Swans and Firebirds (Schwäne und Feuervögel)Austrian Theatre Museum, Palais Lobkowitz, Lobkowitz Platz 2, Vienna, 25 June to 27 September 2009 Like many other museums, galleries and libraries around the world, the Austrian Theatre Museum in Vienna is staging an exhibition to mark the centenary of the first Paris season of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Although this exhibition carries a sub-title ‘Die
Fred and Ginger building, Jiraskuv bridge, central Prague, designed and built between 1992 and 1996 Architects: Frank Gehry with Vlado Miluni Familiarly called Fred and Ginger after that acclaimed dancing couple Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, or the Dancing House and sometimes the Drunken House, officially the Rasin building (Nationale-Nederlanden building, Rašínovo nábreží 80, 120 00 Praha 2). Images: (l-r,
In early 2008 the Royal Cambodian Ballet was scheduled to tour Holland, France and Slovenia. This picture gallery briefly documents a ceremony held on 20 March 2008 in an open theatre space close to the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh at which offerings were made and blessings sought prior to this tour. All photos by Michelle Potter, March 2008. Michelle
Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring has always fascinated me. I had seen her production on video in 1989 but never in the flesh. What I had seen in the flesh was the famous (or infamous) Nijinsky version, the original Rite of Spring, as restaged by Kenneth Archer and Millicent Hodson for the Joffrey Ballet, as well as Maurice Bejart’s Rite
Nutcracker: The Australian Ballet, Sydney and Melbourne, 2009 The 2009 season of Graeme Murphy’s Nutcracker: The story of Clara has all but convinced me that this work is the closest thing we have in Australia to a dance masterpiece. It is, like all great works of art, a very giving work. It continues to reveal new layers of meaning with
27-30 May 2009, Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay Two works saved the Australian Ballet’s 2009 Body Torque season from drifting totally out of the memory the minute the curtain came down. They were Reed Luplau’s Bleecker and Remi Wortmeyer’s Fade Not. Both Luplau and Wortmeyer made very different works in every sense imaginable, but both were able to grab the audience’s
Igor Schwezoff was born in St Petersburg in 1904, the third of four children of a well-to-do family. His early life was, therefore, a comfortable one. But the Russian Revolution changed all that. In his autobiography, Borzoi, Schwezoff tells of the hardships he endured while living under the Communist regime until he finally defected, arriving in Harbin, China, in 1931.
In March 2008 I was generously funded to travel to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to help set up a project to record the stories of older Cambodian classical dancers who had had major careers with the Royal Cambodian Ballet in the decades before the infamous regime of Pol Pot. They had survived that regime, and were now passing on their knowledge