Dance diary. March 2024
…et’s performances, which began in February 2024 at Sadler’s Wells. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plf_RcGfquE The Australian Ballet’s production of Inger’s Carmen plays in Sydney 10–24 April. On dramaturgy I recently received a private comment on my review for Canberra City News of Catapult’s show Awkward. The comment included the suggestion that the show might have been stronger had a dramaturg been employed to develop a more focused approach. W…
Meryl Tankard’s Wild Swans
…o voice, which has had an ongoing life. A concert suite from Wild Swans is commercially available on compact disc and extracts from it, especially ‘Eliza’s Aria’, receive regular airplay. ‘Eliza’s Aria’ was also used in the United Kingdom in a series of six television and cinema advertisements in 2007 for the financial institution Lloyds TSB thus bringing the musical composition to a much wider (and enthusiastic) audience. The ballet itself, with…
Ausdance National. Where to now?
…d some material is available on Trove, although the entries are no longer being updated, nothing new is being added, and errors are not being corrected. But this incredible project, which began as a result of an Ausdance initiative to save dance on film, has resulted in the existence of a major national dance collection at the NLA, albeit scattered across formats with no overarching portal to draw it together and identify the material as a discret…
Swan Lake. Two alternative views
…le phones. And how impressive is the post production! Watch below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8PLkd2VAnc ************************ A Swan Lake is available (with subscription) on Marquee TV. Swan Lake Bath Ballet is part of the Sydney Opera House’s UK/AU Digital Stream and was created as part of BBC Arts Culture in Quarantine. Michelle Potter, 31 January 2022 Featured image: Swan Boats from Act II, A Swan Lake. Photo: Erik Berg All photos fro…
International Dance Day?
…as re-named What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? I sincerely hope MJ finds funding to complete the full-length theatre version, as this is a striking and spiky wonderful contemporary re-choreographing of a classic work that departs from, yet pays respect to, the original. Day Six—Thursday 4 May I teach a Baroque dance lesson to a new and fired student who keeps us going at an impressive pace, and doesn’t mind appreciators watching our work. Robert…
Daniel Riley. Australian Dance Theatre’s incoming artistic director
…great vision for the company. ADT has a long tradition as a revolutionary company pushing boundaries and presenting innovative and exciting works. Daniel plans to champion diversity and develop the company’s cross- and inter-cultural potentials. From the very beginning we set out to be a company exploring our Australian identity, our Australian artistic expression and cultural diversity, so I feel this is a strong continuation of the original aim…
Wrong Skin. Chooky Dancers. Spring Dance 2010 (3)
…tween people of opposite moieties—the Yirridja and Dhuwa moieties—is forbidden as being between people of the ‘wrong skin’. And the inevitable has happened. Two young lovers find themselves in the category of ‘wrong skin’. After this initial explanation to English-only speakers, there is no more translation and it is a credit to the strength of the show and its direction that we don’t need further translations. The storyline is perfectly easy to f…
Dance diary. August 2020
…en that I was at the Pillow in 2007!) the history behind the name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I1bLELmSeo The YouTube link above shows Norton Owen, Director of Preservation at the Pillow, explaining the origins of the name. Freeman. A new documentary to watch The ABC has produced a documentary to mark the 20th anniversary of Cathy Freeman’s historic win in the 400m sprint at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. The film is co-directed by Stephen Page an…
Dance diary. August 2011
…her designs for Stephen Page’s production of Bloodland for Sydney Theatre Company, and in 2012 her commissions include two new works for the Australian Ballet. Land, sea and sky: contemporary art of the Torres Strait Islands While in Brisbane for the Queensland Ballet Gala, I took the opportunity to visit an exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art called Land, sea and sky: contemporary art of the Torres Strait Islands. The exhibition included a v…
Bold Moves. Royal New Zealand Ballet
…s by RNZB, also an extreme work, though the aesthetic there draws on its thunderbolt percussive accompaniment. Excitement always won the day when our former company dancers performed that work (most memorably Abigail Boyle, Kohei Iwamotu, Laura Saxon Jones, Jacob Chown) who made it strikingly their own. Artifact though is a cocktail of different ingredients. For years our company has had an equal weighting of female and male dancers, without a st…