Woolf Works. The Royal Ballet
…h, the shell-shocked former soldier who eventually commits suicide, never being able to overcome his thoughts about the death of a soldier friend in World War I. But such knowledge isn’t entirely necessary as I now, I then stands on its own as a work about relationships of many and varied kinds. In I now, I then, Alessandra Ferri plays a meditative, slightly distant Clarissa, lost in her thoughts. It was a pleasure to see her back onstage. In anot…
Dance diary. July 2016
…performing in Canberra since her graduation. ‘Out of the political capital comes Australian Dance Party: Canberra’s newest dance and performance company,’ she says. For its debut production, ADP dancers will collaborate with six artists from the Canberra Symphony Orchestra on Strings Attached at the Nishi Playhouse (a pop-up theatre), New Acton, on 25–27 August. Dancer to watch: Seu Kim Seu Kim graduated from the Australian Ballet School in 2015….
Dance diary. March 2023
…ur had an extensive career as a principal dancer with several major ballet companies. There are a number of obituaries available online and here is a link to the one I admire most, written by Jane Pritchard for The Guardian. None of the obituaries that I have read mentions Seymour’s appearances in Australia and New Zealand during a Royal Ballet tour in 1958 and 1959 but she made her debut as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake during that tour and garnered…
Dance diary. December 2015
…is as he answered the often quite probing questions put to him. I was also completely charmed, as ever, by Page’s great sense of humour, humility and passion for his heritage. I can’t wait to watch it in more comfortable conditions. But I did stay on the treadmill for longer than usual so I could see the whole program! Papers of Dame Margaret Scott I am pleased to be able to report that Dame Margaret Scott has agreed that her collection of dance m…
Dance diary. April 2021
…r Brew-Bevan portrait used as the featured image above. Tammi Gissell and Mundaguddah Mundaguddah is a dance/music collaboration between composer Brian Howard and dancer/choreographer Tammi Gissell. It will premiere on 9 May 2021 at the National Gallery of Australia during Australian Dance Week and is a co-presentation by Ausdance ACT and the Canberra International Music Festival. It will have two showings only, at 12pm and 2 pm. In Mundaguddah (t…
Dance diary. August 2017
…d Ballet, and of course an outstanding dancer and coach in many situations prior to Queensland Ballet, and with Shaun Parker, director of Shaun Parker & Company. Records should appear shortly on the NLA catalogue. Press for August ‘A leap of faith.’ Preview story for Blue Love, Shaun Parker & Company. The Canberra Times, 5 August 2017, p. 11. Online version. See also this link. ‘Torment laid bare in gripping work.’ Review of Bennelong, Bangarra Da…
Dance diary. January 2019
…tographer Heide Smith. In the interview Smith recalled one of her earliest commissions after migrating to Australia in 1971 with her husband and two daughters—she was commissioned by the arts magazine The Entertainer to photograph various performers working in Sydney. It was the time when Margot Fonteyn was guesting with the Australian Ballet and Smith has, amongst her extensive archive, some beautiful images of Fonteyn and Garth Welch in costume…
Raisse Kouznetsova and Valery Shaievsky
…rotagonists! But clearly there remains a lot of investigation to be done. Michelle Potter, 27 September 2014 Update: The story gets more complicated. More comments at the earlier post….
Dance diary. October 2021
…e ballet! Wudjang. Not the Past. Bangarra Dance Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company Bangarra Dance Theatre is joining forces with Sydney Theatre Company to produce a new work by Stephen Page to be shown at the Sydney Festival in January 2022 and then two months later in Adelaide. Page has described it as ‘an epic-scale contemporary corroboree’ and it will be performed by seventeen dancers, four musicians and five actors. Publicity image for Wudjang…
Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards (Dance) 2022
…phed using a variety of physical genres combined with a strong visual arts component and an underlying focus on issues concerning the disastrous bushfires that ravaged parts of Australia in December 2019. To Jake Silvestro for his production of and performance in December. Read my review at this link. Jake Silvestro in December, 2022. Photo: © Mark Turner AUSTRALIAN DANCE PARTY For an adventurous site-specific work that explored a Canberra sculptu…