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
I didn’t see Graeme Murphy’s 2017 work, The Frock, as a live production. It was fashioned by Murphy and his creative associate Janet Vernon on the Tasmanian group of ‘senior’ dancers, Mature Artists Dance Experience (MADE), a company I have never had the luck to see live either. But some research I have been doing recently aroused my interest and
By Jennifer Shennan Anne Rowse is a well-known and much-loved figure in the New Zealand dance scene. Her 90th birthday was recently celebrated in style at several events in her home town of Wellington, and at a family gathering at Queenstown in the following days. London called in long-distance, as did many colleagues and former students from a global spread
Below, attached as a PDF file, is a list of oral history recordings with artists working in dance related fields, as held in the National Library of Australia (NLA) and the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA). Interviews conducted by the National Library are in audio format while many of the National Film and Sound Archive projects are film/video recordings,
Houston Ballet has, as a result of concerns and protests from various groups, removed its production of La Bayadère from its current season. The ballet looks back to the nineteenth century when ‘orientalism’ or interest in ‘exotic lands’ beyond Europe was a much-used theme in ballets and other theatrical productions. Recent media reports from Houston have suggested that the ballet
And we danced, a three part documentary from the ABC produced by WildBear Entertainment, looks at the first six decades of the Australian Ballet. The series makes use of archival footage held by the Australian Ballet, and that footage is complemented by photographs and interviews with former and current company staff and dancers, and with commentary from Ita Buttrose, current
A film by Dina Burlis and Sergey Gavrilov. Release date (digital format): 19 July 2021 by 101 Films (London).(Available on various digital platforms soon. See this link) Canberra dance audiences may well remember Joy Womack, who performed briefly in Canberra in 2018 for Bravissimo Productions. That one-off program featured dancers from across the globe—Womack was one of them. She was
2 – 4 July 2021, Little Theatre, Lower Huttreviewed by Jennifer Shennan For over 30 years Shri Vivek Kinra has been teaching Bharata Natyam in Wellington, at Mudra Dance Academy. There have been hundreds of pupils over the decades, many reaching advanced level and performing the arangetram, two-hour solo recital, that marks their professional debut. Others have arrived more recently in