Dance diary. November 2018
…e of dancers to convince as champion ballroom dance contestants. Michelle Heine: For her choreography for Free Rain Theatre Company’s production of 42nd Street. Her choreography for the spectacular production numbers successfully captured the authentic Broadway feel of the musical and was exceptionally well danced by the ensemble. James Batchelor Canberra dance goers will be interested to learn that James Batchelor will be back working in Canberra…
Dance diary. October 2022
…Brien under the guidance of Jacob Nash. Separate scores for each work are being composed by Brendon Boney, Amy Flannery and Leon Rodgers. Dance Clan choreographers for 2023 (l-r) Ryan Pearson, Glory Tuohy-Daniell, Sani Townson and Beau Dean Riley Smith. Photo: © Daniel Boud The major production for 2023 by the main company will be Yuldea being created by Frances Rings in collaboration with Jennifer Irwin (costumes), Jacob Nash (set), Karen Norris…
Dance diary. June 2019
…thoughts on her early teachers, one of whom was Gertrud Bodenwieser. Of Bodenwieser and how her classes affected people, Dunlop MacTavish writes Frau Gerty, as she was known by her students, was a small erect figure who, when not demonstrating, examined her class through an intimidating lorgnette … Although nervous at first, I began to relax and enjoy myself as it appeared she was taking little notice of me. Soon I was swept up with the rest of t…
Gailene Stock (1946—2014)
…er main teacher in the theatre class, where she was placed because she had come from a company to the School, was Pamela May. Outside of the School she took classes with Maria Fay and after a nine month period at the Royal she took classes in Paris and then in Cannes with Rosella Hightower. Her classes in France were to satisfy van Praagh who thought that her dancing was very correct and that she needed a bit of French pizzazz. Before returning to…
Athol Willoughby. An oral history
…rom so many points of view. In particular, it contains considerable background to and information about the National Theatre Ballet, a company that has been somewhat neglected, I think, in present day Australian dance scholarship. The interview is also full of delightful anecdotes about life as a dancer and about the personalities with whom Willoughby came into contact in Australia and elsewhere! The catalogue entry for the interview on the Nation…
Dance diary. September 2016
…30 October. In November James Batchelor will present Smooth Translation, a commission from the Portrait Gallery, which is being advertised as ‘an ode to Barbara Hepworth’. Batchelor’s works are often about process of some kind and Smooth Translation purports to be concerned with the process of sculpting a landscape. Intriguing? But then all Batchelor’s works are. Smooth Translation is on 5–6 November. (UPDATE: See this link for a review of Smooth…
Nina Verchinina. A new article
…d States in 1950s she eventually bought the school in Sydney jointly run by Cooper and her then husband, James Upshaw. Upshaw later became Tweedie’s second husband. Unfortunately this most welcome article from Montana is not available online, but it is worth following up in hard copy in libraries where Brolga is held. Michelle Potter, 28 June 2011…
Cinderella. Queensland Ballet
…e of humanity, he presents Cinderella as a young girl filled with love and compassion. She supports her Father (Ari Thompson) when he is set upon by his wife and step-children, and she welcomes a mysterious, black-clad stranger into the family home, and sits her by the fire and offers her food, when Cinderella’s step-family wants nothing to do with her (shades of a scene from Act I of La Sylphide?). This stranger is in fact the Fairy Godmother (Ya…
Dance diary. November 2017
…Press conference, Library for the Performing Arts, New York, 2007. Foreground Merce Cunningham, background (l-r) curators Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, David Vaughan, Michelle Potter Degas from Scotland in London Just recently I saw a small, but quite beautiful show called Drawn in colour. Degas from the Burrell at the National Gallery in London. The works by Degas came mostly from the Burrell Collection, Glasgow, although some items, designed to expa…
Bolero. Meryl Tankard & Régis Lansac
…n a romantic interlude that changes emotional direction and ends with her being pushed to the ground. As she falls to the ground the floor swallows her up. The shadow of her body simply disappears from view. Further into the piece a Spanish dancer is joined by a headless woman and they dance alongside each other. Set to the driving rhythms of Ravel’s Bolero, the dance gathers momentum along with the music. As both music and dance move to an inevit…