Shortcuts to Familiar Places. James Batchelor and collaborators

29 April 2023. Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre

Shortcuts to Familiar Places began a few years ago as an investigation by James Batchelor into the transmission of dance from one generation to another. Dance is an art form that has no widely practiced method of reconstruction via a score or similar written derivative, and knowledge of a movement style or a particular choreographic work is most commonly regarded as being passed on from body to body—sometimes referred to as ‘embodied transmission’. Batchelor was especially interested in his own ‘body luggage’, transmitted to him by his early dance teacher Ruth Osborne whose background had links to the work of pioneering dancer and teacher Gertrud Bodenwieser, and who had mentored Batchelor at Canberra’s QL2. The work that emerged was the above-mentioned Shortcuts to Familiar Places and the result was somewhat unexpected with its beautifully conceived melding of film footage and onstage movement. A driving, original score from Morgan Hickinbotham was played live and a changing pattern of light and dark came from lighting designer Vinny Jones.

Shortcuts began with footage of Osborne giving us an insight into the swirling movements of the arms and upper body that she absorbed via her teacher, former Bodenwieser dancer, Margaret Chapple. As the footage came to an end, Batchelor appeared onstage and began a shadowy solo that began slowly but that gathered momentum as time passed. It was fascinating to watch the movement unfold and to feel a clear connection to Osborne’s demonstration, but also to see dancing that moved away from the initial style in a very geometrically structured manner.

James Batchelor in a moment from *Shortcuts to Familiar Places*, Canberra 2023. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Batchelor left the stage at the end of the solo and more footage appeared. This time we watched as Eileen Kramer, a surviving Bodenwieser dancer (now aged 107), recalled some of the choreography she had danced during the Bodenwieser era, in particular movements from the duet Waterlilies. This she was passing on to Batchelor and filmmaker Sue Healey (neither of whom we saw on the footage but whose presence was clear to us).

An onstage duet between Batchelor and another QL2 alumna, Chloe Chignell, followed and at times recalled, quite strongly for me, the intertwining of arms that characterised Waterlilies. But again, Batchelor’s choreography didn’t stay with Kramer’s recollections but moved on in a new direction using the Waterlilies movements as a starting point. That Batchelor named the duet Bodenwieser Remixed gives a clue to what was occurring and in fact probably encapsulates Batchelor’s whole process with Shortcuts. But that aside, the duet showed a truly exquisite dancerly connection between Batchelor and Chignell.

James Batchelor and Chloe Chignell in a moment from *Shortcuts to Familiar Places*, Canberra 2023. Photo: © Lorna Sim

The final piece of footage was an exceptional mix of different snippets of film including some relating to Osborne; some to Carol Brown, former student of Bodenwieser dancer Shona Dunlop MacTavish; and, briefly in archival footage, some to MacTavish herself, with Batchelor and Chignell reacting to the footage. In one amazing moment, Osborne on film stretched her arm forward in a straight line towards Batchelor and Chignell on the stage as if reaching to them in a gesture of transmission, which they accepted with arms outstretched towards the footage. There it was, the lineage for us all to see.

Ruth Osborne with James Batchelor and Chloe Chignell in a moment from *Shortcuts to Familiar Places*, Canberra 2023. Photo: © Lorna Sim

The duet that Batchelor and Chignell continued as the last section of footage faded was linked choreographically with the previous one, at least at first in terms of the connection that was set up between the two dancers. But gradually Hickinbotham’s score got stronger and more urgent, and the gentleness of the choreography gathered strength and speed. There was, throughout this last duet, a link back to Bodenwieser, I believe, as much of the movement seemed to be moving in a figure-of-eight pattern, which Osborne had mentioned in her early demonstration of the Bodenwieser technique. But the duet moved faster and faster with little skips and jumps inserted. Then it came to a sudden end with a blackout. When the lights went up, we saw how Batchelor and Chignell had gone all out, dancing on and on until pretty much exhausted, to give us a modern perspective on the transmission they had been examining.

Shortcuts to Familiar Places, which includes dramaturgy by Bek Berger, was an intelligently thought through show and just brilliant to watch and consider.

Michelle Potter, 1 May 2023

Featured image: James Batchelor and Chloe Chignell in a moment from Shortcuts to Familiar Places, Canberra 2023. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Elaine Vallance (1932–2021)

Elaine Vallance, who has died aged 89 in Melbourne, was a much admired member of the Bodenwieser Ballet from 1949 to 1954 before moving to Melbourne in 1955. In Melbourne she opened a dance school, keeping up connections with Dory Stern, Bodenwieser’s music director, and also teaching at schools in Melbourne, including Ivanhoe and Camberwell Girls’ Grammars. She continued to teach for the rest of her life, stopping only shortly before her death.

Vallance began dancing as an eight year old with Gertrud Bodenwieser at her Sydney school and by 1948 had been chosen as a demonstrator for classes. On joining the Bodenwieser Ballet in 1949 she performed with the group in Sydney and toured with them to South Africa and New Zealand in 1950, then across Australia in 1951 as part of the Arts Council’s Jubilee Tour to celebrate the establishment of Federation.

Bodenwieser Ballet on tour in New Zealand, 1950. Papers of Gertrud Bodenwieser (MS 9263), National Library of Australia

When a small group of dancers accompanied Bodenwieser to India in the second half of 1952, Vallance, along with Emmy Taussig, took charge of the Bodenwieser School in Sydney. Then, on Bodenwieser’s return and throughout 1953, Vallance danced with the Bodenwieser Ballet on an extensive tour of regional towns in New South Wales and in a variety of concerts in and around Sydney. The following year, 1954, Vallance performed and toured as one of the Spirits of the Whirlwinds, along with others from the Bodenwieser company, in Beth Dean’s Corroboree, staged in celebration of the visit to Australia by Queen Elizabeth II.

Elaine Vallance (centre front) with, (clockwise from top left), Nina Baron, Moira Claux and Biruta Apens in a study for Gertrud Bodenwieser’s *The Blue Danube*, Victorian tour 1950. Photographer unknown. Photo courtesy of Barbara Cuckson

During her time with the Bodenwieser Ballet, Vallance appeared in most of Bodenwieser’s major works and many smaller works as well. Her solo, The Moth, from Life of the Insects, became a popular inclusion in Bodenwieser programs and Vallance, in a costume of draped grey chiffon, received constant praise from critics with words such as ‘a vision of beauty and grace’.

Elaine Vallance as ‘The Moth’, c. 1949. Photo courtesy of Barbara Cuckson

Like so many of her Bodenwieser colleagues, Vallance continued to be aware of the impact Gertrud Bodenwieser had on her life and career. Writing to Barbara Cuckson, director of the Rozelle School of Visual Arts, she recalled:

I was intrigued and fascinated by the comprehensive way in which she explored movement. When Bodenwieser had a new movement idea she always explored it to the full.
A movement could be done in different directions, forwards, sideways, backwards; it could be performed on different levels, standing, kneeling, sitting, lying. There were different intensities to try out, flowing, swinging, impulsive, or it could be done with strength, possibly using straight lines or sharp angles. There was the possibility of the movement being performed in opposition or parallel to the rest of the body, and of course carried into space with steps, jumps or turns.
Then came the option of combining any two or three of these aspects, or combining the new movement with another previously explored, and the exploring the various relationships of these two movements.

Vallance often returned to Sydney where she taught master classes and oversaw reconstructions of Bodenwieser works at the Rozelle School of Visual Arts. Her last visit was in 2017 when she worked on a reconstruction of Sunset.

(left Elaine Vallance teaching Gertrud Bodenwieser’s *Blue Danube* at the Rozelle School of Visual Arts, 1994; (right) Portrait of Elaine Vallance, 2017. Photos courtesy of Barbara Cuckson

Elaine Vallance is survived by her daughters, Julia and Sue, and their respective families.

Elaine Vallance (Featherstone): born Sydney, 20 January1932; died Melbourne, 3 October 2021

Michelle Potter, 3 October 2021

Featured image (detail): Elaine Vallance in her solo as the Moth from Gertrud Bodenwieser’s Life of the Insects. Photo: Sun Newspapers. Full image below.

NOTE: The death of Elaine Vallance means that there is now only one dancer from those early Bodenwieser days who is still living. It is Eileen Kramer who is approaching her 107th birthday in November.

Coralie Hinkley (1922–2021)

Coralie Hinkley, who has died in Sydney in her 99th year, was born in the inner-Sydney suburb of Glebe to Vera and John Hinkley. She was a fifth generation Australian and was educated at Maroubra Junction Primary School, then at a boarding school in Springwood in the Blue Mountains, and finally at SCEGGS (Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School). The Hinkley name was a prominent one across Sydney after Coralie’s father established the exclusive jewellery store, Hinkley’s Diamonds, in busy Castlereagh Street in 1920. Although the enterprise was sold by the family on John Hinkley’s death, the Hinkley name was retained by the new buyers and the store was active for close to 100 years.

Coralie Hinkley first became interested in dance while at school when an afternoon concert featured dances by ‘a visiting European dance group’.¹She later began serious dance studies with Gertrud Bodenwieser, whose dancers she had seen at that afternoon concert, and eventually became a member of the Bodenwieser Ballet and a teacher for the Bodenwieser enterprise. She often wrote of her lasting admiration for Bodenwieser, saying on one occasion:

… the experiences dancing with Gertrud Bodenwieser heightened my creative awareness contributing to the freeing of imaginative sources so that now I am able to activate the creative energy not only in dance but in the expressiveness of the world … 2

The photograph below on the left is dedicated to Bodenwieser and is inscribed on the back with the words, ‘To Madame. Your devoted pupil always. Love Coralie.’

(left) Coralie Hinkley dancing in a park; (right) Coralie Hinkley with Eileen Kramer and Mardi Watchorn in *The Wheel of Life*. Photographers not identified. Papers of Gertrud Bodenwieser, MS 9263, National Library of Australia

In 1956, while still with Bodenwieser, Hinkley choreographed Unknown Land, based on imagery she found in the poetry of Rex Ingamells. It was danced to a commissioned score by John Antill and it formed part of her application for a Fulbright Scholarship, which she was awarded in 1957. As the first Australian dancer to be awarded a Fulbright for graduate study in modern dance, she spent the next three years in the United States where she studied with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Louis Horst and Merce Cunningham. Each of these choreographers she credited with giving her new insights into dance and performance, but of Doris Humphrey she wrote, ‘It was largely due to the influence and teachings of Doris Humphrey that I began to create and choreograph.’³

On her return to Australia after her Fulbright studies she continued to pursue her choreographic interests. In the 1960s and 1970s she staged several works for Ballet Australia, the choreographic company established by Valrene Tweedie in 1960. Those works included Éloges, Day of Darkness, Improvisations, L’Isle joyeuse, The Forest and Ritual for Dance Play and Magic. A number of these works were first performed by the Fort Street Dance Group, which Hinkley had established as part of her teaching program at Fort Street Girls’ High School. Hinkley started this creative dance program in 1963 and continued teaching until 1975, with that last year being conducted at Fort Street High School, with the name change reflecting the fact that the school had become co-educational.

Scene from *Éloges* with (l-r) Helen Lisle, Keith Bain, Coralie HInkley and Lesma von Sturmer. Ballet Australia, 1962 (?). Photo: © Denise Fletcher

Scene from *Ritual for Dance, Play and Magic*. Photo: © Leone Vining-Brown

Her work during that time was filmed on occasions. Choros, for example was filmed by the Physical Education Department at Sydney University and was awarded a special prize for cultural and educational merit. The Chairs was filmed by the Commonwealth Film Unit as part of the series Australian Diary and was shown around Australia and overseas.

Following the Fort Street experience, Hinkley went on to pursue tertiary teaching activities over a number of years most significantly with Catholic Colleges of Education from 1976 to 1984. In 1989 she worked with students taking the Diploma in Dance Education at the Sydney Dance Development Centre, and gave creative workshops at the Centre for Human Aspects of Science and Technology at the University of Sydney.

Following her 1980 publication Creativity in Dance, Hinkley wrote several books of poetry, which are intended as source material for creative movement, as well as books related to her creative practice.

Hinkley’s sources of inspiration for her choreography were many and varied. She often found inspiration in the visual arts. Of her work The Forest, made for the Fort Street Dance Group, she wrote, ‘The dancers represent the emaciated sculptural beings of Giacometti—and his conception of life—of man’s inability to communicate with his fellow man.’⁴ Poetry was also inspirational for her, going back to 1956 with Unknown Land and the work of Rex Ingamells. Musically, her taste was eclectic and she favoured Australian composers when she could, again going back to Unknown Land and John Antill. And, while the choreographers she worked with in the United States as a Fulbright scholar continued to have an influence on the structure of her works, she probably was always influenced most by her earliest mentor, Gertrud Bodenwieser.

‘As dancers our “creative personality” was brought into focus by Gertrud Bodenwieser, who in her search for truth and beauty could touch the human spirit … that is why I stayed so long.’⁵

Coralie Hinkley died in Sydney on 21 September. She is survived by her daughter, Sancha Donald.

Friends from the Bodenwieser days, Eileen Kramer and Coralie Hinkley, 2018. Photo: © Sue Healey

Coralie May Hinkley: born Sydney, 23 September 1922; died Sydney, 21 September 2021

Michelle Potter, 22 September 2021

Featured image: Coralie Hinkley in costume for O World (detail), Bodenwieser Ballet, 1950s. Photo: © Margaret Michaelis

Notes
Coralie Hinkley was interviewed twice for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. Neither interview is available online due to restrictions placed on them by Hinkley. Transcripts are available but cannot be accessed at present given that the National Library is currently closed due to COVID lockdown in the ACT. This situation has limited the scope of this obituary for the moment.

1. Coralie Hinkley, ‘Reflections on dance at Fort Street.’ In The Fortian, 1976, p. 77.
2. Coralie Hinkley, ‘Vision’. In Bettina Vernon-Warren and Charles Warren (eds), Gertrud Bodenwieser and Vienna’s Contribution to Ausdruckstanz (Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999) p. 167.
3. Coralie Hinkley, Innovisions. Expressions of Creativity in Dance (Cygnet Books, 1990) p. 12.
4. Hinkley, ibid, p. 40.
5. Hinkley, ibid. p. 5.

Dean Cross, Caitlin MacKenzie and Gemma Dawkins in 'Walking and Falling', 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Dance diary. November 2015

Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards: Dance 2015

The Canberra Critics’ Circle annual awards ceremony took place on 23 November and, in a special moment for dance in the Canberra region, Elizabeth Dalman was named ACT Artist of the Year. A well deserved award in a year when Dalman, currently teaching in Taiwan, worked extraordinarily hard to bring attention to the diverse history of Australian Dance Theatre, which celebrated fifty years of creativity in 2015.

Elizabeth Dalman in Taiwan, 2014. Photo: Chen, Yi-shu — Elizabeth Dalman in Taiwan, 2014. Photo: © Chen, Yi-shu

Among the Circle’s general awards, which go to innovative activities in the performing and visual arts, and literature, two dance awards were given for 2015. Dalman received an award for her works Fortuity and L, both of which highlighted the range of her choreography dating from her time as director of Australian Dance Theatre to her recent work for her Mirramu Dance Company. Ruth Osborne, director of QL2 Dance, received an award for her work Walking and Falling, commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery and made in conjunction with its World War I exhibition All that Fall.

Caitlin MacKenzie and Gemma Dawkins in 'Walking and falling', 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim — Caitlin MacKenzie and Gemma Dawkins in a moment from Ruth Osborne’s *Walking and falling*, 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Keir Choreographic Award 2016

Eight emerging (and not so emerging) choreographers have been selected as finalists in the 2016 Keir Choreographic Award. Two have strong Canberra connections: James Batchelor and Chloe Chignell. Canberra audiences will remember their joint show earlier this year, when Batchelor showed Metasystems and Chignell Post Phase. The two have worked together frequently over the past few years with Chignell often appearing in works choreographed by Batchelor.

The other finalists are Sarah Aiken, also a finalist in the first Keir Award in 2014, along with Ghenoa Gela, Martin Hansen, Alice Heyward, Rebecca Jensen and Paea Leach. The eight finalists will each show a work, commissioned by the Keir Foundation, in Melbourne at Dancehouse in April 2016. Four works will then be selected by a jury and shown in Sydney at Carriageworks in May 2016, where the winner will be chosen.

Bodenwieser Ballet

Shona Dunlop MacTavish, former dancer with the Bodenwieser Ballet, recently visited Sydney from her home in New Zealand and, to celebrate the occasion, some of her Bodenwieser colleagues gathered in Sydney for a special get together. The image below shows Eileen Kramer (left) now 101 and Shona Dunlop MacTavish now 96. In the background they can be seen in a photograph in which they are dancing in Gertrud Bodenwieser’s Blue Danube, one of their best known roles.

Shona Dunlop MacTavish and Eileen Kramer, Sydney 2015. Photo: Barbara Cuckson — Shona Dunlop MacTavish (right) and Eileen Kramer, Sydney 2015. Photo: © Barbara Cuckson

Oral history interviews with Shona Dunlop MacTavish and Eileen Kramer are available online. Follow the links to the National Library of Australia’s online oral history site: Shona Dunlop MacTavish; Eileen Kramer.

Ian Templeman (1938–2015); Glenys McIver (1949–2015)

I was saddened to hear of the deaths in November of two former colleagues from the National Library of Australia, Ian Templeman and Glenys McIver. While perhaps not widely known in the dance community, both made a significant contribution to the growth of my career as a dance writer, historian and curator. Glenys appointed me as the Esso Research Fellow in the Performing Arts at the National Library in 1988. Among my many activities in that position, I began recording oral history interviews for the Library, which I continue to do now some 25 years later.

Ian was appointed Assistant Director General Public Programs at the National Library in 1990 and proceeded to expand the Library’s publishing program. This involved establishing the monthly magazine National Library of Australia News (now renamed The National Library of Australia Magazine and published quarterly), and the quarterly journal Voices (now no longer active). He encouraged my dance writing for both publications and was responsible for commissioning my book A Passion for Dance (now out of print), which consisted of a series of edited oral history interviews with some of Australia’s foremost choreographers.

Both Glenys and Ian made significant other contributions to my career. I will always be grateful for their mentorship.

Dance rattles (tied around the ankles during performance) from Bondé, New Caledonia

Michelle Potter, 29 November 2015

Featured image: Dean Cross, Caitlin MacKenzie and Gemma Dawkins in a moment from Ruth Osborne’s Walking and falling, 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Rafael Bonachela at Walsh Bay. Photo Peter Grieg

Dance diary. January 2014

Graduation Ball

In January I received a query via the contact box on this site about some YouTube footage of Graduation Ball. I had never come across this footage before and sadly the vision is of very poor quality. The material has obviously been transferred from format to format on more than one occasion. As for the query, it concerned the date of the footage and eventually I suggested the date of 1947–1949 from the late period of de Basil’s company in the United States. What made me initially feel that it was late 1940s was that I thought I saw, for a flash, Valrene Tweedie as one of the ‘fouetté girls’. In one of the interviews I did with Tweedie I asked her about the roles she had danced in Graduation Ball and she mentioned that she had been one of the ‘fouetté girls’ for de Basil towards the end of her career with him. Watching the footage, I thought I caught a glimpse of a familiar facial expression. Peering hard at the opening credits, I noticed the name Paul Grinwis, and further investigation confirmed that Grinwis had been with de Basil in the late 1940s, which confirmed my initial dating.

Below are links to the two segments of footage. Any further information would be most welcome

Further information about some of the images in the National Library’s Bodenwieser collection has recently come to light. Those close to Bodenwieser recently identified the ‘unknown dancers’ in some of the Library’s digitised images. The most interesting comments concern a photograph of dancers on what has been regarded as a 1950s New Zealand tour. Well this is probably not the case.

Dancers of the Bodenwieser Ballet, ca. 1948 — Bodenwieser dancers. Papers of Gertrud Bodenwieser, MS 9263. National Library of Australia

The dancers in the image above have been identified as L—R back row: Jean Raymond, Madame Bodenwieser, Pamela Mossman, Dory Stern; L—R front row: Elaine Vallance, Coralie Hinkley, Mardi Watchorn, Eileen Cramer, Denise Searlie. Those who appeared with Bodenwieser around this time say that neither Pamela Mossman nor Denise Searlie performed in New Zealand and that their time with the company was earlier than the date of 1950 given on the record. They believe that the photograph was taken around June 1948 (the weather is cool as suggested by their clothing) and at that time the Bodenwieser Ballet performed in Brisbane and on the north coast of NSW. They suspect the photograph was shot at Brisbane Railway Station. The National Library catalogue record should reflect this new information shortly. [Update September 2020: Sadly, this new information has not been added to the National Library’s catalogue]

Coming soon

My recent interview with Rafael Bonachela is due to be posted soon on the DanceTabs website. I spoke to Bonachela in mid-January and, as ever, was overwhelmed by the passion and generosity of Sydney Dance Company’s current artistic director. A link to the post is forthcoming. [Update: here is the link].

Michelle Potter, 31 January 2014