figure-of-eight movement by the body, were more than interesting, one aspect of the conversation bothered me somewhat. There was some discussion by Batchelor and Osborne that Bodenwieser is not as well-known in Australia as she should be, given the major influence her technique has created.
Perhaps it is necessary for some kind of teacher training to be introduced that should suggest that Bodenwieser’s name be added to teaching and technique development.
From a personal point of view, I recall as a student often being asked to carry out a particular ballet barre exercise called ‘Danilova grands battements’. It was a development of a standard exercise, the grand battement, but was something of an evolution invented by well-known Ballets Russes dancer Alexandra Danilova. I also discovered that part of a solo performance I did at a studio performance came from George Balanchine’s famous early work Serenade. So, thanks to my teacher at the time, I was well aware I was dancing material created by previous and much-admired artists. It was a thrill to know this and I suspect the same might occur for Bodenwieser students if teachers were trained to add her name somewhere during a class.
Below are two images of Bodenwieser teaching in Australia in 1955. The images were created by Eric Cuckson who offered Bodenwieser classes initially to children of workers employed in his zipper factory at St Mary’s in western Sydney, and then to the general public.
Bodenwieser has her back to the camera in both images. She is wearing a black outfit with cross-over straps at the back. The photos here are posted with the kind permission of Barbara Cuckson.
Michelle Potter, 8 September 2026
For more about James Batchelor on this site see this tag. And for more about Gertrud Bodenwieser see here.
