San Francisco Dance Film Festival In September I had the pleasure of acting as moderator for an online discussion of Firestarter. The story of Bangarra. Firestarter will be shown at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival in October. Details at this link. Guests for the session were Frances Rings, associate artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, and the co-directors of
Queensland Ballet has today announced that artistic director Li Cunxin has renewed his contract for a further three years from 2022. This is excellent news as Li’s directorship has been one of the great success stories of dance in Australia. Queensland Ballet is now an exceptional company with an exciting repertoire and, in addition, the company has expanded its reach
Coralie Hinkley, who has died in Sydney in her 99th year, was born in the inner-Sydney suburb of Glebe to Vera and John Hinkley. She was a fifth generation Australian and was educated at Maroubra Junction Primary School, then at a boarding school in Springwood in the Blue Mountains, and finally at SCEGGS (Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School).
The latest round of the Australian Government’s RISE (Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand) funding project has revealed two interesting initiatives: FORM Dance Projects, located in Western Sydney, has received $278,000 to assist with their 2022 commissioning activities. Part of their funding allocation will go to commissioning Meryl Tankard and composer Elena Kats Chernin to create a new work for
I have long been a fan of Lana Jones, former principal dancer with the Australian Ballet. In addition to her many extraordinary performances in a range of ballets, I remember way back in 2005 being on the selection panel for the Telstra Dancer Award, which she deservedly won that year. More recently, I recall being deeply moved as she acknowledged
by Jennifer Shennan I am always willing to get down on my hands and knees in Wellington’s Unity Bookshop to search for whatever few titles might be on their Dance shelf, down at floor level below the Music shelves, in case something new has arrived since my last genuflection. That’s the way I discovered Mark Morris’ memoir, Out Loud, last
Bangarra Dance Theatre Towards the end of August Bangarra presented its latest show, Sandsong, in Brisbane. In order to do this, the company needed to go into a 14 day period of quarantine before being permitted to enter Queensland. As the featured image indicates the committed dancers of the company did just that in the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility. I
Online screening, 27 August-6 September 2021 I was booked to cross the Tasman to see Royal New Zealand Ballet’s recent double bill program, The Firebird and Paquita, but the pandemic got in the way yet again. So I was pleased that a stream of Firebird was available, filmed in Wellington on its opening night there on 28 July 2021. This
What do dancers/choreographers do in quarantine/lockdown? If they’re Liz Lea they make short videos, in this case for Science Week 2021. Cockatoo calling is made for children so if you have your family at home, with the children doing home schooling, you might be interested in Lea’s introduction to the habits of the sulphur crested cockatoo. But even for grown
by Jennifer Shennan Josephine Baker, singer and dancer, heroine of wartime French Resistance, later a civil rights and peace activist, will be re-interred at the Panthéon monument in Paris, making the entertainer the first black woman to receive the country’s highest honour. American-born but by choice a Parisian, Baker, who died in 1975, was buried in Monaco, dressed in a