Australian Dance Week, 2026. Ausdance ACT

Perusing the Canberra program for Australian Dance Week I was instantly surprised by news of the opening celebration, which will take place on International Dance Day, 29 April. Ausdance ACT has programmed this event to occur on top of Mount Ainslie, a beautiful spot whose current vista would thrill the designers of Canberra, Walter Burley Griffin and his partner, Marion Mahony Griffin.

But delving further into the choice of an outdoor venue, Cathy Adamek, Executive Director of Ausdance ACT, explained a little about why Mount Ainslie was chosen. There are a few reasons but importantly, according to Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Serena, Mount Ainslie figures significantly in the cultural background of the Indigenous people who inhabited the area long before it became Canberra. Aunty Serena will deliver the Welcome to Country at the opening. You may hear more from her about Mount Ainslie’s significance.

Here is what the program tells us of the event:

Join us on top of Mount Ainslie for International Dance Day as we celebrate 2026 Australian Dance Week. Hosted by Ausdance ACT Executive Director Dr Cathy Adamek featuring a special appearance by the Diamonds of Dance Week! Dress in your sparkly best and join us for a celebratory picnic. Traditional welcome and smoking ceremony by Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Serena from Yukkumbruk Dreaming. To be officially opened by Minister for the Arts Michael Pettersson MLA.

LIz Lea, study for *Diamond*. Photo: © O & J Wikner Photography

But to the dance component for the week. There is, as is the usual practice, many Canberra dance schools offering free classes over the week for prospective students to try out various approaches to dance education. There is also a variety of workshops for beginners to professionals in dance-related activities and projects. What stands out from an overall look at the program is the diversity of dance that characterises the Canberra dance scene. Dance Week in Canberra includes items focusing on ballet and contemporary dance as well as folk dance, hip hop activities, street performances, dance as a meditative activity, and so much more.

Classes with ZEST. Dance for Well Being will be part of the 2026 program. Photo: © Art Atelier

Also featured in the 2026 program is the work of Floeur Alder and her colleagues. Alder does not live or work on a regular basis in the ACT but she has a long-standing connection with the city. She is the daughter of Lucette Aldous and Alan Alder, both of whom, after exceptional careers as performers across the world, were responsible for helping develop the tertiary dance component of the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). Alan Alder was born in Canberra, took his early dance training there and went to Canberra High School. There are still various relatives of the Alder family living in Canberra so it is a pleasure to have his daughter as part of the 2026 ACT Dance Week program.

The film POINTE. Dancing on a Knife’s Edge, which focuses on Alder’s recovery from a brutal knife attack that left her badly injured, will be shown as part of the week’s activities. Adamek was especially touched by the way dance was part of Alder’s recovery process and tells me the film ‘shows how dance can be a personal story’ and that ‘it indicates that dance can be used as a form of therapy’. In addition, Alder will give a solo performance of Djilba a work created by Alder and artist Virginia Ward that combines dance, poetry and imagery.

Floeur Alder in a moment from *Djilba*. Photo: © Michael Juliff

See more about Djilba, including a trailer and a demonstration by Alder of a particular section of her choreography, at this link. Alder will also give a special class that features Boris Kniaseff’s floor barre technique, a technique admired and taught earlier by her mother Lucette Aldous.

The 2026 ACT Dance Week is brimming with surprising activities. Don’t miss them. See the full program at this link.

And below is the view from Mount Ainslie where the opening event will be held. Follow Anzac Parade from the War Memorial in the foreground, over Lake Burley Griffin to Old Parliament House then on to New Parliament House. Other significant Canberra buildings (including the High Court and the National Library) are in the image and forming the background is the beautiful Brindabella mountain range.

Michelle Potter, 7 April 2026

Canberra Critics’ Circle Dance Awards, 2025

11 November 2025. Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra

Dance in Canberra in the twelve months from October 2024 and September 2025 was recognised with three awards by the Canberra Critics’ Circle. Awardees were Alison Plevey and Sara Black, Ausdance ACT, and Akira Byrne from QL2 Dance. The following citations give details:

For the exceptional production of a solo dance work, Essor (translation: Thank You) in response to photographic material by renowned photographer Tracey Moffatt on display at the National Portrait Gallery; and for their mentorship of dancer Yolanda Lowatta.
ALISON PLEVEY and SARA BLACK

Yolanda Lowatta in the Gordon Darling Hall, 2025. Photo: © Creswick Collective

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For providing young dancers with a professionally curated and technically sophisticated platform for dance and choreography as it celebrated its 40th Anniversary of the Youth Dance Festival at Canberra Theatre in November 2024 with the theme, What Do You Dream?
AUSDANCE ACT

The graphic designed by Natsuko Yonezawa for the 2024 Youth Dance Festival

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For her powerful solo ‘A Destination Should Not Be Expected’ created and performed as part of the QL2 Dance Emerging Choreographers Program, inspired by her own battle with chronic pain and endometriosis. AKIRA BYRNE

Akira Byrne in ‘A Destination Should not be Expected’. QL2 Dance, 2024. Photo: © Olivia Wikner

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MIchelle Potter, 13 November 2025

Featured image: Receiving awards for dance at the Canberra Critics’ Circle presentation, 2025.
(l-r) Emma Dykes (Ausdance ACT), Isabelle Lee (Ausdance ACT), Michael Pettersson MLA (ACT Arts Minister), Akira Byrne (QL2 Dance), Sara Black (Australian Dance Party) and Alison Plevey (Australian Dance Party). Photo: © Brian Rope Photography

Dance diary. October 2025

News from LIz Lea

Liz Lea has just announced news of an upcoming production, Diamond, on which she is currently working. Diamond is the next in a trilogy of works she is developing and follows on from the first work in that trilogy—RED. RED was an exceptional production first seen in 2018 (read the review at this link). After its Australian presentation, it toured in various countries for five years.

Diamond will premiere on 6 August 2026 at the Q Theatre in Queanbeyan as part of ‘Q The Locals’, an initiative with a focus on local productions. There are still nine or so months to go but worth the wait I’m sure.

Larry Ruffell (1941-2025)

Very belatedly I discovered that dancer, writer and arts administrator, Larry Ruffell, had died early in 2025. The news was relayed to me by a colleague who unexpectedly came into contact with Larry’s wife, Priscilla, at a show they were both attending in Canberra. New Zealand born, Larry had a career as a dancer in the United Kingdom before moving to Australia where he pursued a career as a writer and arts administrator. He had a noteworthy career in Canberra and wrote and reviewed extensively for The Canberra Times back in the days, several years ago now, when that newspaper included material about dance and most other arts activities. Larry also had a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Australian National University with majors in philosophy and psychology.

My connections with Larry include publishing an article he wrote for Brolga, the now defunct journal I founded in 1994 and edited until 2006. It appeared in Brolga 17, December 2002, and was titled ‘Perceiving dance: bowing to the ineffable’. The article examined the impact of differing perceptions relating to music and to dance. He was also administrator of the Canberra Opera Society (also now defunct) when I choreographed sections of that society’s production of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice in 1977.

A brief biography, dating back around two decades from the website of Ausdance National, is at this link. A longer article, an obituary, was published in New Zealand by The Post and can be read at this link. The New Zealand obituary contains some photos of Larry, including one referencing the days of his British dance career. It is noteworthy too that in the obituary he is referred to as Laurie Ruffell. He was never called Laurie in Australia, although that name seems to be common elsewhere.

Ausdance ACT’s Youth Dance Festival 2025

Promotional image for *Life on Mars*, Ausdance ACT Youth Dance Festival, 2025

Unforrunately I missed (again) the Youth Dance Festival this year, a program called Life on Mars, although I continue to admire the process that lies behind the Fesitval. As Ausdance ACT notes: ‘The Youth Dance Festival creative process involves professional dance mentors visiting participating schools to provide support and guidance to students in the development of their own work.’ The range of schools involved from across the region is remarkable. Next year I hope I will manage to attend.

Press for October 2025

– ‘Batchelor focuses on the legacy of lost dancer.’ Review of Resonance. James Batchelor + Collaborators. CBR City News, 11 October 2025. Online at this link.

– ‘Celebrating Dalman’s decades of dance creation.’ Review of ECDysis. Mirramu Dance Company and guests from Taiwan. CBR City News, 26 October 2025. Online at this link.

Michelle Potter, 31 October 2025

Featured image: Liz Lea in a promotional image for Diamond. Photo: © O&J Wikner, 2025.

Spoken Memory/Oral History

Not so long ago I was looking at the Ausdance National website when I discovered a section called ‘Spoken Memory. Oral History Interviews at the National Library of Australia’. The title ‘Spoken Memory’ is an excellent one and I have taken the liberty of using it for this post, with thanks to Ausdance.

There were several lists on the Ausdance site. They had been assembled under the names (including mine) of various interviewers, and the lists were made up of those interviews that are available online. Not all interviews make it to the online collection—it depends mostly on what the interviewees have agreed to when completing the Rights Agreement at the end of their interview.

The Ausdance lists, which included links to the online version of each interview, stopped (in relation to me) at 2012 and, again in my case, didn’t include all the interviews I had done with people associated with dance in some way. Photographer Max Dupain, for example, who was interviewed specifically for his thoughts on the Ballet Russes dancers he photographed in the 1930s and 1940s, was not included; and musician Eric Clapham, whose background included working as a pianist and adviser for various ballet companies, was not mentioned either; and there are more examples. But the Ausdance lists were a great way of bringing online dance interviews to the attention of people who may not use the National Library catalogue to any great extent.

With the above in mind, I have posted below a list of the interviews I have done with people associated with dance in some way, and which are available online. This list is about one third of the interviews I have recorded to date. My complete list of interviews, which includes people working in areas of the arts other than dance, is included as a link at the bottom of this post.

To hear the audio you need simply to accept the end user licence agreement, which appears when the link is opened. Happy listening!

Alison Plevey. December 2024.   Matthew Lawrence. January 2024
James Batchelor. December 2023.   Alice Topp. November 2023.
Barbara Engel Cuckson. October 2022. Ruth Osborne. February 2021.
Douglas Gautier. February 2020. Susan Street. January 2020.
Chrissa Keramidas. January 2020. Ariette Taylor. October 2018.
Jonathan Taylor. September 2018. Shaun Parker. August 2017.
Victoria Rowell. March 2017. Greg Horsman. April 2016.
Tanya Pearson, August 2015. David de Verelle-Hill. May 2015.
Lisa Pavane. January 2015 Edna Busse. August 2014.
Gailene Stock. April 2012. Hugh Colman. March 2012.
Jennifer Irwin. August 2011. Paul de Masson. July 2011.
Cecil Bates. June 2005. Valrene Tweedie.December 2004.
Eileen Kramer. February 2003. Bill Akers. February 2002.
Anita Ardell. April 2001. Paul Saliba . April 2000.
Reg Bartram. November 1999. Lucette Aldous. February 1999.
Alan Alder. February 1999. Paige Gordon. May 1998.
Patrick Harding-Irmer. May 1998.             Shona Dunlop MacTavish. April
1998.
Marina Berezowsky. March 1998. Coralie Hinkley. March 1998 and
November 1997.
Martin Rubinstein. August 1995. Peggy Sager. November 1994.
Viola Tait. November 1994. Hanny Exiner. November 1994.
Charles Boyd. October 1994. Moyà Beaver. October 1994.
Irina Baronova. August 1994.                   Tamara Tchinarova August 1994
Robert Southey. March 1994.                   Walter Stringer. January 1994.
Margaret Scott. April 1993. Kristian Fredrikson. January 1993.
Eric Clapham. May 1992.                            Kelvin Coe. May 1992.
Noël Pelly. March 1992.                            Max Dupain. September 1990.
KIra Bousloff. August 1990.                      Kenneth Rowell. June 1989.
Geoffrey Ingram. December 1988. Valrene Tweedie. November 1988.

Michelle Potter, 11 July 2025

Oral history list as at June 2025:
The link above includes the interviews that are not available online, information about the special projects for which some oral histories were recorded, and oral histories I have recorded for institutions other than the National Library of Australia.

Featured image: Geoffrey Ingram being interviewed by Michelle Potter in the oral history recording studio of the National Library of Australia, 1988. Photo: © National Library of Australia

Dance diary. April 2025

April is the middle month of Autumn in the southern hemisphere. Spectacular colours abound in nature as dance for 2025 continues, despite a disheartening approach to funding for the art form.

The difficult financial situation that Queensland Ballet is facing, for example, is more than disheartening, although the exact changes that are being made to the company are yet to be fully revealed. To date, Brett Clark, Chair of QB Board, is reported as saying (amongst other remarks on the situation): Over the years, we have worked hard to leverage our base grants from State and Federal Governments and have unapologetically advocated loudly for parity of Federal funding to bring us in line with our peers in New South Wales and Victoria. To date we have been unsuccessful.

In 2025, to ensure our ongoing sustainability, we have made the difficult decision to re-vision our organisation across our Artistic and Business teams which will see us farewell some of our artists and arts workers.

It is also thoroughly frustrating that in the lead-up to the federal election in Australia on 3 May no political party appears to have made any mention of the arts.

New books

Elizabeth Dalman’s book, Nature moves, was launched in Canberra on 27 April 2025 with a short opening performance from Vivienne Rogis and Peng Hsaio-yin. The performance was followed by a launch speech from Cathy Adamek, executive director of Ausdance ACT.

The performance was danced on a lawn that fronts a particular shopping area in Canberra, and under a large and very old tree—appropriate of course given that Dalman’s book examines dance and nature. When the dance came to an end, the audience simply crossed the road for the launch function, which was held in, and sponsored by, the local bookshop, The Book Cow.

Vivienne Rogis (standing) and Peng Hsaio-yin dancing at the launch of *Nature Moves*, Canberra 2025. Photo: © Michelle Potter

Under the heading ‘Press for April 2025’ (see below) is my short article, which was published in CityNews on 28 April 2025, and which expands a little on how the launch unfolded.

Nature Moves is available from The Book Cow, via this link.

I also discovered, quite accidentally, news about the latest publication by Jill Rivers, whose generosity to reviewers I remember clearly from a period, some years ago now, when she was media director for the Australian Ballet. Her current publication, The Genius of Nijinsky, is an interesting read as Rivers had spent much time speaking to the present-day family of Vaslav Nijinsky. Her presence with, and thoughts about, those family members in a range of situations, sometimes quite personal, are embedded within the story.

The Genius of Nijinsky can be bought via a link to the site Art-full Living.

David Hallberg at Jacob’s Pillow, 2012

The latest playlist from Jacob’s Pillow has a short clip of David Hallberg, currently artistic director of the Australian Ballet, performing Nacho Duato’s Kaburias. Watch at this link.

A still showing David Hallberg in a moment from *Kaburias*, Jacob’s Pillow 2012

Just a year or two prior to the performance at Jacob’s Pillow, I had the pleasure of seeing Hallberg perform solo in New York in the series Kings of the Dance. Read my review here.

International Dance Day 2025

International Dance Day, 29 April, is always celebrated with a message from a major figure in the dance world. This year, 2025, the message came from Mikhail Baryshnikov whose comment read:

It’s often said that dance can express the unspeakable. Joy, grief, and despair become visible; embodied expressions of our shared fragility. In this, dance can awaken empathy, inspire kindness, and spark a desire to heal rather than harm.

Especially now—as hundreds of thousands endure war, navigate political upheaval, and rise in protest against injustice—honest reflection is vital. It’s a heavy burden to place on the body, on dance, on art. Yet art is still the best way to give form to the unspoken, and we can begin by asking ourselves: Where is my truth? How do I honor myself and my community? Whom do I answer to?

Latvian-born, Baryshnikov defected from the USSR in 1974. He has performed in Australia on various occasions, including in 1975 when he appeared with Ballet Victoria.

Mikhail Baryshnikov as Albrecht. *Giselle*, Act Ii. Ballet Victoria, 1975. Photo: © Walter Stringer/National Library of Australia

Press for April 2025

Dalman’s book looks at the creation of dance in nature

Michelle Potter, 30 April 2025

Featured image: Autumn colours in Canberra, April 2025. Photo: © Michelle Potter

Dance Week 2025. Savour the program being presented by Ausdance ACT

A somewhat intriguing sentence appears on the website of Ausdance ACT as the organisation sets out to introduce us to its program for Dance Week 2025. The suggestion is, Experience a tasting plate of performances, workshops, and activities for all ages with a range of free classes and events. Within those three sections (courses?) on the tasting plate—performances, workshops, and activities for all ages—there is a diverse menu from which we can choose.

Dance in the ACT has a community focus, which in a variety of ways reflects Canberra’s multicultural population. It also has a focus on diversity with the area’s dance activities also being inclusive of a range of ages with, for example, the presence of groups such as Canberra Dance Theatre’s GOLD company, which consists of dancers over the age of 55, and the Blueberries Classes for children from two to four years of age (and their parents). Many of these community groups have strong professional connections, but there is also a range of fully professional organisations focusing specifically on dance.

Dr Cathy Adamek, Executive Director of Ausdance ACT is convinced that dance has a particularly strong and well-defined presence in the ACT. She notes:

I have examined statistics from AusfitNation, which comes through the Department of Sport and Recreation and, according to those statistics, there are more dance studios per capita in the ACT than anywhere else in Australia. We have very strong student and pre-professional training pathways in Canberra. Not only that, perceptions of dance have changed. Dance has become a more inclusive form of activity. It has also become something that can be done at any level as a hobby.

Ausdance ACT’s 2025 Dance Week program brilliantly puts on display the complexity and diversity of dance in the ACT. Looking at the ‘Performance menu’, for example, there are presentations from Folk Dance Canberra; the Stellar Company featuring the Chamaeleon Collective and Hilal Dance Australia; Canberra Dance Theatre; QL2 Dance; a solo show from independent artist Mia Rashid; and a street performance combining contemporary dance, Butoh and improvisation.

A scene from *Stars in 3D* from the Chamaeleon Collective. *Stars in 3D* will feature in Dance Week 2025. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski

The ‘Workshop menu’ is also hugely varied and includes a Burlesque Workshop from the Menagerie of Misfits, and a Dance Film Workshop to discover, with Peng Hsiao-yin from Danceology Taiwan, how to film an original and creative self-portrait video. Then there’s the Australian Dance Party’s Immerse Lab with Omer Backley-Astrachan, a choreographer and educator who has worked with a range of dance companies across Australia, and an improvisation event with Debora Di Centa at Mirramu Creative Arts Centre. And more.

As for classes that are available, many of which are free to participants, the variety is impressive. They cross a wide range of dance styles—ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, belly dance, street dance, fitness, and other styles—and they range from classes for young children, classes for those with a disability, classes for older people, and more. One has a fascinating name: ‘Loitering & Leaping in the Library with ZEST’. It takes place in the National Library of Australia and is led by ZEST Dance for Wellbeing.

A class for older dancers. Photo: O&J Wikner Photography

Cathy Adamek stresses that there is a very strong emphasis on participation and inclusiveness in this year’s program, along with what she refers to as ‘a real rise and engagement with a younger generation as well as connections we have been able to make with some independent artists.’

Dance Week, which is always held around the date of International Dance Day on 29 April, runs in Canberra from 28 April to 5 May. The tasting plate looks delicious.

Here is the link to the full program for Dance Week in the ACT. Watch or participate, or both. Dance is for everyone.

Michelle Potter, 23 April 2025

Featured image: Ausdance ACT media image. Dancer: Alana Stenning. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Ausdance Network Submissions. Federal Budget & Child Safety

As I write this an Australian federal budget is shortly to be delivered, just ahead of the 2025 federal election. Leading up to these two events, the Ausdance network has been working hard to bring dance to the attention of various areas of the Australian federal government. Two documents have recently been submitted:

Ausdance Federal Budget Submission: The Ausdance network is calling on the federal government to recognise the vital role dance plays in the nation’s health, economy, and cultural identity by making meaningful investments in the 2025 federal budget.

Read the full submission at this link: 3fef73_c1d02e36fa654ac3a23b062ea005578b.pdf

Ausdance National Office of Child Safety Submission: The national Ausdance network has made a landmark submission for dance to the National Office for Child Safety in response to its Child Safety Annual Reporting Framework consultation paper.

It is not possible to overstate the urgency expressed by Ausdance members to comprehensively address the issue of child safety. The overwhelming response of the dance sector – following substantial consultation over more than four years – is that it should be better regulated so the safety of children in organisations is improved.

The full submission is available at this link: FINAL Advocacy_AusdanceNationalsubmission_National-Office-Child-Safety – Adobe cloud storage

Dance is frequently marginalised, along with other areas of the arts, in government circles (with a few major exceptions and, without wishing to deny the input from others, the impact of former Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam and, later, Paul Keating spring immediately to mind). So it is always a more than commendable matter when efforts are made to promote the potential impact dance can make across a variety of areas of society.

Both Ausdance submissions are in depth approaches to what dance can accomplish for a wide section of the population. My fingers are crossed for a positive approach from those to whom the submissions have been made. So many will benefit, young and old across the many areas identified in the submissions.

Michelle Potter, 21 March 2025

Youth Dance Festival turns 40

Canberra’s Youth Dance Festival has been a significant part of the city’s dance scene for an impressive four decades. It will shortly celebrate its 40th birthday with a program featuring a total of 45 short works danced over three nights by an incredible 800 students from 28 Canberra and district schools. Put together by Cathy Adamek, current director of Ausdance ACT, the 2024 program is called ‘What do you dream?’ and focuses on personal choices as life slowly returns to a stage where COVID no longer rules our lifestyle. As Adamek tells me, ‘This is the first time that the current generation can think about their future in terms of stability, in a way that is not inhibited.’

The 2024 theme follows on from those of 2021–2023 with the 2021 Festival, the first directed by Adamek, needing to be created as a digital production as a result of the COVID pandemic. The Festivals of 2022 and 2023 were live events but, nevertheless, their themes reflected the difficulties that had arisen as a result of the pandemic.

Dancers from Gungahlin College in their work from the 2021 Festival. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski, Art Atelier Photography

The process of getting the works onstage is a complex one, identified by Adamek as a matter of ‘co-creativity’. She suggests that it is this structured process that has made the project a durable one over the years. The choreography is largely student-led but the Festival has a group of mentors who visit schools to assist and advise, and who provide support and guidance to the students as they prepare their works for the performance. In addition, and as the result of a specific donation, the Festival will have (for the first time since 2021) a special opening work choreographed jointly by KG from Passion & Purpose Academy, Caroline Wall from Fresh Funk and Francis Owusu from Kulture Break.

I am fascinated too by the importance during the development process of a graphic item, in 2024 designed by Japanese-Australian artist Natsuko Yonezawa. ‘The graphic is part of the creative impetus,’ Adamek says. ‘I always suggest that creators use it if they want an inspiration for things like colours, tones, costumes. It’s part of giving the participants an awareness that creating a piece of dance theatre is not just about choreography.’

The graphic designed by Natsuko Yonezawa for the 2024 Youth Dance Festival

Canberra’s Youth Dance Festival began back in 1984 as the High Schools Dance Competition, an initiative of Melba High School teacher Marie de Blasio. It was supported by Audsance (then known as the Australian Association for Dance Education) and by the city’s two dance companies, Canberra Dance Theatre and Human Veins Dance Theatre. What followed in 1985 was a slightly changed format. As a result of an Ausdance survey of Australian dance, and spurred on by having seen a youth dance festival in Perth, run by the West Australian Department of Education for regional schools, Julie Dyson and Hilary Trotter worked with the then president of Ausdance, Annette Douglas (also a dance teacher at Dickson College), to set up a non-competitive, student-led event that would focus on dance but embrace other art forms such as poetry, music and design. Teachers were offered mentoring and the event would be held in a professional venue with professional lighting and an experienced producer. Further changes were made in 1987 when a time limit was set for each work.

(left) Finale from Youth Dance Festival, 1986. Theme: Peace in what was the International Year of Peace; (right) Dancers from Canberra High School, Youth Dance Festival 1987. Theme: Discovery. Photographers not identified.

Since those early years the concept of a non-competitive, student-led arts/dance festival remains. The 2024 Youth Dance Festival takes place over three nights, 6-8 November, with each night having different schools performing. See this link for booking information and for a list of schools performing on specific nights.

To support the Youth Dance Festival so it might continue its work see this link to an Australian Cultural Fund project.

Michelle Potter, 22 October 2024
with thanks to Cathy Adamek, Emma Dykes and Julie Dyson for their input into this post.

Featured image: Scene from Debora di Centa’s opening work at the Youth Dance Festival 2021. Theme: Digital Dystopia Utopia. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski, Art Atelier Photography

Hillscape. The Film

Hillscape, a site-specific work with choreography by Ashlee Bye, was given just one live performance in April 2023 at Canberra’s National Arboretum as part of the Canberra International Music Festival. I reviewed it then—see this link—and largely thought that it was quite an exceptional work. I did have one issue, however, and that was that the venue, including where the audience was required to be positioned, didn’t allow us (or me anyway) to enjoy fully the choreography. We were watching it from something of a distance! But at some stage Hillscape was filmed for Ausdance ACT by Cowboy Hat Films and was shown just recently as part of Ausdance ACT’s Dance Week 2024 program.

The film allows the occasional close-up of the choreography and it was a particular pleasure to watch these close-up sections. I was especially taken by a trio where Bye explored the use of the arms in relation to the body. I was impressed too with a close up of a solo by Yolanda Lowatta where the hands featured. Also enjoyable were various views of the three dancers exploring the space of the hillside with all kinds of action, including various rolling movements across the grass. The film also gave stronger sound to Dan Walker’s commissioned score with its assortment of instruments and voices. It was absolutely absorbing.

One side issue:
Although I have no formal evidence for when Hillscape was filmed, it seems not to have been at the original performance. The grass was not nearly so green in the film as I remember from the live performance, and as appears in the still images I have used here, and in my original review. Not that it is a major issue! The venue is still stunning and in fact seems even more exceptional in the film, which looks at the work from several positions so we get a wider or more diverse view of the location than was possible when seated in just one position as was the case during the live show.

With thanks to Ausdance ACT for making the film available. I’m not sure when, or if, the film will be made publicly accessible but I hope it happens.

Michelle Potter, 6 May 2024

Featured image: (l-r) Yolanda Lowatta, Patricia Hayes-Kavanagh and Ashlee Bye in Hillscape, Australian Dance Party, 2023. Photo: © Olivia Wikner

Co_Lab: 24. Australian Dance Party

29 April 2024. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre

Canberra Theatre Centre’s Courtyard Studio is always an interesting venue to visit. One never knows what might happen as far as performance goes, and not even how the venue will be set up. And so it was with the premiere of Co_Lab: 24 —the opening event for Ausdance ACT’s 2024 Australian Dance Week activities.

Co_Lab: 24 was an experimental collaboration using improvisation as a technique. It was performed by Alison Plevey and Sara Black from Australian Dance Party, guest dancer Melanie Lane, musicians Alex Voorhoeve and Sia Ahmad, and visual artist/lighting designer Nicci Haynes.

Entering the Courtyard Studio we were greeted with an instruction, ‘Please don’t walk on the black area.’ That black area was a large piece of tarkett spread across the floor space—the dance floor. A single row of chairs pressed against the four walls of the space was the seating for the audience, and at four points on the edges of the tarkett we noticed the two musicians with their instruments, the lighting/visual arts performer with a range of electronic items ready for use, and the photographer for the night, Lorna Sim.

There was no narrative and the show was certainly improvisatory with dancers and musicians always watching each other and moving or playing instruments in a collaborative manner. But there was an inherent plan within which the artists worked, made clear by those moments when a pattern of movement emerged. But there were also many other moments when absolute individuality predominated and the movement belonged specifically to particular dancers, and further moments when the dancers worked together without obvious patterning. All three dancers performed with admirable intensity using all parts of the body, even small parts such as fingers.

A lot of the movement was quite grounded (in true contemporary fashion). But there were also moments when a box became a prop that allowed the movement to reach upwards, and others when Nicci Haynes’ contribution of coloured imagery projected onto a rectangle of light in the centre of the tarkett allowed coloured patterns to appear over the bodies of the dancers.

(left) Sara Black, (reaching upwards) Melanie Lane, (on the floor) Alison Plevey in *Co_Lab: 24*. Australian Dance Party and collaborators. Photo: © Lorna Sim, 2024

Alison Plevey in *Co_Lab: 24*. Australian Dance Party and collaborators. Photo: © Lorna Sim, 2024

Part of the soundscape consisted of whispers, vocal noises, and other somewhat unrecognisable sounds from the equipment being used by Sia Ahmad. It was an unusual combination of sounds and, unfortunately, from where I was sitting it was difficult to follow what exactly was happening and how the sound was being created.

The absolute highlight for me was the finale when Voorhoeve stood up and moved into the centre of the tarkett space carrying his cello (his ‘regular’ one rather than the electric version that he had been playing for most of the performance). There he and Plevey performed a duet that was quite absorbing in the clear and strong interaction that existed between them. As the work came to a close Plevey left the spotlight leaving Voorhoeve alone. He played solo for a short time and then finished the evening by collapsing his body forward over the cello. The show was over.

Alex Voorhoeve in *Co_Lab: 24*. Australian Dance Party and collaborators. Photo: © Lorna Sim, 2024

Michelle Potter, 1 May 2024

Featured image: (l–r) Melanie Lane, Alison Plevey and Sara Black (with Alex Voorhoeve a small figure in the background) in Co_Lab: 24. Australian Dance Party and collaborators. Photo: © Lorna Sim, 2024