A recent acquisition by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra is a short 6 minute film featuring ex-Bodenwieser dancer Eileen Kramer, aged 103 when the film was shot. This is a truly haunting film by Sue Healey, working with cinematographer Judd Overton. Kramer dances, seated for the most part, to a gentle musical score composed by Darrin Verhagen and Justin
I was delighted to be asked to give the keynote address at the 2018 RAD Conference in Brisbane during January. I will not, for copyright reasons, be posting my paper and PowerPoint presentation for the moment. I would, however, like to mention the surprise discovery (a surprise to me anyway) I made while preparing the paper. While examining the development of the
‘The best of…’ for 2017 At this time of the year ‘the best of…’ fills our newspapers and magazines. My top picks for what dance audiences were able to see in the ACT over the year were published in The Canberra Times on 27 December. A link is below in ‘Press for December 2017.’ Dance Australia will publish its annual
Some time ago now an Australian newspaper was sued over a review I wrote. Although ‘dancerly’ was not the major issue that generated the action, I remember a lawyer questioning my use of the word in the review (actually it was ‘non-dancerly’ that I used). To the lawyer, dancerly was not a real word. My Macquarie Dictionary (now rather old)
The appointment of Patricia Barker as artistic director of Royal New Zealand Ballet has not been without controversy! Jennifer Shennan’s review of the 2017 50th anniversary show from New Zealand School of Dance with Royal New Zealand Ballet, in which she mentioned that no graduates from the School had been accepted into the New Zealand company, sparked a number of
23 December 2017. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre How to write about Deepspace, the work James Batchelor has created as a result of time spent aboard the RV Investigator in the Southern Ocean? To begin with, we were not seated in an auditorium but, in Canberra anyway, we found ourselves being ushered onstage to wander the space and surround the
5 December 2017, Capitol Theatre, Sydney My spirits soared as the curtain went up on the opening act of Christopher Weeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at its Sydney opening night. There before us a picnic was taking place in an English architectural setting, which I believe represented the Deanery at Christ Church, Oxford, home of Alice Liddell who inspired Lewis Carroll’s
3 December 2017, Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra It took me a while to work out what the ‘some’ in this very brave and beautiful work meant. It premiered a few months ago as part of Escalate II, an Ausdance ACT mentoring program. I didn’t see it then but kept noticing that the ‘some’ of the title was occasionally written with
ACT Arts Awards 2017 The ACT Arts Awards for 2017, an initiative of the Canberra Critics’ Circle, were announced in Canberra on 27 November. The major award, ACT Artist of the Year, sponsored by the weekly newspaper City News, went to dancer, choreographer and director, Liz Lea. This award is the subject of a separate post at this link. In
24, 25 November 2017, St James Theatre, Wellington Reviewed by Jennifer Shennan This program was a dazzling line-up of works that showcased and celebrated the strengths and talent of young dancers and graduands of New Zealand School of Dance (NZSD). The moment when fledglings leave the nest is always poignant. Some of these young dancers have taken instant wing and