Jonathan Taylor (1941–2019)
…, and with several Australian companies including Kai Tai Chan’s One Extra Company and Maggie Sietsma’s Expressions Dance Company. In 1988 he was appointed Dean of the Victorian College of the Arts and in this capacity led both the tertiary and secondary schools until 1997. During those ten years he continued to choreograph, including in New Zealand where, in 1992, he created Hamlet for Harry Haythorne then directing the Royal New Zealand Ballet….
El Abrazo. The Embrace—Argentine Tango Moments. Neville Waisbrod
…a Graham, Wendy Whelan, Omar Khyyám, William Shakespeare, TS Eliot, Albert Einstein. These, as well as the Introduction and the Endnotes, are given in both English and Spanish. The photographs are black & white or grained grey, with the focus on the mutual embrace of a dancing couple—upper body, head, neck, shoulders, arms, hands (for all of which, read ‘hearts and minds’). An image typically shows the face or profile of one dancer and thus the ba…
Olga Spessivtseva in Australia
…ments, Valerie Lawson notes in an article in Brolga in December 2000 an unidentified, undated press clipping in a privately-held scrapbook that states: ‘[Spessiva] strained her ankle during the third week of the Sydney season and was ordered a brief rest by her doctor. She struggled on bravely for a few performances but was obliged to retire from the cast during the final week of the season.’ This report does, however, sound a little like an elabo…
Dandré-Levitoff Russian Ballet. Indonesia, September 1934
…are located on the island of Java? In addition, here is no documentary evidence that the company performed in Borneo, an island in the Indonesian archipelago not all that close to Java and not on the main routes of passenger ships? From a distance of 70 years or so perhaps he confused Borneo with Bandung, a city in Java where the company did perform? The most reliable information yet uncovered about the Indonesian schedule comes from a Dutch news…
Legacy program. Merce Cunningham Dance Company
…fifth dancer who remains separated from the four and whose choreography is composed of twisted, sudden movements especially of the arms, largely made while standing on the spot. This fifth dancer was originally Cunningham and the work was created as arthritis was beginning to take its toll on Cunningham’s body. In the Joyce season the role was danced by the company’s current director of choreography, Robert Swinston. It is tempting to suggest that…
Cecil Bates (1925–2019)
…s Requiem and dedicated to his mother, Frieda Bates), Villanelle for Four, Comme ci, comme ça, Seven Dances and A Fig for a King. In Adelaide Bates also staged some of the ballets he knew from his London experiences. They included Peepshow, Death and the Maiden, Czernyana and Façade. He also established his own dance school and then a small company, South Australian Repertory Ballet. Bates eventually moved into a more academic life and began teac…
Dance diary. March 2017
…e New York Times is at this link. My opinion of Brown’s works comes from seeing her company not in New York or anywhere in America, but from performances I have seen in London and Paris. In particular I still remember with huge pleasure a set of dances the company performed at London’s Tate Modern several years ago—my review is at this link. I also had the pleasure of seeing Glacial Decoy danced by Paris Opera Ballet and, just recently, I was remi…
Dance diary. July 2015
…aining talk about the origins of Bangarra, his nurturing of artists in the company, and some background on the works in lore. The talk was recorded and I understood that it was to be posted on the PH website. So far this has not happened but when/if it does I intend to post a link on this site. David Sumray I was contacted in July by a journalist from the Camden New Journal, who asked me about David Sumray. She told me that she had heard that an ‘…
The Royal New Zealand Ballet at 60. Jennifer Shennan & Anne Rowse
…the attention they deserve. Unlike other recent publications in a similar vein, and despite any shortcomings I might find in it, The Royal New Zealand Ballet at 60 makes a useful contribution to the history of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Its editors, contributors and publisher deserve to be congratulated for avoiding making it into some kind of media driven, ultimately barren publication. Jennifer Shennan and Anne Rowse (eds), The Royal New Zeal…
The Royal Ballet. Tour of Australia and New Zealand 1958–1959
…oductions by the Kirsova Ballet over a three year period. His reviews thus combine a deep knowledge and strong understanding of dance (and not just its technical features but its essential qualities as an art form) with an elegant use of language. His language embodied ‘the lyrical traditions of his native Ireland’ (he was born in County Clare), as one author wrote in an obituary for Robinson. He was not impressed by Les Sylphides, and he would ha…