Dance diary. October 2020
…husband Gower Champion in the final scene from Lovely to Look At. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GMNvFo7kgQ&feature=emb_title Here is a link to an obituary published in The Guardian. Kristian Fredrikson. Designer. More reviews and comments Unity Books in Wellington hosted a lunchtime forum in its bookstore on 15 October. The forum was chaired by Jennifer Shennan and featured former Royal New Zealand Ballet dancers Kerry-Anne Gilberd, Anne Rowse…
Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes. Victoria & Albert Museum
…people, all of whom had their favourite items as I did I am sure. And therein lies the rub. Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes is a hugely ambitious show, perhaps overly ambitious. I couldn’t see the point of some items on display. Was there really any need to display a perfume bottle that once held the Guerlain perfume thought to be the favourite scent of Diaghilev? And there was the usual selection of devotional items—Diaghilev’…
Jean Stewart (1921–2017)
…p row) Walter Gore in The Fugitive, Ballet Rambert, c. 1948; Martin Rubinstein in Le beau Danube, Borovansky Ballet, c. 1946; Eric Brown in The Sentimental Bloke, Ballet Guild, 1952. (middle row) Edouard Borovansky in Le Carnaval, Borovansky Ballet, c. 1944; Janet Karin and Ray Trickett in Voyageur, Ballet Guild, 1957; Gailene Stock and Gary Norman, Melbourne, 2012. (bottom row) Peggy Sager and Martin Rubinstein in Terra Australis, Borovansky Ball…
New Breed (2016). Sydney Dance Company
…Sydney Dance Company are all exceptional performers and deserve to be identified. I can guess but I’d rather be sure by having the company do the work of identification….
Impermanence. Sydney Dance Company
…. But the pandemic struck and the program was cancelled. Impermanence was being created to a score co-commissioned by Sydney Dance Company and the Australian String Quartet from Bryce Dessner, an American composer based in Paris. The work was initially inspired by the fire that almost destroyed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, and by the Australian bush fires that began in late 2019. After the program was cancelled Bonachela and Dessner deci…
Communicate. Quantum Leap
…stage managers, and others who are professionals in their field. But with Communicate the company surpassed itself with a high standard of dancing along with the excellent input we have come to expect from the various collaborators. Occasionally I forgot entirely that the dancers were still developing the skills they need to move into a professional company. The program, which examined various aspects of how we communicate and interact with each…
On the trail of Ruth St Denis. Liz Lea
…is and Anna Pavlova, and the documentary, entitled On the trail of Ruth St Denis, follows the journey of St Denis across India. The crew visited the locations in which St Denis performed including the cities of Amritsar, Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Varanasi, Kolkuta and Mumbai. Lea acts as the on-screen presenter for the documentary and also performs some of the ‘Oriental’ dances that made St Denis famous in her day. The film is currently being cut in…
Dance diary. September 2011
…to admit, back in 1990. The Meryl Tankard Company was then Canberra’s resident dance company and Tankard staged Court of Flora outdoors against the backdrop of Commonwealth Gardens. Inspired by the engravings in J. J. Grandville’s book, Les Fleurs animées first published in 1847, Court of Flora was given eleven performances in October 1990. Its spectacular costumes, designed by Sydney-based couturier Anthony Phillips, drew sighs of delight from a…
Dance diary. March 2013
…sky’s Rite of Spring. This week I completed the first part. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02tkp6eeh40 Pacific Northwest Ballet In my review of Pacific Northwest Ballet’s recent program I mentioned that the show I saw was only the second time I had seen the company in performance. Well that is not quite true. I had the good fortune to see the company in 2007 in Seattle when the program consisted of George Balanchine’s La Sonambula, Christo…
New Zealand School of Dance 50th anniversary celebration—with Royal New Zealand Ballet
…e brought to a stunning re-staging with a cast of 23 contemporary dance students. The music composed by Andrew Foster, begins full of life-affirming rhythms that evoke the best Renaissance dance music, then moves to percussive richness that support this mysterious procession—Sarah’s best work to date in my opinion. It is a stunning achievement to use parts of the dancers’ bodies, beautifully lit, as nano units of life force, and then thread these…