‘The search for identity. Australian dance in the 1950s’
…paper I presented at the National Film and Sound Archive, The search for identity. Australian dance in the 1950s, had a narrow focus, despite its title. I made some comments on my paper in my Dance Diary for March 2017, but I have been wanting to publish the full text on this site for several months. Unfortunately, I cannot add the vision I used, which came from the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive, but here is the link to the te…
Food Chain. Gavin Webber and Grayson Millwood (Animal Farm Collective)
…nd of sophistication of thought. Even those polar bear advertisements for Bundaberg rum we used to see on commercial television with some frequency had more to offer in my opinion. For me Food Chain also lacked any kind of sophisticated movement. With no-one identified as choreographer perhaps this is not surprising. Take the closing scene when the cast spent some time slowly descending a large tree trunk that made up the major part of the set. Ea…
Ballets Russes in Tokyo
…anberra exhibition, will be part of the Tokyo show. Did the Ballets Russes companies visit Japan? No, but there is considerable interest in Japan in the legacy of those companies, which was worldwide. It is of interest too that the influence of Japanese art on many of the artists working in Europe around the time that Diaghilev was taking Paris by storm was exceptionally strong. I look forward to reporting on how the show has been curated in Tokyo…
This week in New Zealand
…ncers from Bali. The gamelan will be led by Budi Putra, whose good friend was gunned down at the mosque last Friday. This performance will echo that haka, and we will not be undone. (TVNZ website carries footage of the haka by Black Power on Sunday 17 March) Jennifer Shennan, Tuesday 19 March 20…
Fuse. Jack Riley & Alexander Hunter
…ts involved, Riley and Hunter, that the work ‘address[ed] the objects we found in the space when we arrived.’ Found objects? Dada dance? This was a far cry from Marcel Duchamp. Other parts of the notes were equally frustrating ‘Without any preconceived ideas of content or structure we both worked intuitively throughout the process …’ To me there was no coherent structure. Not every choreographer comes to the creative process with a structure firml…
Lorna Sim. Photographer
…o right: (top row) Padma Menon; Dean Cross in Walking and Falling; Gabriel Comerford, Eliza Sanders and Dean Cross in Other Moments; (middle row) dancers of QL2 and the National Youth Dance Company of Scotland; Amelia McQueen in Strange Attractor; dancer from QL2 in Night. Stir; (bottom row) Tammi Gissell in Seeking Biloela; scene from Strings Attached; James Batchelor and Amber McCartney in Island. And below, Sanders in a different guise. Eliza S…
Icons. A second look
…s cast. For me this Gemini had a feeling of humanity about it, as well as being a ballet about contemporary technique. As for Beyond Twelve, well my companion said as we stood up to leave: ‘Graeme Murphy makes ballet for adults!’ With all its slapstick humour, its phallic references, its comments on youthful immaturity, and its poking fun at Australian society it is still an immensely moving ballet. And the trio between the Beyond Twelve, Beyond E…
60 dancers: 60 stories. Queensland Ballet. Week 2
…g in ‘Comrades’. Some great unison dancing there as well. Neneka Yoshida in ‘After Glow of a Nocturne’. Queensland Ballet’s 60 dancers: 60 stories, 2020. Musically too the series is a treat with such beautiful playing by the members of Queensland Ballet’s music team who have not only played accompaniments but even, in some cases, offered their own original creations for use in the project. Again my comments are very personal and I have mentioned j…
Giselle. The Australian Ballet (2015)
…ce of Giselle I saw there were occasions when there seemed to be a lack of understanding of why certain things were happening, and a consequent lack of reaction between characters. Ballet companies are time-poor these days, I know, and it struck me that perhaps a dramaturg is needed occasionally? I look forward to seeing other casts in Sydney and Canberra. Michelle Potter, 16 March 2015 Update (7 April 2015): My review of another Giselle cast, fea…
Blue Love. Shaun Parker & Lucia Mastrantone
…ns, I had not seen the works he had performed in or made after leaving the company and taking on his own, independent career. Well, I have to say I loved what he presented in Blue Love. It was outrageous at times, very clever at others, sometimes hilarious, and always entertaining. Much of the pre-show media mentioned that it was a multi-media experience, which it was, especially as a result of the three short films that were screened during the e…