At the Sign of the Harlequin’s Bat. Isabelle Stoughton
…s by the Royal Danish Ballet, including Ashton’s Romeo and Juliet, and the company’s excursion on Sunday ‘through wonderful Sylphide country’. And there is plenty of gossip and stories of ruffled feathers (or worse). The more things change … But in the end what the book does is bring Beaumont to life. Most of us know him only from afar as the author of books that are still referred to today. He was at performances that have become legendary or saw…
Out of the Frame. Canberra Dance Theatre
…eal with more dancers who were able to make visible the kind of energy and commitment that Ong showed. Of the rest of the works, two stood out for me. Firstly there was the K-Pop style The Feels with choreography from Kiel Tutin and danced by eight young female dancers. What was enticing about The Feels was the joy in moving expressed by these young women. Not being K-Pop expert myself, I have no idea whether or not the dancers were experts in the…
Coppélia. Australian Conservatoire of Ballet
…nds for Swanilda and, with fewer male dancers than might be available in a company, rearranging some dances slightly. Gielgud also re-imagined somewhat the character of Dr Coppélius having him make two swans, a spider, a caterpillar and other creatures, which we saw in his workshop in Act II, in addition to his ultimate creation, the doll Coppélia. Otherwise the ballet ran as we have come to expect. Coppélia’s friends in rehearsal, Australian Cons…
FACES. A work in progress by James Batchelor
…looking when small variations or gradations indicate that there is greater complexity in the structure of their works than first meets the eye. Bouquets to the dancers for being in control of the mathematical intricacies of this section of choreography. It is hard to know at this stage how the work will unfold. The first section shown in this preview had clear overtones of wartime, but the second had no such obvious context for me. How will they c…
Masurca Fogo. Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
…age on a couple of occasions, even if this kind of line formation is not uncommon in works by Bausch. Regina Advento and Pablo Aran Gimeno in Masurca Fogo. Photo: © Jochen Viehoff But of course Masurca Fogo also contained all those elements we have come to expect from a work by Bausch—personal stories recounted with all kinds of action, surprising happenings, non-sequiturs, water on stage, women in high heels, men in suits, cross-dressing, and so…
60 dancers: 60 stories. Queensland Ballet. Week 3
…any Artists Alyssa Kelty and D’Arcy Brazier, it was a jazzy danced tour around QPAC from the stage door to the stage itself and around the parkland areas outside the QPAC buildings. I especially loved the way Kelty and Brazier paused next to a poster in the tunnel/walkway just past the stage door, which showed a quote from actor/writer Tim Minchin: ‘Define yourself by what you love.’ And the equally jazzy music the dancers used was an original pie…
Ecocentrix. Indigenous Arts, Sustainable Acts
…mes designed by Alice Lau for Buru, Marrugeku’s 2011 work for children. To complete the Australian representation, a film by Fiona Foley was being screened in another room of the building. With the title Vexed it was made in 2013 and focused on the breakdown of traditional kinship structures as the result of what is referred to as the theft of Aboriginal women by white men at a certain stage in the history of Aboriginal/white relations in Australi…
Romeo and Juliet. Queensland Ballet (2019)
…t has what Li Cunxin calls the ‘touring’ designs, which were rented from a company in Uruguay and are by Paul Andrews. For me they couldn’t match those of Georgiadis, although I admired Juliet’s bedroom with its red/orange drapes and its religious icon/prayer point in one corner. The costumes for the musicians who accompany the wedding procession in the market place were also impressive. They spun out beautifully during turning movements. All in a…
Ruth Osborne. News from QL2 Dance
…irecting and choreography across a range of institutions. She was also a founding board member and artistic director of STEPS Youth Dance Company for 10 years. As we sit in the beautifully green and cool courtyard of Gorman House, Osborne talks of her experience in Perth. ‘When I started working with young people in Perth, I could see the benefits of bringing them together from different places, not just from one dance school,’ she says. ‘It was a…
Travelling with the Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet
…and acted like the stars they were. Madame [Nemchinova] always dressed to come to class, and left the same way. By chance, I rode the elevator with her. She had on a pill box hat with a veil, a two-piece suit, high heeled shoes and to top it off, a fur stole. The highest of high fashion was her daily wear’. On tour, however, the dancers did enjoy some relaxed moments. In South Africa, for example, they picnicked in Durban, visited the zoo in Pret…