Dance diary. November 2023

  • Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards 2023: Dance

In November the Canberra Critics’ Circle announced its awards for 2023. This year five dance awards were presented:

Ruth Osborne, outgoing director of QL2 Dance, which Osborne has led since 1999.
Osborne’s award recognised in particular her outstanding input into James Batchelor’s production Shortcuts to Familiar Places, which was presented at Canberra’s Playhouse in April 2023. My review of Shortcuts is at this link.

Natsuko Yonezwa and Itazura Co for the film Kiku.
Kiku and its accompanying documentary explored dance and the ageing body through the experiences of six Canberra women. My review is at this link.

The six dancers in Kiku. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Australian Dance Party for Culture Cruise.
Culture cruise gave those who joined the cruise an innovative experience over land and water, which fused the performing arts, fine dining and Canberra’s cultural institutions. Read my review at this link.

Yolanda Lowatta in a scene from Culture Cruise. Photo: © Michelle Potter

Gretel Burgess for A Stroke of Luck.
A Stroke of Luck gave Gretel Burgess the opportunity to produce and direct her lived experience as a stroke survivor. Bill Stephens’ review is at this link.

Caitlin Schilg for her choreography for the Canberra Philharmonic Society Production of Cats.
Caitlin Schilg drew on a diverse range of dance styles to create a series of brilliantly staged production numbers for the musical Cats. Read a review by Bill Stephens at this link.

  • Oral history interview with Alice Topp

In November I had the pleasure, and honour, of recording an oral history interview for the National Library of Australia with Alice Topp, outgoing resident choreographer with the Australian Ballet.

Alice Topp during an oral history recording, 2023. Photo: © National Library of Australia/Michelle Potter

Alice was most forthcoming about her life and career to date and the interview contains some detailed material about her choreographic process and the establishment of Project Animo, her joint initiative with lighting designer Jon Buswell. The interview is currently undergoing accessioning but cataloguing details will be available in due course.

For more about Alice Topp on this website follow this link.

  • News from Queensland Ballet

Queensland Ballet has announced details of changes to its line-up of dancers for 2024 including the news that principal dancers Mia Heathcote and Victor Estévez will leave the company at the end of 2023 to join the Australian Ballet in 2024. Heathcote and Estévez have made a remarkable contribution to Queensland Ballet over the past several years. Each has given me much pleasure (Heathcote from as far back as 2013 before she even joined Queensland Ballet) and I hope they will be given every opportunity with the Australian Ballet.

In other news from Queensland Ballet, the company recently announced the establishment of the Van Norton Li Community Health Institute with the goal of sustaining and expanding its Dance Health programs across socioeconomic, age and geographic boundaries and all abilities. For more about the program, including information about the donors to this project, follow this link.

Michelle Potter, 30 November 2023

Featured image: Ruth Osborne (left) receiving her award from Dianne Fogwell, 2021 City News Artist of the Year. Photo: © Len Power

Hillscape. Australian Dance Party

28 April 2023. National Arboretum, Canberra

Hillscape, choreographed by Ashlee Bye in association with Australian Dance Party, was performed in the Amphitheatre at Canberra’s National Arboretum. It is a stunning outdoor venue with one problem—from where we the audience were required to position ourselves (on the very edge of the huge circular space, mostly standing unless we had brought a folding chair or were prepared to sit on the grass), the dancers were tiny figures in a vast grassy area. Luckily the images below give a close-up look at the nature of the choreography, which was not so clear from the edges of the amphitheatre. Peter Hislop’s image, as the featured one on this post, also shows the three black devices that produced (beautifully) Dan Walker’s original score commissioned by A Major Lift.

Early in Hillscape, the dancers worked with long pieces of cloth in shades of light and dark pink, sometimes with each performer manipulating an individual piece, at other times working together with one piece of cloth. And this separation/togetherness was an ongoing featured of Hillscape. The three dancers constantly came together and separated.

Patricia Hayes-Cavanagh, Yolanda Lowatta and Ashlee Bye in Hillscape, Australian Dance Theatre, 2023. Photo: © Peter Hislop
Ashlee Bye, Patricia Hayes-Cavanagh and Yolanda Lowatta in Hillscape, Australian Dance Theatre, 2023. Photo: © Peter Hislop


But ultimately the frustrating view we got from afar had to be seen as a reflection of the focus of the work—the endless cycle of generation and regeneration taking place in a vast landscape, made more relevant given that the Arboretum was created on land that was burnt to cinders in the disastrous bushfires that hit Canberra twenty years ago in 2003. There were moments in the work when it seemed that there was a struggle to survive, but others when growth seemed assured, and indeed had happened. But, nevertheless, I wished I could have had a closer view of the choreography, especially the detailed movements but also of the lyrical, swirling sections danced with skill and style by the three dancers.

Hillscape, commissioned by Ausdance ACT as part of its Dance Week program, was a component of Seeds of Life, a session in the 2023 Canberra International Music Festival (CIMF). It was preceded by a performance from clarinettist Oliver Shermacher, which we saw and heard in the Margaret Whitlam Pavilion; and three other musical presentations that took place in various outdoor locations in the Gallery of Gardens. Shermacher’s performance was a brilliant display of a highly theatrical attitude to musical presentation as at one stage he involved the audience using their mobile phones to provide a background to his playing, and he sang, spoke, moved (danced?) and generally surprised throughout.

Despite my frustrations, I am pleased I was able to see Hillscape, which had just one performance as part of CIMF. It not only suggested that Ashlee Bye is a choreographer to watch, but continued Australian Dance Party’s image as a company presenting site-specific works with unusual vision and inventiveness.

MIchelle Potter, 29 April 2023

Featured image: Patricia Hayes-Cavanagh, Ashlee Bye and Yolanda Lowatta in Hillscape, Australian Dance Theatre, 2023. Photo: © Peter Hislop.


Below is what the performance looked like from the edges of the amphitheatre!

Australian Dance Week, 2023. Ausdance ACT

Audiences in Canberra are being offered a wide range of dance events during the week beginning 29 April. That day is International Dance Day and the week of festivities, hosted by Ausdance ACT, will officially be opened on that very day by the ACT’s Minister for the Arts, Tara Cheyne MLA. The range of events is extraordinary and highlights the growing strength of dance, both professional and community, in the city and surrounds.

As a precursor to the week, Australian Dance Party, Canberra’s professional dance company, will present Hillscape at the National Arboretum on 28 April. Hillscape, choreographed by Ashlee Bye and co-commissioned by Ausdance ACT and Canberra International Music Festival (CIMF), will feature as part of a CIMF program called Seeds of Life. Seeds of Life marks the tenth anniversary of the National Arboretum and the twenty years that have passed since the disastrous bushfire season in Canberra in 2003. Hillscape, with an original score by Dan Walker, celebrates regeneration.

Yolanda Lowatta, Pat Hayes-Cavanagh and Ashlee Bye in Hillscape, 2023. Photo: © Olivia Wikner

But on International Dance Day itself audiences will be able to see two of Canberra’s professional, independent dance artists in a one-off performance, Batchelor & Lea, at the Canberra Theatre. James Batchelor will present his Shortcuts to Familiar Places, a solo work that premiered recently in Europe and that focuses on Batchelor’s examination, over an extended period, of how dance styles are transferred across generations of performers. Liz Lea will reprise her outstanding production, Red. Red was first seen in Canberra in 2018. Since then the production has toured extensively overseas.

The choreography of both Batchelor and Lea will feature elsewhere during the week. Batchelor’s new work for Canberra’s mature-age dancers, the GOLDs, is Leaning Rippling, Breathing. It will be featured at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) on 7 May as a pop-up experience in relation to the NPG’s current exhibition ‘Portrait 23: Identity’. This new, short work is accompanied by an original sound design by Morgan Hickinbotham. It will also be seen in the break between the two works on the Batchelor & Lea program.

The GOLDs in a study for Leaning, Rippling, Breathing, 2023. Photo: © James Batchelor/Zander Porter

Lea’s Stellar Company, a multi-arts dance company working in an inclusive, intercultural. intergenerational capacity, is presenting an online version of its earlier program, A Stellar Lineup (2022), over a 24 hour period. Check the Dance Week calendar (link below) for further details.

The focus on inclusivity by Batchelor and Lea in Leaning, Rippling, Breathing and A Stellar Lineup highlights the strength of community dance in Canberra and there are a number of community activities included during the week (see below for calendar link). One major community feature will be the free classes being offered by ZEST Dance for Wellbeing. ZEST offers a movement experience for adults who want to keep their body and brain active and healthy, regardless of their mobility, skill or age. A leading teacher for the ZEST program, and in many ways responsible for the existence of Dance for Wellbeing programs in Canberra, Philip Piggin, spoke to me about his interest in pursuing these projects stressing the importance of giving everyone a chance to experience the benefits of dance to mind and body.

ZEST Dance for Wellbeing class. Photo: © Art Atelier

Included in the Dance Week lineup are many other open classes in a variety of techniques from a variety of dance schools and organisations including a Hungarian folk dance workshop from Compagnie József Trefeli and a Bharatanatyam workshop from Vaidehi Subfamanyan. For information about classes and a number of events not mentioned in this post, see the full Dance Week calendar at this link (with apologies for non-inclusion of a number of exciting initiatives).

Michelle Potter, 19 April 2023

The best of … 2022

In 2022 I managed to see more live performances than I did in 2021. I was even able to get to New Zealand to see Loughlan Prior’s Cinderella. There were still a number of online offerings to add to the year’s viewing of course, and online watching has become part of my life I think.

As I did in 2021, I have chosen just five performances as my highlights for 2022, and the pluses and minuses experienced in 2021 were pretty much the same in 2022: difficulties resulting from choosing such a small number, but the advantage of having to focus strongly on what defines for me an outstanding work.

Below are my ‘top five’ productions for 2022, arranged chronologically according to the date of performance. I have included a link to my review in each case and have simply included in this post the main reason why I chose each work. All posts refer to live performances.

LESS (Canberra. Australian Dance Party, March)

LESS was a brilliant collaborative endeavour, and an outstanding site-specific work, the ongoing focus of Australian Dance Party.
Here is the link to the review.

(As a Canberra-based writer I also chose LESS as my highlight for 2022 for Dance Australia and my comments should appear in that magazine soon).

Kunstkamer (Sydney. The Australian Ballet, May)

Kunstkamer was an outstanding work that showed the Australian Ballet and its dancers in a totally new light.
Here is the link to the review.

Li’s Choice (Brisbane. Queensland Ballet, June)

Li’s choice showed the exceptional diversity of Queensland Ballet’s dancers and the equally exceptional directorship of Li Cunxin and his support staff.
Here is the link to the review.

Vito Bernasconi and Lina Kim in We who are left from the triple bill Li’s Choice. Queensland Ballet, 2022. Photo: © David Kelly

Galileo (Parramatta. Sydney Choreographic Ensemble, June)

Francesco Ventriglia skilfully demonstrated how choreography can convey a huge range of ideas and while doing so make a totally absorbing and focused work.
Here is the link to the review.

Veronika Maritati and Zachary Healey in a scene from Galileo. Sydney Choreographic Ensemble, 2022. Photo: © Daniel Asher Smith

Cinderella (Auckland. Royal New Zealand Ballet, August)

Loughlan Prior gave his Cinderella a setting and storyline that was a courageous and totally unexpected look at a well-worn story,
Here is the link to the review, and another link to an interview with Loughlan Prior in which he talks about Cinderella.

Laurynas Vejalis as the Royal Messenger and Clytie Campbell as the Queen in Cinderella. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2022. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Michelle Potter, 30 December 2022

Featured image: Dancers of Australian Dance Party in LESS, 2022. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards (Dance) 2022

22 November 2022, Canberra Museum and Gallery

Dance in Canberra showed its current and growing strength in the annual awards given by the Canberra Critics’ Circle. Five recipients were honoured with a dance award, the most for a single year (at least as far as I can recall) in the 32 year history of the CCC awards, which celebrate originality, excellence, energy and creativity across the arts. Here are the dance recipients, with citations.

ALI MAYES

For a performance that was both technically and theatrically strong, and in which characterisation of a leading role was maintained in an exceptional manner throughout. To Ali Mayes for Juliet in the Training Ground’s Unravel.

Read my review at this link.

Joshua Walsh and Ali Mayes in a scene from Unravel, 2022. Photo: © ES Fotografi

AUSDANCE ACT

For its initiative in bringing together dance filmmakers from the ACT and South Australia in October 2021 and September 2022 in which 9 short films were commissioned and shown, thus widening knowledge and understanding of Canberra’s dance culture beyond the ACT. To Ausdance ACT for their two collaborative programs of Dance.Focus.

Scroll down through this link to read my comments from the September season.

Dance.Focus 2022 montage

JAKE SILVESTRO

For an exceptional full-length solo performance choreographed using a variety of physical genres combined with a strong visual arts component and an underlying focus on issues concerning the disastrous bushfires that ravaged parts of Australia in December 2019. To Jake Silvestro for his production of and performance in December.

Read my review at this link.

Jake Silvestro in December, 2022. Photo: © Mark Turner

AUSTRALIAN DANCE PARTY

For an adventurous site-specific work that explored a Canberra sculpture and its surrounding watery setting through innovative dance, and exceptional lighting and sound design, to give the audience a highly immersive experience. To Australian Dance Party for LESS.

Read my review at this link.

Scene from LESS, 2022. Photo: © Lorna Sim

DANNY RILEY

For his charismatic, athletic performance in his self-choreographed work Similar, Same but Different, based on a piece choreographed by Ruth Osborne for Riley’s brother, and performed against a film of Osborne’s work. Similar, Same but Different was performed with a calm assurance that was as captivating as it was moving.  To Danny Riley for Similar, Same but Different.

Scroll through this link to read my comments on the 2020 production of Similar, Same but Different.

Danny Riley in Similar, Same but Different. Hot to Trot, 2020. Photo: © Lorna Sim
Danny Riley in Similar, Same but different, 20220 Photo: © Lorna Sim

Congratulations to those five awardees for moving Canberra dance forward during 2022.

Michelle Potter, 23 November 2022

Featured image: Ali Mayes and Joshua Walsh in rehearsal for Unravel, 2022. Photo: © ES Fotografi

Culture Cruise. Australian Dance Party

5 November 2022. Lake Burley Griffin and Canberra cultural institutions

There it was waiting as we arrived at Canberra’s Lawson Crescent Viewing Dock, a wharf at the edge of the site of the National Museum of Australia. It was a small orange boat holding 28 passengers and named ‘The Gull’. Formerly a fishing boat and now captained by the capable and knowledgeable Jim Patterson, it was to take us on a ‘Culture Cruise’, a four hour journey, which began and finished on Lake Burley Griffin, and which was the brainchild of the ever-adventurous Australian Dance Party.

The first leg of the trip took us across the calm and peaceful waters of the lake to Queen Victoria Wharf not far from Canberra’s Reconciliation Place. It was a relaxing ride of 20 minutes or so and it was a pleasure to see the buildings that we in Canberra know well but mostly see from a different vantage point. For those who may not know the buildings that dot Canberra’s lake shores, Captain Jim had a number of stories, historical and sometimes humour-filled, to tell.

The dancing began as we walked up to and through Reconciliation Place and continued as we crossed to the Portrait Gallery. Yolanda Lowatta danced solo during this part of the journey. She was a powerful figure in the quite simple choreography, which sometimes was performed around the structures making up the Place, and sometimes in the surrounding grassy and tree-filled landscape. Her strength had an emotional underpinning and gave rise to thoughts on the Indigenous aspects of the land on which she was dancing, and across which we were walking, Ngunnawal land.

From Reconciliation Place we walked on to the National Portrait Gallery where a row of seats outside the Gallery entrance awaited us. The performance began with music from jazz vocalist and composer Creswick (aka Liam Budge) who was soon joined by dancer Levente Szabo and then Lowatta. Szabo’s dancing was quite acrobatic while Lowatta’s had something of a Hispanic feel to it. They danced together and separately and their dancing, especially their interactions (sometimes also with Creswick), was always stimulating to watch. After this section of dancing we entered the Portrait Gallery and were given some time to see the art works on show, especially in the current exhibition, Who are you: Australian portraiture. Amongst a huge range of art works in the exhibition one stood out on this occasion for me, a charming head and shoulders portrait, which I had not seen before, of Dame Margaret Scott created by Kenneth Rowell in 1949.

Perhaps my favourite part of the journey came as we left the Portrait Gallery and headed in the direction of the National Gallery. We were led on this part of the journey by Levente Szabo who danced across the plaza in front of the High Court and over the bridge linking the the two well-known ‘brutalist’ buildings, the High Court itself and the National Gallery. He used the structures surrounding the buildings, and the space they occupied, in an interactive and skilful manner, and worked in a similar way as we moved past the Gallery and towards our lunch stop.

Levente Szabo on the bridge between the High Court and the National Gallery of Australia. Canberra 2022

Lunch was served at the Jetty Kiosk before we took to the boat again, with a glass of local wine, for another relaxing journey on water back to our starting point. The adventure ended in the amphitheatre at the Garden of Australian Dreams at the National Museum where we were entertained again by Creswick before being invited to experience the Museum’s newest space the Great Southern Land Gallery.

Liam Budge performing at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra 2022

Culture Cruise was created and presented by the Australian Dance Party as part of the Canberra Art Biennial. It was an extraordinarily memorable experience led by Stefanie Lekkas, a guide with a strong theatrical background, and with Indigenous cultural input from Ngunnawal advisors Aunty Caroline Hughes and Tara Hughes. It brought together over half a day so many aspects of Canberra’s cultural life—art, architecture, dance, music, food and wine and more—as well as giving an opportunity to take in the immediate landscape, the expansive lake and the beautiful surrounding mountains, the Brindabellas. While it would be an exceptional experience for visitors to Canberra, I (having lived in Canberra for 50+ years now) found so much to enjoy and think about. There are plans for Culture Cruise to continue in 2023. Do take the opportunity to join a cruise. You won’t be disappointed.

Michelle Potter, 8 November 2022

Featured image: ‘The Gull’ moored at Lawson Crescent Viewing Deck.

All photos: Michelle Potter

LESS. Australian Dance Party

4 March 2022, Dairy Road Precinct, Canberra.

Australian Dance Party (ADP) calls itself a site-specific company these days, and its most recent work, LESS, is an exceptional example of how this approach to the company’s productions plays out. Created and performed as part of Canberra’s annual Enlighten Festival and the 2022 BOLD Festival, LESS took place in and around a sculpture created by a Chilean-based architectural practice, Pezo von Ellrichshausen. The sculpture, named LESS, graces a space in the Dairy Road Precinct, an area devoted to mixed and emerging businesses. It is a structure of 36 towering concrete columns and a circular ramp leading to a viewing platform. In front of it is a water feature, which consists of large rectangular ponds of shallow water.

While official descriptions of the sculpture say it is ‘intentionally monotonous’, it might also be seen as looking back to the brutalist architecture that characterises many of Canberra’s best known public buildings. ADP’s use of the site for LESS, the dance work, was something of a remarkable adventure for the audience. Some were seated on the ramp, others dangled their feet in the water while sitting on chairs positioned in one of the watery rectangles.

LESS the dance work begins just as the light of the day is beginning to fade. The movement starts in the watery ponds in front the sculpture, and the dancers, joined by a saxophonist (John Mackey) and a vocalist (Liam Budge), make their way towards the sculpture. Their movement is slow and deliberate and focuses on making right angled turns to change direction. It seems to reflect the upright qualities and lack of any sense of curved lines in the 36 columns. Once they reach the water directly in front of the sculpture, however, their imagination lets fly. They twist, bend, stretch and interact with each other, often splashing water in various directions, before making their way onto the sculpture itself. As the natural light fades away completely, the truly remarkable lighting design by Ove Mcleod takes over.

As the dancers transition from the water onto the sculpture their movement often becomes quite structured. Sometimes it reflects the upright nature of the columns. Sometimes it uses the columns as complete or partial hiding places. Sometimes it ignores that structural quality and becomes quite free and adventurous. And, in a remarkable manner, Mcleod’s lighting design allows what is happening on the floor of the sculpture to be reflected in the water giving a strange sensation of no beginning or no end to the dance.


The performers wore costumes by Aislinn King in colours of white and grey, although this colour scheme, like that of the concrete pillars, changed under the effects of the lighting design. Sound design was by Alex Voorhoeve and, in addition to the sounds of the saxophone, Liam Budge’s vocals, created through a hand-held microphone, were an interesting blend of grunts, moans, shouts, whispers and other assorted sounds that often seemed to reflect the dancers’ movements.

It is a joy to see ADP back in performance mode. The company, directed by Alison Plevey, may have a different approach to dance from many other companies, but LESS was a triumph of collaboration. Every aspect of the production contributed in a theatrical way to give a show that resonates still in my mind. I love being able to think up new ideas about dance and how it relates to us, society, and other art forms. LESS gave me that opportunity.

Michelle Potter, 6 March 2022

All photos, Australian Dance Party in LESS, 2022: © Lorna Sim

Jareen Wee in The Point

Dance diary. November 2021

  • Canberra Critics’ Circle. Awards for 2021

The 2021 Canberra Critics’ Circle awards ceremony took place on 30 November at the Canberra Museum and Gallery. The awards were presented to recipients by Patrick McIntyre, newly appointed CEO of the National Film and Sound Archive and, as is the custom, were presented across all major art forms including performing, visual and literary genres.

Given the difficult circumstances artists across all performing genres have recently experienced, the Circle’s Dance Panel was pleasantly surprised to have such an exceptional range of dance events to consider when discussing the awards. Below is the list, with citations, of the recipients of dance awards.

LIZ LEA DANCE COMPANY
For The Point, a courageous exploration of connection and creativity across different dance styles and cultures through innovative choreography highlighted by outstanding use of music and a remarkable lighting design by Karen Norris.

Example of lighting for The Point. Liz Lea Dance Company, 2021. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski

OLIVIA FYFE and ALEX VOORHOEVE
For a collaborative blend of live music and movement that highlighted expressive connections between dancer and musician while dramatising certain effects of climate change in nature in Australian Dance Party’s Symbiosis, during an exploration of the Australian National Botanic Gardens as part of Enlighten 2021.

Alex Voorhoeve and Olivia Fyfe in Symbiosis. Australian Dance Party, 2021. Photo: © Michelle Potter

BONNIE NEATE and SUZY PIANI
For their remarkable re-imagining of Giselle, entitled Unveiled, which they produced, directed and choreographed embracing elements of classical ballet, contemporary and commercial dance to create a thrilling evening of impeccably prepared, presented and performed dance to showcase the talents of twenty pre-professional dancers chosen at open audition.

QL2 DANCE
For a beautifully structured work, Sympathetic Monsters, that examined concepts of isolation and belonging in a production that juxtaposed the group and the individual through choreography by Jack Ziesing, original music by Adam Ventoura, and a committed performance by the large ensemble.

Scene from Jack Ziesing’s Sympathetic Monsters. QL2 Dance, 2020. Photo: © Lorna Sim

MICHELLE HEINE
For her imaginative, exuberant and brilliantly crafted choreography for Free Rain Theatre’s production of Mamma Mia.

  • The Dancer. A biography for Philippa Cullen

A new book from Giramondo Publishing was recently brought to my attention. Written by Evelyn Juers, it is a biography of Philippa Cullen or, as the author puts it, ‘for’ Philippa Cullen. On one occasion Cullen said to Juers that if she (Cullen) were to die early, she would like Juers to write about her. Cullen, an Australian dancer with a remarkable approach to dance making, died in India at the very young age of 25. The dancer fulfills Cullen’s wish and becomes a biography for her. I am looking forward to reading it!

Further information is at this link.

Michelle Potter, 30 November 2021

Featured image: Jareen Wee in The Point. Liz Lea Dance Company, 2021. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski

Jareen Wee in The Point
Olivia Fyfe in 'Symbiosis' (4) Australian Dance Party 2021. Photo Michelle Potter

Symbiosis. Australian Dance Party

10 March 2021, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra

Symbiosis was Australian Dance Party’s contribution to Canberra’s Enlighten Festival for 2021. Made in true ADP style as a site-specific work, it took place in various parts of the Australian National Botanic Gardens. It was in fact a guided tour through the Gardens with snippets of dance, music and poetry, and even instruction about various plants, inserted at various points. Again in true ADP style, the work had political overtones, on this occasion issues associated with the environment. True to its title, it explored both conflict and interference, as well as fusion between species (including the human species) in the world in which we live, the natural world that is.

We set off with a guide (Liz Lea dressed as a kind of outback botanist) and began our journey with a walk through the lush rainforest area. There we encountered, at first individually, members of the Canberra-based group Somebody’s Aunt. As we made our way through the gully, we could hear them breathing and see them gently moving as we passed by. Eventually we reached a higher point and could look down at them as they came together to embrace each other, and perhaps the environment (?).

Dancers from Somebody's Aunt in 'Symbiosis'. Australian Dance Party 2021. Photo Michelle Potter
Dancers from Somebody’s Aunt in Symbiosis. Australian Dance Party, 2021. Photo: © Michelle Potter

Further along the rainforest gully we were asked to pause and looked up to see Ryan Stone moving across a ridge of trees and plants to sounds of a human voice created by Stone and poet Melinda Smith. And so we continued with the botanist-figure naming various plant species and explaining various matters about other species and their place in nature. We encountered Levi Szabo engaging acrobatically with a tree and its spreading branches, and with the benches that were on the ground close to it. At various points we also noticed Alison Plevey as a kind of lizard/dragon lurking in the bushes and on the paths.

The standout item for me was a section featuring Olivia Fyfe performing to a soundscape by Alex Voorhoeve on electric cello. Fyfe dramatised thoughts about the fate of a tree, with those thoughts ranging from the idea of protection to horror at what was the eventual fate of the tree. Voorhoeve made those changing thoughts audible in stunning fashion. It was an extraordinarily moving section, made especially so by the collaborative blend of movement and music.

The most obviously political section came towards the end when Alison Plevey played the part of some kind of leader attempting to convince her audience (of plants) that ‘the bigger picture’ was being considered, while the ‘green’ organisation she represented moved along (or didn’t) with its environmental plans (or lack thereof).

Alison Plevey in 'Symbiosis'. Australian Dance Party 2021. Photo Michelle Potter
Alison Plevey in Symbiosis Australian Dance Party, 2021. Photo: © Michelle Potter

In addition to the moving performance from Voorhoeve and Fyfe as they contemplated the destruction of a tree, an exceptional performance came from the Gardener, danced and acted by Elizabeth Dalman. So immersed was she in her character and so beautifully disguised in her costume, especially that soft-brimmed hat, that it took me a while to realise that it was in fact Dalman. She appeared and re-appeared several times as a kind of ‘extra’ until the very end when she led the concluding dance. She began by setting up the shape of a star, made from bark pieces, on the ground at the final venue. Accompanied by the words of Melinda Smith, which were often difficult to make out in the very open space of the Gardens, one by one the performers we had watched came together. Maintaining her distance from the others, Dalman soothed and comforted, calmed and regenerated. She showed her true colours as an extraordinary artist throughout.

Elizabeth Dalman in 'Symbiosis'. Australian Dance Party 2021. Photo Michelle Potter
Elizabeth Dalman in Symbiosis. Australian Dance Party, 2021. Photo: © Michelle Potter

Symbiosis lasted for 90 minutes, which was, at least for me, about 30 minutes too long given the small amount of performance we saw. Did we really need all that botanical information? A little was fine but announcing all those Latin names of various plant species was pretty much unnecessary. We can go on a special Botanic Gardens tour if we need to get to know that kind of information.

Symbiosis was in essence an after-dark show, although I ended up seeing it in the early evening, which gave me lots of pleasure. Looking at published images taken during evening shows, I am glad I had the opportunity to see it in an ‘enlightened’ situation where the performance skills of the artists involved were clearer. The pleasures of carrying lanterns during the late evening shows, as I believe was the case, and the fairy lights that decorated the pathways, may have been fun but I prefer to have a clear view of how the artists are performing.

Perhaps the final note is to say that the event was constantly permeated by the sound of the wind in the trees and the birds calling each other. Even a hungry magpie hopped across the grass looking for scraps for its dinner as Fyfe and Voorhoeve were at work. From the point of view of the ambient sound, and the slow change of light as dusk began to fall, the show was very special.

Michelle Potter, 13 March 2021

Featured image: Olivia Fyfe in Symbiosis. Australian Dance Party, 2021. Photo: © Michelle Potter

Olivia Fyfe in 'Symbiosis' (4) Australian Dance Party 2021. Photo Michelle Potter

Dance diary. December 2020

The best of everything to those who have followed this website over the past year. Thank you for your loyalty. And here’s hoping that 2021 will be one that is filled with dance, even live dance perhaps? Stay safe and healthy.

  • Highlights of 2020 (on and off stage)

I was very fortunate to see the opening night performance of Graeme Murphy’s The Happy Prince. It had a short run in Brisbane in February but showings elsewhere were cancelled due to the pandemic. I really would like to see it again as there was a lot there that needed a second look. I hope we will see it again, given that the leadership of the Australian Ballet has changed.

Adam Bull as the Prince in The Happy Prince. The Australian Ballet, 2020. Photo: © Jeff Busby

By mid year we were still not back in the theatre but Alison Plevey and her Australian Dance Party created Lake March in which, over several weekends in August, eight dancers, accompanied by two musicians, made their way around Canberra’s three lakes. They paused briefly on occasions to engage with each other and with the rather surprised audience of joggers, bike riders and so on who were also using the lakeside for exercise. Lake March won Plevey a Canberra Critics’ Circle award in December. The citation read:

For courageously working within the restrictive conditions generated by COVID-19 to bring an innovative and entertaining production of dance and live music, presented in several outdoor venues, to an audience of dance goers and the wider Canberra community. Alison Plevey for Lake March.

Australian Dance Party in a moment from Lake March. Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra, 2020. Photo: © Lorna Sim

In October we were able to venture into the theatre for a QL2 Dance program featuring a work called Sympathetic Monsters by Jack Ziesing. It was an absorbing work in terms of its choreographic structure and in its thematic content.

Of course I watched many streamed performances over the course of 2020. It was more than interesting to see close-up images of faces and expressions and also details of costume. Nothing can replace a live performance but I derived much pleasure from streamed performances, especially from companies I wouldn’t normally see. Borrowed Light from Finland’s Tero Saarinen Company in collaboration with Boston Camerata was perhaps the most outstanding example. I was transfixed by this performance and have Jacob’s Pillow to thank for streaming it as part of the Pillow’s Virtual Festival 2020.

Dancers from the Tero Saarinen Company in Borrowed Light. Photo: © Christopher Duggan
  • Sunil Kothari (1933–2020). Indian dance critic

I was saddened to hear of the death of Indian dance writer Sunil Kothari from complications of COVID-19. He visited Australia on a number of occasions and I recall a talk he gave in Canberra for the Canberra Critics’ Circle, several years ago now. He was a passionate advocate for dance and was a mentor to Padma Menon, who performed extensively in Canberra during the 1990s.

  • Kristian Fredrikson. Designer. More reviews and comments

Kristian Fredrikson. Designer featured as the ‘Publishing Spotlight’ in the Summer 2020–2021 edition of the newsletter of the Friends of the National Library of Australia. The review was written by Friends Committee Member and well known Canberra-based arts and craft specialist, Meredith Hinchliffe. Follow this link to read the review.

  • Site news

At this time of year it is always interesting to look back at which posts were most popular over the course of the year. Leading post was the obituary for Athol Willoughy (and 2020 is not the first year that an obituary has taken first place). Following on were Thoughts on Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring (still popular after all these years); Romeo and Juliet. The Australian Ballet; Terrain. Bangarra Dance Theatre; and Moon Water. Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan.

Most visits came from Australia followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and France.

Michelle Potter, 31 December 2020

Featured image: Gum blossoms, Canberra, 2007 (detail). Photo: © Nick Potter