Harry Haythorne. A tribute from Jennifer Shennan
…vehicles he had parked next to, and been mortified by this scenario.) We found an el cheapo hotel, and fell into welcoming Melbourne as though we had always lived there. Harry had already seen Fabulous Beast, and had a number of reservations about it. He nonetheless joined us for the forum, and had the grace to acknowledge afterwards that the incisively brilliant mind and wit of Keegan-Dolan helped him to retrospectively re-evaluate the choreograp…
Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty: the film
…Moving the storyline from 1890 and the babyhood of Aurora, to 1911 and her coming of age and on to the present and her marriage—and the surprise of what comes right at the end, Bourne has indeed as he says ‘created a different look and set of manners, including theatrical manners, for each era’. I loved the dancing in the Edwardian scenes (Aurora’s coming of age) with great use made of Tchaikovsky’s well known waltz. But my favourite ‘set of manne…
A Bauschian experience in Berlin
…Cities 2012—it opened on 6 June, celebrates the residencies Bausch and her company undertook in the last several years of Bausch’s life. The full program will show ten of the works Bausch made as a result of those residencies. Sulcas interviewed a number of people for her feature, including the theatre director Peter Sellars. Sellars noted the following characteristic of Bausch’s choreographic process: What is so extraordinary about Pina’s work is…
On View. Live Portraits. Sue Healey
…should succeed when it communicates a compelling sense of person-hood, or identity, or individual being. This is exactly what Healey’s work does, even though it is so much more than an exercise in digital or video portraiture. It communicates a strong sense that we are watching the very separate identities of five extraordinary individuals—Martin del Amo, Shona Erskine, Benjamin Hancock, Raghav Handa and Nalina Wait. Dancers in Sue Healey’s On Vie…
The Silver Rose. The Australian Ballet
…an Ballet dancers ‘nailing the right atmosphere’ in their performances. My comment in its turn generated another comment picking up on The Silver Rose. All the comments are available at this link but I am reposting the last one below. I was hoping Michelle would open a thread about The Silver Rose. I seem to be in a minority in thinking that Murphy acquitted himself well in the enormous task he set himself and his designer in taking on a danced ve…
Sublime Interludes. Tabitha Dombrowksi and Björn Aslund
…h good and bad, and ask us to ask ourselves whether our glad and sad are anything like theirs. Breathe slowly, deliberately, deeply, get a grip, prepare a show, perform it at the Fringe, say yes to a return season, invite folk along, hope they come, hope they get it. Thank you. We came. and Yes, we got it. Jennifer Shennan, 27 May 2022 Circa Theatre, Wellington—Refringe season of Sublime Interludes. Tabitha Dombrowski & Björn Aslund—choreography &…
The Listeners. A ballet by Joanna Priest
…otated scores acquired by the National Library of Australia from Meg Abbie Denton in around 2004. Further information came from Meg’s publication Joanna Priest: her place in Adelaide’s dance history (Adelaide: Joanna Priest, 1993), and Alan Brissenden’s and Keith Glennon’s Australia dances: creating Australian dance 1945–1965 (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2010). The Listeners was first staged for the South Australian Ballet Club in Adelaide on 30 N…
Film footage of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes
…the footage (lasting just 30 seconds) of a section from Les Sylphides, filmed in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1928, is below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNcC_BeXBCQ…
Dances at a gathering. The Royal Ballet Digital Season 2020
…ce from the entire cast! They explain why in the video clip below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl7ezqkTUiQ Dances at a gathering was made by Jerome Robbins in 1969 for New York City Ballet and entered the repertoire of the Royal Ballet in 1970. The stream we were offered during the Royal’s 2020 digital season was recorded during a performance this year, 2020. It featured ten of the Royal Ballet’s star dancers, Marianela Nuñez, Francesca Haywar…
Fjord Review. First issue
…’s film ‘Play: on the beach with the Ballets Russes’ and look forward to seeing it at some stage. But being more than familiar with the footage that forms the basis of Lacey’s work, I thought it was a shame that the name of the amateur cinematographer who shot the raw footage, and to whom we owe so much, was spelt incorrectly. It was a slight error, and not an uncommon one, but enough to grate. Which leads on to the editing of Fjord Review. If thi…