Seeking Biloela. Liz Lea
…Sim At CSIRO Lea is working with former CSIRO chief research scientist Dr Denis Saunders and researchers from CSIRO’s Sustainable Ecosystems area. Her residency with CSIRO came about as a result of a children’s show she created in 2011 about the science of flight, which was shown at Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra, during National Science Week. Michelle Potter, 13 August 2012 Featured image: Tammi Gissell in rehe…
Josephine Baker. Legendary dancer
…es as she used her celebrity status for travel purposes (with documents hidden in her underwear). Baker took part in 1963 in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom alongside the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., who made his ‘I have a Dream’ speech there. She had become a French citizen after her marriage to industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. Between 1954 and 1965, three husbands later, she adopted 12 orphaned or destitute children of different…
Vitesse. The Australian Ballet
…rformance came from Chengwu Guo, who at the last minute replaced Jarryd Madden. I am used to seeing Guo throw himself around the stage, executing spectacular beats, turns and jumps (sometimes inappropriately as happened in Giselle). So it was a pleasure to see him dancing differently. I wondered whether he felt held back by the Forsythian choreography, which is spectacular in its own way of course, but which does not ask for excess in the old Russ…
Giselle. The Royal Ballet
…ed to die, something that I can’t remember ever seeing so clearly before. Being used to seeing a peasant pas de deux in other productions, the pas de six in Act I was something of a curiosity for me, which I can’t remember from 2002. But it was nicely danced and I especially admired a gentleman with dark curly hair who seemed to be someone other than those mentioned on the cast sheet. Whoever he was, he performed with wonderful attack. The Royal B…
Yummy. The Chaos Project, QL2 Dance
…2023. Photo: © Lorna Sim But what of changes in the air? Musically Yummy sounded quite different from previous Chaos events. The diverse selection of music ranged from Vivaldi as recomposed by Max Richter to a selection from the avant-folk group, pigbaby. I also enjoyed the change from one segment to another, which was different on each occasion and included some unexpected moments when Acetic transitioned to Sweet. To my surprise, sugary dancers…
Restraint(s). Ken Unsworth & Australian Dance Artists
…ng. The glass panels divided the structure into quarters and as it spun around, Harding-Irmer was joined by the other three dancers, also dressed in black, and the company dashed in and out of the spinning spaces. Susan Barling and Ross Philip in Restraint(s), 2017. Photo: © Mike Buick I guess what I really enjoyed about this show was its coherent concept and the versatility with which the concept was presented. I definitely found some sections mo…
Interview with Paul Knobloch
…uring Paul’s recent Australian visit screened on Friday 24 September. Its online availability will, it seems, expire in December so it’s worth having a look before that happens. In addition to the words from Paul and his mentor, Jackie Hallahan, there are some photos of Paul as a student and some tantalisingly short footage of his performance in Webern Opus V as well as snippets from an impromptu dance performed in the studio for the Stateline…
My place. QL2 Dance
…little more than we were given on this occasion, including what was the music used, for example? A single sheet of paper with a bit of information please. Even something online? Michelle Potter, 26 January 2021 Featured image: Scene from My place. QL2 Dance, 2021. Photo: © Lorna Sim…
Anna Volkova Barnes (1917–2013)
…alia. Here too is an extract from an interview I recorded with Volkova in 2005 for the National Library of Australia’s Oral History and Folklore Collection in which she talks briefly about arriving in Australia for the first time. The full interview is not presently available online, but here is the catalogue record. I used this extract previously, with Volkova’s permission, in a talk I delivered at the National Gallery of Australia in 2011 called…
Tatiana Leskova and Anna Volkova
…Leskova celebrated her 90th birthday in December—’I turned 17 on the boat coming to Australia’, she recalls—and is still very active in the dance world. Her biography, written by Suzana Braga and published in Brazilian Portuguese (Tatiana Leskova: uma bailarina solta no mundo) in Rio de Janeiro in 2005, has recently been translated into English. In addition, the irrepressible Leskova has just published a book of photographs. I hope to write about…