Dance diary. July 2019
…0. He both danced and choreographed during those years and, on leaving the company worked as an independent choreographer and teacher and has been artistic director of Kurruru Youth Performing Arts in Adelaide since 2010. He is seen below in an image by Adelaide-based photographer Alex Makeyev. Deon Hastie in Divining. Leigh Warren and Dancers, 2000. Photo: © Alex Makeyev. National Library of Australia Press for July 2019 ‘Bangarra celebrates 30 y…
Spartacus. The Australian Ballet (2018)
…however, as often happens with a matinee towards the end of a season, of seeing main roles being taken by artists who are moving up the ranks. On this occasion Spartacus was danced by Cristiano Martino, a company soloist, and Flavia by Benedicte Bemet, also a soloist. They acquitted themselves well and Martino in particular, with his strong, muscular body, really suited the role. But for me, although they looked longingly at each other at times, t…
Dance diary. November 2023
…let, 2023. Photos: © David Kelly In other news from Queensland Ballet, the company recently announced the establishment of the Van Norton Li Community Health Institute with the goal of sustaining and expanding its Dance Health programs across socioeconomic, age and geographic boundaries and all abilities. For more about the program, including information about the donors to this project, follow this link. Michelle Potter, 30 November 2023 Featured…
MIST. Anca Frankenhaeuser & Kailin Yong
…e item as she seemed to conduct a conversation with herself and with us, becoming more irrational and excited as time passed. She danced with the tulle tossing it, throwing it. And then she sank to the ground and was covered by it as her partner slowly came to her side. What a dancer! What a musician! What a pas de deux! A life before us! Michelle Potter, 13 October 2018 All photos, including featured image: Anca Frankenhaeuser & Kailin Yong in MI…
December. Jake Silvestro
…n a number of occasions and he manipulates large pieces of cloth so they become a background for his drawing and painting. He takes out some chalk from the box he found and draws geometric patterns on the stage floor. I wonder what he is doing but decide he must be drawing the floor plan of the burnt out residence. Or perhaps how the house will look when he rebuilds. Jake Silvestro performing in December. Photo: © Ian Sutherland, 2020 At one stage…
George Balanchine. Paris Opera Ballet
…I kept hearing brass instruments situated outside the orchestra pit. Surround sound? But wherever the brass instruments were, the sound from the orchestra of the Opéra national de Paris conducted by Kevin Rhodes was spectacular. Michelle Potter, 10 November 2016 Featured image: Artists of the Paris Opera Ballet in Brahms-Schönberg Quartet, 2016. Photo: © Sébastien Mathé/Opéra national de Paris For my Australian and New Zealand readers, sadly Hann…
Entity. Random Dance
…let perform. There is a certain security in the way they move, an inherent understanding of the body, something deeply intuitive about movement, that allows McGregor’s classical references to be offset in a particular way. The mix of the classical and the restive tension of today becomes heightened and makes us see both and all more clearly. Although this is a little simplistic, McGregor reminds me of Merce Cunningham, George Balanchine and Willia…
Of earth and sky. Bangarra Dance Theatre
…g of works made for Bangarra by Rings, who has recently been appointed resident choreographer for the company. It looks at objects of the earth such as string bags, grinding stones, bodies, weaving and coolamun (an aboriginal carrying vessel) for its inspiration. The opening sequence, called Museum, sets the scene for what follows. In it Daniel Riley McKinley and Travis de Vries, the latter a dancer on secondment to Bangarra, alternately wrap, hid…
Colonel de Basil. Some surprising news
…d the world in the 1930s and 1940s. He came to Australia with one of those companies, which is best known as the Original Ballet Russe, on a tour that began in December 1939 and which lasted until September 1940 when the company sailed for the United States. Little has been written about de Basil’s life prior to his arrival in Paris in 1919. Kathrine Sorley Walker in her invaluable publication De Basil’s Ballets Russes, from which so much further…
The Rite of Spring. Houston Ballet
…st for the men enhance and never detract from the choreography. The background, which relies on Lisa J. Pinkham’s lighting for its strongest effect, changes from a simple grey-lit cloth in the first movement to what looks like a cascade of fireflies in the second. And as the third movement progresses the fireflies turn to small white shapes (of paper I guess) falling softly to the ground. Murmuration deserved the ecstatic reaction it received from…