The Nutcracker. The Australian Ballet (2019)
…ee). Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House This staging of Sir Peter Wright’s Nutcracker was a beautiful and magical end to the Australian Ballet’s 2019 season. I have written before about Sir Peter’s take on this much-loved Christmas ballet, in both its onstage and film productions, and the features I enjoyed on those other occasions—such as its moments of stage magic, and the inherent logic within the narrative structure—were apparent agai…
SHELTER. Reneff-Olson Productions
…jamin Ella, currently a soloist with the Royal Ballet in London, and Jared Wright, at present a soloist with Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam. Royal New Zealand Ballet principal, Nadia Yanowksy, seen in the image above, is also featured in SHELTER. The project grew from an earlier work called Hey Mami co-choreographed and performed by Rowe and Scribner in 2015. But the idea grew to include 26 dancers and, as Alexander Reneff-Olson explains: Dani…
Dimity Azoury & Benedicte Bemet. The Australian Ballet
…ptional technical capacity. She also made an impression on me in Sir Peter Wright’s Nutcracker and appears as Clara in the DVD production of that ballet. Benedicte Bemet and artists of the Australian Ballet in The Nutcracker. The Australian Ballet, 2014. Photo: © Jeff Busby Bemet was also the winner of the Telstra Ballet Dancer Award, which she received in 2015. For further comments from this website see the tag Benedicte Bemet. Congratulations to…
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Australian Ballet
…ther guises when Alice went down the rabbit hole. And the work of Nicholas Wright, who wrote the scenario and added a love interest to the story—between Alice and Jack (in later acts the Knave of Hearts)—seemed to be setting us up for an interesting evening of ballet. But after Alice disappeared down the rabbit hole the prospect of an evening of ballet disappeared with her. The most obvious feature of the work was not the dancing but the visual de…
Dance diary. October 2019
…below are from the Association’s website. Norton Owen, 2016. Photo: © Bill Wright Norton Owen is a curator, writer, and archivist with more than 45 years of professional experience in dance. He has been associated with Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival since 1976 and has been Director of Preservation since 1990, overseeing the PillowTalks series as well as all activities involving documentation, exhibitions, audience engagement, and archival access. H…
Revisor. Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young
…developed from Revizor, aka The Inspector General, the work of Russian playwright Gogol, which premiered in St. Petersburg in 1836. The story goes that the five-act play was performed before the Czar who laughed and applauded throughout, not realising the play was satirical farce, ‘a comedy in disguise’. The Czar claimed to have ‘got it’, though one might add ‘in the neck’—it’s just that it took decades of Russian history for that to (continue to…
Crying Men. Black Grace
…en, a powerful element of theatre was introduced through the script of playwright Victor Roger, centering on the desperation and sorrow of a man unable to break free from the physical violence that has marked his life as husband, father and grandfather. A major work in four scenes, its recorded narration by Nathaniel Lees was poignant but would be wonderful to include as a live component of the work. Black Grace, Crying Men. Artistic Direction, Ne…
Hatupatu Kurungaituku—A Forbidden Love. Taki Rua Productions
…heatre company that presented this work. (Former director of Taki Rua, playwright Hone Kouka says of the name, ‘Taki Rua is a weaving pattern and means to go in twos—signifying the bi-cultural aspect of the theatre.’) This is an assembled tribe of Aotearoa New Zealand’s premier theatre artists all at their stunning best. Eds Eramiha as Hatupatu, a magnetic presence, is a natural performer across several genres without a cliché anywhere. Kasina Cam…
Icons. A second look
…aphy was given great treatment by Leanne Stojmenov, Juliet Burnett, Andrew Wright and Kevin Jackson. While I was attracted by the opening night cast in Melbourne by their cool, technical reading of the work, not to mention their spectacular energy, the cast I saw in Sydney brought a whole new element to it. Not to say that there was not also a strength of technique with this cast—there was—it was beautifully danced by all four. A duet between Stoj…
Nutcracker: The Story of Clara. The Australian Ballet (2017)
…eading roles of Clara the Ballerina and the Beloved Officer, as did Andrew Wright as the Nutcracker Prince. Azoury has all the technique ready and waiting but just needs a little more feeling of freedom to make those curving, swirling lifts of the various pas de deux look as spectacular as they are. A little more time? Oh, and thank you to the new (to me) ‘older dancers’, friends of Clara the Elder. Graeme Hudson brought a certain gravitas and was…