There was a lot to admire about Unhinged, the latest production from The Training Ground, a Canberra-based group designed to give advanced contemporary dance students from the region the opportunity to prepare for tertiary and/or pre-professional dance courses. Most obviously, the dancers were absolutely brilliant when dancing together. Great coaching of course but how stunning it was to watch the beautiful manner in which they danced as one when unison was required. Not only that, their hair and make-up were impeccable and gave them such a professional look, and one that fitted well with the characters they represented (dolls in most cases).
The second outstanding production feature was the film that so often took on the role of a background set. Created by Trent Houssenloge and Chris Curran of Cowboy Hat Films, the film component was at times a fluid, abstract image, but at other times it was a 3D creation that seemed to set the dancing in a space beyond the stage. At times the setting was an outdoor venue, at others an inside view of an artist’s studio or factory. A wonderful addition to the production.
Unhinged was inspired by the well-known ballet Coppélia but, as is the way of Bonnie Neate and Suzi Piani who direct The Training Ground, the familiar story was given a new slant. The main characters, Swanhilda (Alice Collins); Franz (Joshua Walsh); Coppélia, a doll who is brought to life (Larina Bagic); and Dr Coppélius, a doll maker (Imogen Addison); remained in the new story, which centred on the fact that Swanhilda was enraged by Franz’s attention to Coppélia. Swanhilda was, apparently, the ‘unhinged’ character. The relationships between the characters developed and changed over the course of the production and the whole ended in a somewhat surprising manner with a destructive fire, although the work continued for several minutes after that.
Unfortunately, I have to say that for me the story did not unfold as strongly as was needed for the rage of Swanhilda (usually Swanilda—no ‘h’ in the spelling of the name in the traditional ballet) to be really noticeable. Nor was it really clear who Franz was in the town in which he lived. In fact, none of the main characters held the stage, that is acted, in a way that gave any real strength to their characters, despite the unison dancing and the make-up and hair styles. So, it was just as well that the work had a powerful visual element to enjoy.
The Training Ground is an excellent initiative, especially given that there is an aim there to keep dancers in Canberra if possible rather than have them go elsewhere to pursue a career. But I wonder if it would not be more advisable to make brand new works rather than aim to give a different slant on a well-known ballet? Romeo and Juliet worked well as the 2022 production but Coppélia is a different ballet, not as widely known as R & J, not so emotionally human perhaps, and maybe therefore one that does not lend itself so well to new slants? Perhaps a dramaturg would have been a useful addition to the production?
27 July, 2023. St. James Theatre, Wellington. reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
The opening work, Serenade, to Tchaikovsky, is an abstraction of femininity, a favoured topic of Balanchine’s. It was created, in 1934, for students at the School of American Ballet that fed his company, so the memory of several productions at New Zealand School of Dance here across the decades, with the aura of fresh innocence of students at the threshold of their careers, has been special. The work has also been performed a number of times by RNZBallet since the 1970s.
My interest in watching Serenade is always to follow the dancers’ eye and facial expression, which styles the production and invites our response to it. Despite the uniformity of torso movement and port de bras required, some dancers in this cast smiled broadly and looked directly at the audience, whereas others looked into the far or the middle distance, raising the question as to what the performers are thinking about, and how Balanchine himself might originally have styled the work. The twirling pirouettes of tulle skirts always works its special poetry, but the use of token male dancers to lift a female dancer aloft in the closing scene has always seemed anachronistic. Having said that I do know that many balletomanes adore this work, even rate it as their favourite, and I respect that. All the dancers performed with aplomb, but Mayu Tanigaito found a way to invest her abstract movements with a spiritual quality that puts her in a class of her own.
(Harry Haythorne, artistic director here 1982–1993, told me that when a member of Metropolitan Ballet in UK he sustained an injury that put him out of performing for some time. He used the rest period to study Laban’s dance notation, and became fluent enough to score Balanchine’s Serenade, the first notator to do so. Although many versions of the score have since been made, Harry’s was the first, so it is poignant to visit the Dance Notation Bureau in New York and sight the initials HH at the footer of each page of his score.)
The second work, Te Ao Mārama. choreographed by Moss Te Ururangi Patterson, opened with the renowned Ariana Tikau playing pūtõrino, that most distinctive of taonga pūoro (Maori traditional instruments). I would have thought this sound would reach acoustically into every corner of the theatre, since these instruments were traditionally played in open air. I must confess that amplification of it, plus the electric guitar and amplification from Shayne Carter on the opposite side of the stage, made for challenging acoustic contrast. The dance itself explored the theme of moving from Te Kore, the darkness, as though searching for fragments of what would in time grow into haka, traditional dance, into the world of light, Te Ao Mārama. This is an interesting notion, for a choreographer to make a dance about dancing, and the final haka was certainly performed with vigour and intent by the all-male cast. I found various lighting effects, including bright white beams that swept into the audience’s eyes several times, as though to dazzle them, both unpleasant and distracting.
I did welcome the reminders of various incorporations of Maori dance influence into the repertoire of RNZB over their seven decades. Poul Gnatt in 1953 choreographed Satan’s Wedding, which a reviewer at the time (DJCM in The Auckland Star) noted reminded him of the power of haka, which was quite a thrill for Poul to hear. In 1990s Matz Skoog’s and Sue Paterson’s project that combined RNZB with Split Enz music, and Te Matārae ī Orehu on the same program, Ihi FreNZy, made very strong impression—especially when, by way of epilogue, both companies of dancers combined in a rousing haka. By the time that tour ended, Shannon Dawson, one of the strongest character dancers the Company has ever known, seemed to have changed his ethnicity. I doubt if another pākehā has ever performed haka so convincingly. My standout memory though, across all the years, is from Gray Veredon’s Tell me a Tale, set in mid 19th century, in which Warren Douglas led a haka of rage against the young colonial boy (played by Kim Broad), his father (played by Jon Trimmer) and mother (played by Kerry-Anne Gilberd). The boy had dared to fall in love with (Warren’s) sister and that provoked a taparahi never to be forgotten. We could all now haka in rage and sorrow that Warren was taken so young, and we lost a phenomenal dance talent when he lost his life.
The third work, Requiem for a Rose, is choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, to Schubert’s String Quintet in C major. There is a depth, beauty and mystery in this piece that resonates, not only as a flower of romance, but with what the rose has meant as symbol of life and love, to different peoples and cultures in history, across stories, poems and paintings—originally from Persia, China, India, South America, and then worldwide. Twelve dancers, male and female, wear rich red circular skirts that seem almost fragrant when illuminated by Jon Buswell’s outstanding lighting design. They dance a series of four duets and a quartet, all very well cast, and beautifully set to the music. The 13th dancer, Kirby Selchow, wearing the barest of leotards and no skirt, carrying a red rose in her mouth throughout, powerfully sustains the essence and mystery at the heart of this enigmatic and beautiful work.
The fourth work, Logos, choreographed by Alice Topp, is to a very effective commissioned score by Ludovico Einaudi. The opening duet, by Mayu Tanigaito and Levi Teachout—and the closing duet, by Ana Gallardo Lobaina and Matthew Slattery, are equally exquisite though in very different ways. (In later solo sections Teachout seemed to have found an astonishing quality of torso movement that evokes the likes of choreography we have seen from Douglas Wright dancers—which made him a standout in a cast of already strong dancers.) There are a number of quotations oddly laid out in the program notes, but I guess that matters not as simply following and absorbing the dance as it progresses from a dark and troubled beginning to a clearer lighter place was all the guidance we needed. Topp and Buswell collaborated brilliantly in the design for this work. Its apotheosis is a theatrical coup, and one that will stay with all who see it, even as it suggests what some might see as a disturbing harbinger for the planet. A powerful work of theatre with much to admire.
There is an exhibition in the theatre foyer to mark this as the 70th year of the Company. There are many wonderful images that remind us of a rich and varied repertoire across the decades. A National Film Unit documentary, with footage from 1959–1962 performances, is screening within the exhibition, and is a treasure. My favourite vignette in this film has always been of Jacqui Oswald Trimmer dancing in Do-Wack-a-Do, composed by the legendary Dorothea Franchi. Jacqui would have won a role in The Great Gatsby if she had used this as her audition piece. Gloria Young, Sara Neil, Anne Rowse, Patricia Rianne, Terence James, Carol Draper, Christine Smith, Valerie Whyman, Kirsten Ralov and Fredbjörn Björnsson all make striking cameo appearances in the film, and the alumnae gathering for celebrations will have great fun in following them all.
There is much to savour in the storyboards, but one statement cannot go unchallenged. Friends of the New Zealand Ballet was formed by Poul Gnatt in 1953 (not some decades later as stated). Without those subs from Friends in the 1950s, this company would simply not have made it round the country. Poul used to drive the truck with scenery and costumes from town to town to town—pick up every hitch-hiker he spied, and by the time the hikers climbed down from the truck at the end of the ride they were subscribed members of Friends of the Ballet. Poul used the money to buy petrol to drive the truck to the next town. It’s an important story—because when Poul a decade later returned to his native Denmark he taught colleagues at Royal Danish Ballet that they too should set up a Friends—which they named Ballet Appreciation Club. It has survived to this day with a staggering number of audience education and outreach activities. If they remember that Poul showed them how a Friends outfit can work, we should surely remember that too.
27 July 2023. Talbot Theatre, Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane
It would be hard to find a performance more thrilling, more emotionally driven, more technically fascinating than the sixth production from Queensland Ballet under the banner Bespoke. Made up of works from Remi Wörtmeyer, Paul Boyd and Natalie Weir, this program was rightly advertised as ‘compelling, challenging and always thought provoking’.
The evening began with Wörtmeyer’s Miroirs (Mirrors in French) danced by 10 dancers to piano music of the same name by Maurice Ravel. It was played onstage on this occasion by Daniel Le. Choreographically, Miroirs was an interesting combination of classical vocabulary and more contemporary style movement. The classical sections were nicely structured in a spatial sense with dancers creating a range of unexpected groupings. On the whole it was a relatively fast-paced work and often surprising in the strong imagery that emerged from partnering.
The more contemporary movement was often quite grounded and for me these sections didn’t work so well, or at least didn’t blend easily with the more classically-based sections. The work ended with a pas de deux danced by Mia Heathcote and Victor Estévez. It was a quiet ending compared with the speed and action of the first and much longer section and, despite excellent dancing from Heathcote and Estévez, the ending felt somewhat out of place.
Wörtmeyer was responsible for the attractive costumes and set design. His set consisted of nicely arranged strings of light and reminded me of a deconstructed chandelier. His costumes were simple, close-fitting tights and tops but were made elegant with the addition of small, silver decorative elements at the waist and elsewhere on the costumes.
Second on the program was Tartan choreographed by Paul Boyd to an assorted collection of sound, from a rendition of Donald where’s your trousers? to music from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards! The work tells the story of an elderly Scottish gentleman, played by former Queensland Ballet dancer Graeme Collins, who relives his past and imagines the people he grew up with return to his house and interact once more with him.
Tartan was choreographed in spectacular fashion to combine traditional Scottish steps with ballet and contemporary movement. I especially loved the way Boyd often combined, or intertwined, two varieties of fifth position of the arms, one strictly classical, one with fingers held in a Scottish manner. But here was much more than that, including the bends of the body in a reverence with torso stretched forward and spine parallel to the floor; pointe work for the girls on occasions; lots of pliés in second position; the fast, definitive moves of the feet close to the ankles; and so on. Then there were the surprising moments when the dancers appeared (like ghosts?) from under and inside a box-like table to the hilarious scene, led by Josh Fagan, accompanying Donald where’s your trousers?
The dancers, all from Queensland Ballet’s Jette Parker Young Artist Program, performed with huge commitment and skill. Apart from their actual technique I loved the way they projected their presence out to the audience. It was an absolute joy to watch them and, If their performance is anything to go by, the future of Queensland Ballet is assured.
Natalie Weir’s Four last songs closed the program and, for me at least, it was the highlight. I have long admired Weir’s choreography, on the one hand for the emotive qualities with which her works are always imbued—We who are left made for Queensland Ballet in 2016 (restaged 2022) instantly springs to mind—but also for the way in which she has always used partnering to display choreographic possibilities. Both those qualities were apparent to an exceptional degree in Four last songs.
Weir’s Four last songs used the composition of the same name by Richard Strauss to tell a story about life and death with a strong sense of a life that is lived to the full before, inevitably, death arrives. The work was led by Lucy Green and Patricio Revé and I admired the way Weir had set choreography in the early stages that was joyful—Green’s little skipping-like movements shorty after her first entrance for example—but which gave way to something slower as age progressed. The work concluded with strong movement that was actually beautifully uplifting as the inevitability of the end of life was accepted.
The work of Green and Revé was mirrored by four couples representing, on the surface, four seasons, but those seasons also reflected four stages of life. The dancing of the four couples showed Weir’s long standing interest in partnering and ranged from beautifully swirling lifts to slower, less extravagant but still quite spectacular ones as life progressed. As for the four men, Weir tells us in her notes that they represent ‘one man, a thread of humanity’. There was one stage when the four men held sway with a magnificent series of entrances and exits interspersed with spectacular jumps. It was extraordinary dancing from all the dancers.
I have often wondered how Weir manages to imbue her work with the emotion that we always feel when watching it. It is of course partly the dancers’ ability and the coaching they receive to act out the scenario. But it is also Weir’s choreographic ability to create movement that tells the story. Those little early skipping movements from Green, for example. Then there were those beautiful swirling lifts that told so much about life, including the lifts performed by Callum Mackie and Lina Kim who performed as Autumn or a late stage of life in which more sleep was apparent. Kim’s body was often held parallel to the ground as if her body was still sleeping while being lifted. And more. Four last songs was a stunning work from Weir.
20 July 2023. Canberra Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre
With Yuldea, Bangarra Dance Theatre’s first production under the artistic directorship of Frances Rings, the company continues to present work that examines the experiences that Australia’s First Nations people have lived through. As Rings has written in the ‘Welcome’ section of the Yuldea program, ‘Yuldea reflects the truth-telling of the Indigenous experience in Australia and reminds us that there are two stories to the making of this country.’ The ‘two stories’ angle has been an outstanding feature of Bangarra productions since its inception and has contributed to the admiration audiences have had for the company over the years.
Yuldea is in four parts, ‘Supernova’, ‘Kapi (Water)’, ‘Empire’ and ‘Ooldea Spirit’. It tells the story of the Aṉangu people of the Great Victorian Desert and the Nunga of the Far West Region of South Australia. It focuses especially on the traditional cultural activities of the people of the regions, on the effects of colonisation including the building of the Trans-Australian Railway, and on the ability of traditional culture to survive. The title of the work, Yuldea, refers to a ‘soak’ or waterhole seen as an ‘epicentre of traditional life’.
Choreographically, Yuldea presented the Bangarra style that has become familiar over the course of the company’s existence—the grounded movement, the turned up feet with legs bent sharply from the knee, tightly structured and strongly held group poses, bodies held upside down or at unusual angles in partnering moves, and so forth. But there were times in Yuldea when I was struck by the existence of moments that seemed based on ballet, both in some less grounded movement and recognisable balletic steps, and in the way the movement was structured in groupings that were less random in appearance and often performed in unison. It seemed a little like another version of the ‘two story’ angle.
Yuldea was beautifully danced by the whole company with a standout performance from Lillian Banks and Kallum Goolagong in an early duet.
Yuldea continued the collaborative style of production that has characterised Bangarra presentations for decades. Jennifer Irwin’s costumes were as stunning as ever. Her use of fabric and layering of material, and the cut of her costumes that allows the costume to move freely (as if performing its own dance) were there in spades, as was her admirable addition of decorative items, including feathers, to various parts of the costume.
In terms of set design, Elizabeth Gadsby gave us something different from what we have seen from former resident designer Jacob Nash, who has now moved on to other activities. For me, Gadsby’s set was akin to a kind of architectural minimalism. It consisted of a semi-circular arrangement of ‘ceiling’ to floor strips of material (not sure what they were actually made from) through which the dancers made entrances and exits, and a semi-circular white item that hung in the air in front of the strips of material. The semi-circular shape of both items perhaps represented the shape of a waterhole? I’m not sure. Perhaps the white structure was the serpent, the ‘Steel Snake’ of the railway? The set, especially the strips of material, might have played a functional role but for me the set as a whole lacked a certain artistic vision and the thrill that such vision gives to audiences.
Music came from Leon Rodgers, the recipient of the 2021 David Page Fellowship, and Electric Fields. Lighting was by Karen Norris and there was in-depth cultural consultation with a range of people and groups.
Like most productions from Bangarra, especially those made over the last decade or so, Yuldea is a complex work and asks us to continue to think about many aspects of Australian life. Bangarra will, I feel sure, continue to be one of Australia’s foremost dance companies as it moves ahead with Frances Rings as its artistic director.
15 July 2023 (matinee performance). Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
The Canberra season of Lucie in the Sky from the Brisbane-based Australasian Dance Collective (ADC) was performed as part of Uncharted Territory, a new Canberra festival. The festival set out to investigate connections between technology and the arts, and the limitless possibilities of such connections. As an exploration of dance and drones, or dance with drones, and featuring six dancers and five drones, Lucie in the Sky, was perfectly suited to explore this connective idea.
Perhaps the first thing to say is that I was taken by surprise by the size of the drones. They were tiny. We in Canberra have had a certain amount of publicity (not always positive) about drones, the larger kind delivering coffee to people’s yards! The drones that entertained us in Lucie in the Sky were like insects that lit up the space and moved around it, and did so in a variety of often mysterious ways. They had names and personalities and were programmed to engage with the dancers (or vice versa) in different ways. They were ‘indoor drones’.
I especially enjoyed Lilly King whose dancing with a little drone lit blue seemed filled with emotion and care for the connection.
Before the curtain went up Amy Hollingsworth, artistic director of ADC, gave a short introductory talk about the various personalities of the drones and program notes listed the drones by name—one of whom, Lucie, gave her name to the show. But to tell the truth I was never sure which of the five drones was Lucie. I was unable to be accommodated on opening night (for reasons that I found extremely frustrating) so missed what was apparently a post performance discussion with some ADC personnel, which may have made things clearer. Who knows?
From a dance point of view (human dance that is), the standout performer was Harrison Elliott whose technique, including some hugely athletic jumps, was breathtaking. A significant amount of the dancing occurred between individual dancers and individual drones but there were moments of group dancing. I would have liked more.
Lucie in the Sky was performed to a score by Wil Hughes who was also responsible for the sound design. At times the score was very loud and I wondered whether this was in order to cover up the noise of the drones? They seemed to be moving silently across the space. Costumes by Harriet Oxley had, on one level, an overall simplicity—trousers and a top, one colour for all dancers—but they were filled with individual detail that was often surprising and always quite beautiful. Lighting by Alexander Berlage was suitably atmospheric and changeable, although sometimes very dark. While Amy Hollingsworth and the dancers were responsible for the human choreography, the drone choreography was created by the Swiss company, Verity Studios.
Lucie in the Sky was a monumental undertaking and, given the potential for drones to take off on their own pathway (I imagine) despite programming, which didn’t happen (at least not obviously), the show was a highly successful exploration and a fascinating collaboration.
Stars in 3D was yet another innovative program directed by Liz Lea and, as we have come to expect from Lea, it bridged barriers in so many ways. It was performed by Lea’s recently established inclusive dance group, Chamaeleon Collective, and was part of a new Canberra arts and innovation festival, Uncharted Territory. It was made in collaboration with two academics working in the field of Astronomy, Professor Susan Scott and Dr Brad Tucker from the Australian National University, with input from the Australian Research Council’s ASTRO 3D Centre, and supported by Recovery VR and QL2 Dance.
Stars in 3D was preceded by a talk and discussion with Scott and Tucker, which gave us a background to how Lea’s work was constructed and visually presented. Her program notes tell us that it is ‘A celebration of the Universe, from chromosomes to mapping the galaxy.’
The performing space, the QL2 black box area in Gorman Arts Centre, was an immersive space with three walls being used for the projection of images of a variety of matter from space. The images, and they were quite extraordinary shots, surrounded the dancers throughout the evening and often had words of explanation superimposed on them.
The work began with a solo from Jareen Wee who had been brought up from Melbourne as a guest artist with the Collective. With her beautifully fluid technique and expressive body she was the standout dancer of the evening and her opening dance recalled a solo she performed in Lea’s 2021 work The Point.
A highlight was the duet between Lea herself and Katie Senior, a dancer living with Down Syndrome, in which Senior’s thoughts on her life and activities were discussed through dance, communication, and film. This duet also looked back, this time to a work Lea and Senior made together in 2017 called That extra ‘some. It did, however, take on a new perspective within the context of Stars in 3D and had been extended, I think, with some extra film (there was film there that I don’t remember from the 2017 performance!). Perhaps I am wrong on that point but it was a special, and different experience to see it this time.
Surrounding the Katie Senior/Liz Lea duet there was a variety of dancing from the Collective, with dancers dressed sometimes in appropriately starry, glittering costumes as they promoted and simulated the astronomical discoveries that we heard about in the pre-show lecture.
In a brief interlude towards the end of the evening, Lea explained to us how to use the VR glasses we were given at the start of the show. For those who were able to get the glasses working using links on their mobile phone, some films in 3D were available to watch. (Don’t ask!)
All in all Stars in 3D was an unusual night, full of new experiences complemented by a diverse range of dancing, and filled with incredible images of a world beyond what we know well. Dance and science—a long-standing theme for Lea since she arrived in Canberra.
On a concluding note, for some time I wondered why the name of the group was Chamaeleon Collective, with that second ‘a’ in the spelling of the word. I was used to the word chameleon, the name of a lizard family known for its range of colours and ability to change colour and brightness. So why was there an extra ‘a’ in the name of the group? Eventually I asked Google and it turns out that Chamaeleon is the name of a small constellation in the deep southern sky named after the lizard family. The lizard family is sometimes spelled with that ‘a’ in there and its scientific name has the ‘a’ as well. So things became a little clearer and, all things considered, the spelling Lea uses is especially appropriate in the context of Stars in 3D given its connection with investigations into the nature of the universe.
Digital screening, July 2023 (filmed on 6 July during the Melbourne season of Jewels)
Given my reaction, or lack of a reaction for the most part, to the live performance of Jewels I saw in Sydney, I paid my subscription to watch the work streamed during a performance in the Melbourne follow-up season. I was hoping of course to feel differently. But I was again disappointed, not by the dancing—the Australian Ballet is in great form—but by the gushing praise and exaggerated enthusiasm for what seems to me to be a work that is showing its age in so many instances. I continue to think, as I did on my previous viewing in Sydney, that the way Balanchine groups the corps de ballet, at least in Jewels, has had its day. We have moved on in terms of grouping dancers on stage in the way that Balanchine admired, which is often somewhat statically or in an obvious geometric and stage-centred fashion.
But also I think that Jewels presents stereotypical views of French, American and Russian dance and society. Again we have moved on and there is more to France and its culture than perfume, haute couture, romance and other such items mentioned in discussions of ‘Emeralds’ for example. Then, I don’t really like dance being used to tell me that Americans are sassy, brash and cocky when not everyone is like that. It all reminds me a bit of the much-discussed way other cultures were used in some still-performed 19th century ballets. There is nothing of the racist or other unpleasant aspects of stereotyping in the case of Jewels, but we have just moved on. ‘Diamonds’ is more interesting in many respects because no one seems to relate it to characteristics of the Russian people and their culture but to how ballet developed in Russia. So there seems to be a difference in how we are meant to see the three sections, which adds to my problems with the work.
Quite honestly, I wish that various outlets would desist from raving on about Jewels rather than seeing it as a moment in a wider Balanchine repertoire. Some of the choreography is startling and more than interesting to see, but do we really need to call it a masterpiece? In my opinion, it is better seen as an historic work from the 1960s.
Despite the above, I did admire some particular dancers whom I didn’t see in Sydney. In ‘Rubies’ Isobelle Dashwood as the solo dancer was stunning. What a great dancer’s body she has—slender, tall and long-limbed, she is actually a perfect Balanchine dancer. What was so impressive though was the charisma she exuded at every moment. And she didn’t overplay the sassy bit but rather just danced the choreography and presented it beautifully to the audience. Someone to watch for sure.
Also in ‘Rubies’ I enjoyed the work of Brett Chynoweth as the leading male dancer, joining Ako Kondo in the pas de deux sections. Chynoweth threw himself into the choreography with gusto. Every gesture, every step was exciting to watch in its attention to shape and detail.
It was a pleasure too to see Sharni Spencer and Callum Linnane as the leading dancers in ‘Emeralds’. I admired their dancing in Sydney as the leading dancers in ‘Diamonds’ and the same beautiful connection between them was on show in ‘Emeralds’. Perhaps especially noticeable in ‘Emeralds’ was the detail, so in tune with the music, that they brought to every single movement. A terrific partnership again.
Another highlight was Duncan Salton’s rendition of the piano sections of the music to which ‘Rubies’ was danced, Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra. Exciting listening.
Darpana is a retrospective program of excerpts from the past three decades of seasons choreographed by Vivek Kinra for his company, Mudra. It’s a garden of earthly delights with celestial resonance, story-telling laced with joyous cavorting. There are sudden flashes of fury whenever forces of evil are encountered. Furious stamping, piercing glares and dismissive gestures will rid us of them. Only the good survive, only the safe are free.
This vividly expressive form of Indian dance, Bharata Natyam, runs the gamut of human emotions and motives, portraying figures from the parallel realm of deities whose examples are to be followed. It’s an art form in which singing, instrumental music (mridangam drum, violin, flute) and visual rhythm (dance)—in dramatic, poetic, and abstract patterned aspects—all find equal share in the performers’ finely-tuned detail and precise geometry of the body. And then there’s the dress-ups, further feast for the eyes, with carefully gradated lighting effects from full colour to serene silhouettes, from dawn to day to dusk.
After weeks of balmy mid-winter weather, the afternoon suddenly drops 10o, feels like zero, and icy rain drenches us on the way to the theatre. Never mind, Lower Hutt is closer than India so it’s a small price to pay for the transport of joy awaiting us. Every season of Mudra since the mid 90s has revived memories of my visit to India for dance studies in the previous decade. O India, the country with the world’s richest of dance traditions. Time flies, time stands still, to be here is to be there.
Mudra’s troupe of eight senior performers are all in full flower—joined by 15 junior dancers in bud—(one of them already on the way to stardom, but steady on, no sensible dance teacher wants a prodigy, a meteor that falls and burns out, better a star to last forever. I’ve had my eye on this youngster for 7 or so years now, and she is doing exactly as her teacher and I predicted she would).
Kinra was trained at Kalakshetra, the epicentre of Bharata Natyam teaching, near Chennai. The founder of the school, Rukmini Devi, envisaged a centre of arts and related crafts to thrive alongside community education initiatives. As a theosophist Devi visited New Zealand to connect with the Theosophical Society here, and also devoted time to animal rights’ causes. As a young dancer she had met Anna Pavlova who was touring with her company to India in 1922. Pavlova encouraged Devi in a revitalisation of Bharata Natyam away from the temple, towards the theatre. Her contemporary, Balasaraswati, was the legendary dancer who toured the world’s capitals and showed what heights a solo performer could reach, even towards the age of 70. They say Martha Graham sat in the audience and wept, and she was not alone. (If you don’t believe me, watch Bala, the film about her made by Satyajit Ray. It’s on Youtube). A century later, many cities of the world offer training in Bharata Natyam India’s gift to the world—which takes on intriguing differences depending on each locale.
Kinra’s students are drawn from all the states of India, whether born there and migrated here, or born here. Others are of Sri Lankan or Malaysian Tamil, or maybe Fiji-Indian descent. But wait, there’s a Pakeha of Anglo/Irish line among them—though you only know that from the program note, her dancing is up there with the best of the rest.
Read the BBC news item from a few days ago, a lengthy and fascinating report of the ancient and mysterious folk ritual, Theyyam practised in Kerala—where members of Dalit, the lowest caste, perform in an ancient dance-drama. High caste members are required to attend and revere them. Think about that.
Here with Mudra we watch the daughters of Brahmin neurosurgeons or scientists (so long as under-resourcing of health or academic budgets has not closed down their work places) or of the local corner dairy (so long as ram raiders or armed invaders have not knifed them to death). Many of these dancers hold professional careers in law, education, science, technology, commerce—yet their radiant performances would have you believe they are full-time professional artists.
Each of the nine works is choreographed from the subtle tension between tradition and individual dancers’ personalities, all of whom deserve praise. One dancer leaps high and sideways, lands in ‘first position’ on the half foot, slowly continues down to a deep full plie, leans sideways then slips onto her knee and hip while sliding over the floor, then she comes back into the vertical and slowly returns to standing, all the while smiling. (Don’t try this at home. Well, the smile maybe, but for the rest you’ll need to be in training for years).
Varshini Suresh makes a stunning position flow to the next with great grace and it’s hard to take your eyes off that as she invests her dancing with expressive joy. Banu Siva has a wonderful poetic and rhythmic clarity in every aspect of her movement. Shrinidhi Bharadwaj is the dramatic force who propels the power of story-telling to great effect. The treasured Zeenat Vintiner is most welcome back as she rejoins Mudra after several years break. Her personal life reads like something from the Mahabharata, and echoes the story of the Polish refugee children who were given haven in New Zealand 80 years ago. Her own experience is a triumph for her, her family and her teacher.
My grandchildren were agog at the stamina demanded of these performers—loved the contrasting qualities between them—and were greatly taken with the calm way the dancers managed the tiniest little ‘things’ that happened: a tiny bell from an anklet falls off onto the stage—we can see it glinting and hope that the other dancers can too because you would not want to leap and land on that piece of metal. One dancer’s long black braid plaited with flowers comes loose from the belt which holds it in place as she twirls at speed. With great aplomb she continues dancing but ensures by various miniature twists that it not fly out and hit her fellow dancer in the face. (This is like a pilot realising that one engine is malfunctioning. Nought to do but keep calm, switch it off and use the other engine to make a faultless landing). Another dancer leaps high into a very narrow space between two others and knows her foot might catch in the swathe of silk that she’s wearing—so mid-air she leaps even higher and ever so slightly changes course. Stunning. My grandkids say ‘We love watching how these little things are managed—it makes the dancers seem more human and a little bit like all of us.’
They are equally pleased by the refreshments at intermission — the best samosa and ladoo in town—and a program note that the catering is by Awhina, the impressive New Zealand enterprise that fundraises to help women widowed by war in Sri Lanka, in a range of small scale development projects. I thank the young woman for my spicy masala tea, tell her how well the performance is going and hope she gets to glimpse some of it herself. ‘Oh I was dancing in last night’s cast—I’m just helping out front tonight.’ she smiles.
Poul Gnatt founded our New Zealand Ballet on ingenuity like that, 70 years ago. He’d have loved this performance as much as I did.
22 June 2023. Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane
Queensland Ballet’s latest triple bill, Trilogy, is quite simply an extraordinary collection of dance works. It consists of Jack Lister’s A Brief Nostalgia, a co-production with Birmingham Royal Ballet, first staged in Birmingham in 2019; Christopher Bruce’s Rooster danced to songs by the Rolling Stones and first staged in 1991 in Geneva; and the world premiere of Cathy Marston’s My Brilliant Career, a ballet based on Miles Franklin’s novel of the same name.
If we take what is in the printed program as a starting point, Lister’s A Brief Nostalgia was inspired by a short poem that begins with the line ‘Even the most fleeting moments can cast great shadows’ and for much of the work we watched what was unfolding onstage through dark-ish lighting by Alexander Berlage. Often the movement was reflected as shadows cast on white screens.
Occasionally there were ‘fleeting moments’ when we saw more than shadows. Groups of relatively brightly-lit dancers performed in various combinations, sometimes small, sometimes large when the full cast of twelve danced together. Lister’s demanding choreography focused often on swinging, swirling arms and extraordinary lifts performed to a quite strident and percussive score by Tom Harrold.
The pattern was broken at one stage by a duet, danced at the performance I saw by Georgia Swan and D’Arcy Brazier dressed in black rather than the grey outfits worn by others. It seemed to have a love interest embedded in it and was danced smoothly and gently in a haze of smoke.
But in general, there was huge physical energy on display. It was fast-moving and often actions happened and then disappeared before our eyes. Those ‘fleeting moments’ were truly on display.
A Brief Nostalgia was followed by Christopher Bruce’s Rooster. It is a work for ten dancers, five male and five female, and is performed to eight songs from the Rolling Stones. It looks back to the nature of male/female relationships of the 1960s. The men strut around often doing a ‘rooster strut’ especially in the opening section danced to ‘Little Red Rooster’. They preen and show off a feeling of self-importance. The women accept, for better or worse, the way they are treated. But as Bruce himself has said, ‘There is a kind of sexual war going on.’
Dance-wise the movement is a brilliant collection of ideas from across the board. While most obviously it is the rock/jive style popular in the era of the Rolling Stones but there are references to ballroom, and older court dances, as well as contemporary style choreography using the floor for rolling and spinning movements. Red and black predominate in the varied style of the costumes by Marian Bruce and are reflective of the era. For the women the costuming includes feather boas, scarves and mini skirted dresses. For some in the audience it is pure nostalgia. For most it is just huge fun to watch. And stylishly danced by the cast.
My favourite part of Rooster was the section danced to ’Ruby Tuesday’, which began with a solo for a female dancer but which developed further when four male dancers interacted with her. I saw Sophie Zoricic as the soloist and her performance was sublime. She filled the space with expressive and lyrical movement, and I loved the moments when she was tossed in the air by the four men and executed (no doubt with the assistance of the men) a tour en l’air in a horizontal position as she rose up into the space above them. Shades of Sancho Panza in Don Quixote (except better!) Then, when she was partnered by Kohei Iwamoto, the dancing became extraordinarily thrilling. Two terrific artists there.
It has been a while since I read Miles Franklin’s novel My Brilliant Career so I wondered how, or if I would be able to follow Cathy Marston’s version of what is a complex story. Marston’s work closed the evening and, as it turned out, I think she did a brilliant job, although it was good to have read the synopsis in the program as a lead-in. Every character was very clearly drawn choreographically. The movements chosen to elucidate the nature of the characters were often small, individualistic movements of the feet or the hands, or we understood the nature of the character by the way they sat or walked. But it worked brilliantly and was a remarkable achievement from Marston.
Then there was Marston’s development of the leading character of Sybylla by splitting the role between two dancers, one called Syb, the other Bylla. On the surface it sounded like an odd thing to do but again it was remarkable work from Marston and was executed with remarkable performances from the dancers. I saw Lucy Green as Syb and Sophie Zoricic as Bylla. At times I couldn’t take my eyes off Green, at others it was Zoricic I looked at, so the two sides of the young woman, one searching for a world without borders, one that was seeking something else, were clearly developed.
There is much more to say about this work. The different men with whom Sybylla came into contact, her grandmother (strongly performed when I saw the show by Georgia Swan) whose house and culture she moved into for a temporary time, the children in her family, the circumstances that led to her final realisation of what path her life should take, the set design that so easily could be moved to offer new locations. But as a final comment, a huge highlight came with the commissioned score from Matthew Hindson. It was so closely entwined with the choreography that at times I wondered whether I was listening to the choreography and seeing the music. Amazing work from Hindson who managed to describe the characters in his music as Marston did with her choreography.
I need to see My Brilliant Career again and to have the occasion to write in more detail. I hope it has further seasons.
Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the evening was the wonderfully diverse approaches to choreography we saw. Ballet doesn’t have to be a bunch of arabesques and pirouettes (although of course they have their place). All in all, another exceptional triple bill program from Li Cunxin and Queensland Ballet. May it continue.
3 June 2023. Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
Marc Taddei, music director of Orchestra Wellington (OW), has made the band a major fixture of Wellington’s music scene. A heartily large number of subscribers means there is always a capacity audience in place and the Michael Fowler Centre is no small venue.
Typically, Taddei chooses a theme to connect the different works on any given programme. A recent one, Elemental Forces, featured the mighty Scythian Suite by Prokofiev. It was a staggering experience to hear the enlarged orchestra play the work. I was quite shocked to learn from the program note that Diaghilev had commissioned the score from Prokofiev just the year following Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, but then declined it even before the composition was finished. (No wonder Prokofiev was sometimes seen leaving Diaghilev’s office in tears). It was 1915, orchestral players were in short supply, mostly being away in the trenches, so the work was never performed and I’m not aware of any subsequent choreography being set to the music. (Diaghilev must have been out of his mind. The final movement of the suite summons a mighty sunrise—probably the most extraordinary sight any human has ever witnessed, even if we do tend to take it for granted, as in ‘the sun will rise again tomorrow’. The dancers would only have needed to start in a crouched position in the dark and to unfold to a standing position into the light, with the slowest motion humanly imaginable. Perhaps Sankai Juku could have managed that? or Cloudgate?
OW’s most recent programme, Myth & Ritual, opened with Richard Strauss’ Salome: Dance of the seven veils. Nobody danced to it—nobody needed to, the music said it all. Then a powerful work for orchestra and saxophone, Zahara, by John Psathas. The soloist, Valentine Michaud, wore a dress (creation might be a better word) that Léon Bakst would have been proud to design.
Then followed Bela Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin in which the orchestra joined forces with Orpheus Choir and with Ballet Collective Aotearoa (BCA). The Michael Fowler Centre may be a large venue but by the time an enlarged orchestra and sizeable choir are in place, there’s not a lot of room left for dancing. It was impressively resourceful then for BCA’s Turid Revfeim, artistic director, and Tabitha Dombroski, choreographic director, to place the cast of six dancers in the high choir stalls, a wide but extremely narrow space, for their playing out of the myth and ritual of this extraordinary work.
Bartok knew what he was doing, even if not everyone has seen what he could see. Note the date of composition, 1918. Whether overt or not, World War One has to be in the subtext of anything produced in Europe at that time. Despite that provenance, the work was received as a scandal and banned on moral grounds but that has not prevented its longevity as a score, even if these 105 years later it can still challenge audiences.
Four street rogues compel a woman to act as seductive target to wealthy passers-by who will then be robbed and beaten to death. One such character emerges, the Miraculous Mandarin, who dies several times, but returns to life. That role was compellingly played by Björn Aslund who faced the orchestra in defiance of the inevitable. The harlot, Mimi, was played with aplomb by Alina Kulikova, and the rough rogues—Alisha Wathen, Zoe White, Callum Phipps and James Burchell—were extraordinarily agile in their clambering through rails and seats. No need to design a set for this—it was there in the architecture of the place.
The dancers are named here because, inexplicably, they were not acknowledged in the printed program on the night— but the imagery they created will linger long in the memory.
Other than that omission, this was a remarkable night at the orchestra that became a night at the theatre. A graphic exhibition in the foyer of the life and work of Bela Bartok, supplied by the Hungarian Embassy, was an added and much appreciated feature.
There is further resonance for those who follow ballet history here that Poul Gnatt, founder of New Zealand Ballet, choreographed Miraculous Mandarin for the national ballet company in the Philippines that he helped to found in 1970s. And in mid 90s, the then artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Ashley Killar, choreographed Dark Waves to Bartok’s Music for strings, celeste and percussion. He based the ballet on a short story by Vladimir Nabokov, and gave to Jon Trimmer one of his finest roles. The work was toured to America (where it impressed the New York critics) though was never performed publicly in New Zealand. (I’d got lucky and seen a studio rehearsal before the company went on tour. They returned to find various arts agencies were trying to close the company down. Triumph to those who said No to that).
There are still a number of dancers from the original cast easily to be located, who would willingly coach a new cast. Killar is still active in the ballet world and lives in Sydney, so there’s not a lot to stop the work being staged again. It’s redolent with New Zealand provenance.
