Tanaquil LeClercq
…and made by Nancy Buirski, it has just been released commercially. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdEaicb-pag&feature=youtu.be The trailer gives a tiny glimpse of what we might expect on this documentary, which is about 1½ hours long. There is some footage of LeClercq, partnered by Jacques D’Amboise in the Robbins Afternoon of a Faun, which indicates what an extraordinary interpretation these two gave to the role. But there is much else to admire…
Darkness is hiding black horses, Glacial decoy, Doux mensonges. Paris Opera Ballet
…articular need to be seen rather than described. C’est la vie I guess. The image above of Glacial decoy is of the Trisha Brown Dance Company and comes from their media site….
The diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky. Paul Cox’s ‘cinematic poem’.
…to it as a ‘cinematic poem’: it is certainly far from a documentary in the commonly understood meaning of the term. Nijinsky began writing down his thoughts as a kind of diary on the morning of his last public performance, which he gave at the Suvretta Hotel in St Moritz on 19 January 1919. He wrote his last entry on 4 March that same year, the day he was to go to Zurich to see the psychiatrist, Eugen Bleuler, who would decide that he was sufferin…
Not a dance as such …
…ite miniature calligraphy, jewel-like in silver and gold on a black background. The music tenor, the guidelines to the composition and the initials of the names of the steps are all notated. Musicians today can play from these notes ( they are breves on a stave, without bar lines ), dancers can learn the style and memorise the steps—thus an eight hundred year old dance can be breathed back into life. I always say to students that doing a basse dan…
The Royal Danish Ballet. Jacob’s Pillow Virtual Festival 2020
…of the Bournonville technique. Not that those particular features, and the complexity of the combinations of steps, was unclear, but other aspects of the technique became more apparent (at least to me). I was moved especially by the use of the upper body, the epaulement and the incline of the head; by the simplicity of some of the steps that provided a contrast to the more complex ones; and by the use of academic positions of the arms—constant use…
Mā. Choreography by Kelly Nash. Atamira Dance Company
…outh. If she stays asleep all the while Maui will have conquered Death. He commences the journey but as it happens, two noisy twittering fantails are so amused by the sight of Maui entering her vagina dentata that they fall about laughing and twittering, and wake her up. Thus we all may live, but all must die. How could a choreographer resist? (l–r) Hannah Tasker-Poland as Hine-nui-te-po, transitioning into contemporary Everywoman; Sean Macdonald…
The Dancer. A biography for Philippa Cullen
…her concerns about pregnancies. She had many lovers and a long affair with composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, whom she met in Australia in 1970. With regard to the constant appearance of the author’s voice as added commentary, Juers was a friend of Cullen and, in the book’s prologue, she explains how they met and how she continued the friendship after that first meeting. Her comments throughout the book expand and add an extra, personal element to th…
Resources
…llections of the National Library of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive. The compilation of this list began as part of Keep Dancing!, an Australia Council-funded project that later became Australia Dancing. With the demise of Australia Dancing as an active site the list was archived on PANDORA. It is an invaluable, quite remarkable resource but is now hopelessly out of date. There are no plans to update it on PANDORA. Many of the in…
Two recent books
…boy lost’, comes with a jolt and sets the scene for McAllister’s search to understand his sexual identity and find peace with himself, which he says in the final chapter he thinks he has achieved. And the image of McAllister on the back cover by Lisa Tomasetti is brilliant. But the tone of the book is somewhat shy and retiring and there seems to be an overriding concern to speak kindly of those who have crossed his path. McAllister has been a popu…
Dance diary. August 2012
…ioned to create two new works for the Perth-based Ochre Contemporary Dance Company for a forthcoming season. She will choreograph one herself and make the other in collaboration with Jacob Lehrer. She is also currently in discussions with Queensland Theatre Company to develop a new work in 2013. Claudia Gitelman I was sorry to hear, just a day or so after posting my review of On stage alone, edited by Claudia Gitelman and Barbara Palfy, that Claud…