Emerging Choreographers is an annual event on the QL2 calendar. It is a mentored program in which a number of senior QL2 dancers try their hand at choreography. They create and present a short work in collaboration with their peers and each choreographer is supported by professional artists in rehearsal and presentation. Many of those who have tested their early approach to choreography over the years have gone on to make significant careers in the dance world. Some have returned to work on various QL2 projects.
I am not in a position to review this year’s event given that I have a family member closely involved in the program. So I am simply presenting below a very small selection of images from the event.
Those emerging artists who created works for the 2024 program are: AKIRA BYRNE, ALEX POTTER, ARSHIYA ABHISHREE, CALYPSO EFKARPIDIS, CHARLIE THOMSON, CHRIS WADE, JAHNA LUGNAN, MAGNUS MEAGHER and SAM TONNA.
A link to a review of the 2024 program, written by Samara Purnell for CBR CityNews, is at the end of this post.
Scene from Calypso Efkarpidis’ DreamScape
Coral Onn and Juliet Hall in Alex Potter’s Dominion (Pupa)
Scene from Sam Tonna’s Chromed and Polished
Dancers and choreographers acknowledge tech staff at the end of the opening show
It was sad news to discover that Roz Hervey had died early in November. She made a huge contribution to dance in Australia, especially in South Australia. But she also made a huge impact in Canberra where she danced with the Meryl Tankard Company. The National Library has a selection of images taken by Régis Lansac of the works in which she performed in Canberra. Two are below. Nuti on the left was one of Tankard’s most visually beautiful productions and was presented in 1990 at the National Gallery of Australia in conjunction with an exhibition of works on loan from the British Museum. Pile Up on the right was a work by Graeme Watson, which shared a double bill with Tankard’s Kikimora also in 1990.
Read an acknowledgment of Roz Hervey’s contribution to dance in Australia at this link.
Coralie Hinkley: a manuscript collection
The National Library of Australia has completed the cataloguing of the Papers of Coralie Hinkley, which were sorted beautifully and donated to the NLA by Coralie’s daughter after her mother’s death. Here is a link to the catalogue details, including the finding aid. Coralie had an astonishingly varied dance career as the finding aid indicates.
Harry Hartog Bookshop at the Australian National University always has an interesting collection of secondhand dance books. ‘Oh they come from all over the place,’ a sales person once told me. The most recent addition to my book collection from that bookshop was The Helpman Family Story by Mary Helpman, which covers the period 1796 to 1964. While it probably isn’t the most analytical discussion of that story I have come across, it was full of surprises especially about the extent of the theatricality that characterised the lives of many of the family. It was not just Bob (as Robert Helpmann is referred to throughout the book) but other family members as well.
Press for November 2024
– ‘Tale of a turtle engages children—and adults (Bangarra Dance Theatre)’. CBR CityNews, 7 November 2024 . Online at this link. (And in a slightly enlarged form here.)
– ‘Community dancing with an Olympic theme’. CBR CityNews, 23 November 2024. Online at this link. (And in a slightly enlarged form here.)
My review of A Stellar Lineup from Liz Lea working with a range of community companieswas published online on 23 November 2024 by CBR CityNews. Read it at this link. Below is a slightly enlarged version of the review.
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22 November 2024. Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra
The dance scene in Canberra has long had a strong community focus, with representation from multicultural communities, groups of senior artists, people living with physical issues, groups focusing on a distinct form of dance, youth organisations, and many other specific groups. Everyone wants to feel what dance can offer and what dance can express.
Canberra’s Liz Lea, director of A Stellar Lineup, has so often been at the forefront of developing and presenting community dance in Canberra. The 2024 presentation of A Stellar Lineup is, in fact, the third iteration of a production that brings together groups of dancers representing the range and strength of this community focus.
The 2024 presentation focused on the Olympic Games, and not just on the relatively recent 2024 Paris events. We were told through dance, with a background of film, still photographs and spoken and printed words projected onto a backcloth, of events that have stood out, often focusing on Canberra-based stars across the history of the Games, and sometimes on Olympic funding issues.
Groups represented in the 2024 Lineup included the Indian community with several turbaned Sikh members of that community standing out; the now well-known GOLD Company of senior dancers; Fresh Funk representing breakdancing, which was included as a sport for the first time in the 2024 Paris Games; The Deaf Butterflies; ZEST Dance for Wellbeing; the Chamaeleon Collective, Lea’s relatively recent addition to Canberra’s community groups; a large gathering of very young dancers (including two babies carried in slings) from Project Dust, a First Nations’ contemporary dance group led by Emma Laverty; and various other organisations.
The dancing itself was, unsurprisingly, varied in terms of performance strength. For me the breakdancing from Fresh Funk stood out. Their section, Moment 4 Life, was fast-paced, and filled with energy and surprising moments of spectacular movement. Every single dancer gave his or her very vibrant best and, despite a few predictions, or perhaps suspicions, by colleagues before the show opened, as far as I could see there wasn’t a reference to Raygun and her controversial input in Paris. The Raygun performance was the last thing on my mind as I watched Fresh Funk performing.
The GOLD dancers also showed their strength, especially in their ability to engage the audience with their physical and emotional engagement with the choreography. They are now an experienced and well trained group and are always worth watching.
I was also impressed by Rachel Hilton, who paid homage to her mother, Daphne Hilton, with a simple, but beautifully lyrical solo. Daphne Hilton was a Canberran and Australia’s first female Paralympian to medal. Then there was a homage to the legally blind cyclist Lindy Hou, and then to Louise Ellery a Paralympian in the track and field area. Towards the end of the show there was an engaging performance, The Silent Spirit of Deaf Sports!, from The Deaf Butterflies, which had the audience using deaf applause. And more…
An Acknowledgment of Country opened the evening and was also a highlight given that it was a choreographed acknowledgment from a stage filled with performers of various abilities. Indigenous input into the Games was also strongly acknowledged with an amusing section from Project Dust with appearances from some of the youngest performers of the evening, including those two babies carried in slings. It featured an Aboriginal flag, whose colours were matched by the red, black and yellow costumes of the performers.
We can but admire Liz Lea’s determination to present community dance to Canberra audiences. Similarly, the strength and determination of members of the community groups that have developed over the years is also admirable, and a strong and definite addition to dance in Canberra. Dance is for everyone.
I was interested to hear the latest from West Australian Ballet (WAB), perhaps in particular that David McAllister will continue to direct WAB for another year. The media information says that he will work with the Board on the search for a new artistic director, and that he will also help develop a new strategic plan for WAB for the next five years as well as programming the season for 2026. McAllister was brought up in Perth, home city of WAB, before moving to Melbourne to join the Australian Ballet School and then the Australian Ballet in 1983. It is hard not to wonder whether McAllister’s current role at WAB will become permanent?
But in addition, it was good to see that Alice Topp will present Butterfly Effect, a new commission from WAB and a new take on the opera Madame Butterfly. Topp’s Butterfly Effect will premiere in Perth in September and will recontextualise the well-known narrative as a ‘story for modern audiences, weaving together threads from the old and the new, through themes of love, loss, and shattering betrayal, and Puccini’s classical score.’ I will be especially interested to see where the work is set (if indeed it is set in a specific country?).
News from James Batchelor
James Batchelor, who works between Australia and Europe, has been in Australia recently teaching at the Victorian College of the Arts and Sydney Dance Company. In addition, he has been developing new works, in particular a piece he is calling Resonance, which grew out of an invitation by the Tanja Liedtke Foundation, and which examines how Liedtke’s work has impacted the course of contemporary dance in Australia. (Dancer and choreographer Tanja Liedtke died in Sydney in 2007 following a road accident. She was the incoming director of Sydney Dance Company but never had the chance to take on the role).
Batchelor will be back in Europe for the last several weeks of 2024 where Shortcuts to Familiar Places will have a season in Italy, and where, in Berlin, he will continue to work on the development of Resonance. He will then head back to Australia for projects in January.
A Stellar Lineup—Olympic Edition
Liz Lea continues her development of community dance in Canberra with a presentation of A Stellar Lineup—Olympic Edition. She writes:
We are thrilled to bring you another stunning lineup of Canberra’s most engaging community dance companies, celebrating the power of inclusion and imperative for excellence. This year we return to Belco Arts to mark the Olympic Games and the sporting achievements of our many performers including Olympians and Paralympians. Our program features Project Dust, Dance4Me, Taylor Mingle, ZEST Dance for Wellbeing, the GOLD Company, Deaf Butterflies, Rachael Hilton, Fresh Funk and the Chamaeleon Collective.
Performances of A Stellar Lineup—Olympic Edition will be presented at the Belconnen Arts Centre, 22-23 November 2024. Further information is at this link.
Forgotten Impresario. Discovering Daphne Deane
Back in 2022 I posted a note about a beautifully researched e-book, Forgotten Impresario. Discovering Daphne Deane, by John Anderson. The book followed the diverse theatrical career of Queensland-born Daphne Deane, a career that Anderson rightly believed had been largely ignored. Recently, Anderson updated aspects of his book to include more information about Deane’s experiences during World War II; her trial in France for a ‘contractual breach of trust’, which brought aspects of her career to an end; and her connections with Marie Rambert.
The revised edition is available to read, at no cost, at this link.
In October a large gathering of Canberra’s dance community said farewell to Ruth Osborne as director of QL2 Dance. The farewell event was held at Gorman Arts Centre, home of QL2 Dance (and a variety of other arts focused organisations), and featured speeches from some of those who had been associated with Osborne over the years. Speakers included Richard Refschauge, current Chair of the Board of Ql2 Dance, who gave an outline of Osborne’s career and input into the development and growth of QL2 Dance, and Daniel Riley, former student at QL2 Dance and current artistic director of the Adelaide-based Australian Dance Theatre, who spoke about his experiences as a young, emerging dancer at QL2 Dance and his resulting dance career.
The afternoon also included two performances from QL2 dancers, which were performed in one of the beautiful courtyards of Gorman Arts Centre. One was choreographed by Alice Lee Holland, and consisted of extracts from her work Earth, which we saw recently as part of the Elemental program. The other was one of Osborne’s works from the past repertoire of QL2 Dance.
– ‘Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon (Queensland Ballet)’. Limelight, 6 October 2024 . Online at this link. (And in a slightly enlarged form here.) – ‘Chaos, a dance project of highs and lows.’ Review of Elemental. QL2 Dance, Chaos Project. CBR City News, 19 October 2024. Online at this link. (And in a slightly enlarged form here.)
And it’s Halloween again …
Michelle Potter, 31 October 2024
Featured image: Publicity image from WAB for Alice Topp’s Butterfly Effect. Photographer not identified.
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.
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.
My review of the latest Chaos Project from QL2 Dance was published online on 19 October by CBR CityNews. Read it at this link.Below is a slightly enlarged version of the review.
The Chaos Project from QL2 Dance has become an annual event on Canberra’s youth and community dance scene: an event that gives young, aspiring dancers an opportunity to experience dance in a theatrical environment and to celebrate dancing on stage with colleagues.
Elemental, the 2024 project, was, however, a little different from previous productions. It was the first Chaos Project directed by Alice Lee Holland, who just recently has taken over the reins of QL2 Dance from Ruth Osborne. Elemental consisted of five separate works. They explored the elements of fire, space, air, earth and water, with each created by a different choreographer, or choreographers in the case of the final work.
The standout work by far was Earth choreographed by Alice Lee Holland. Although, as is the case with all five sections, the cast (of ten dancers in the case of Earth) was acknowledged as contributing to the choreography, it was Holland’s compositional input that really made the work the standout. Her extensive and varied use of the performing space, and the way she used groupings of dancers and had them interact with each other, meant that the work was always interesting to watch. In addition, her clear and dedicated development of the choreography gave the dancers a strong structure in which to work. Every one of them used their emerging performance skills with admirable courage and power.
The other four works, Fire from Jahna Lugnan, Space from Max Burgess, Air from Jason Pearce, and Water from Lugnan, Burgess and Pearce working together, did not to my mind have the same choreographic strength. All seemed to focus on movement of the arms and hands to the detriment of use of the whole body, and in some cases groupings of dancers seemed somewhat muddled. This was especially noticeable in the final work, Water, which had the largest cast and seemed not to have a strongly focused structure (as a result of having three choreographers working together perhaps?).
Pearce’s Air was something of an exception given that his aim was to explore the role of air on the body and how that aspect of the element can be expressed as a cohesive whole. Arm movements thus, rightly, played a major role, as did the gathering of the dancers in a single group for much of the work. Costumes for Air were quite exceptional. All the performers wore white to reflect an Arctic landscape and, while the colour was unvaried, the actual designs were all different and quite beautiful to look at. Their strength and beauty was, however, best seen without the blue-ish lighting that occasionally flooded over them.
Dancers from QL2 in a moment from Air. Photo: Olivia Wikner, O&J Photography
Lighting for Elemental was designed by the individual choreographers. Costume coordination was by Natalie Wade, although it is not clear who actually designed the costumes.
The major difference from previous Chaos Projects was the ending. Gone was a fully choreographed finale as we have become used to seeing—one of Ruth Osborne’s signature additions over the years of her directorship. The production finished, as most dance performances do, with the cast simply taking a curtain call. But, being used to a choreographed finale, I guess a simple curtain call was more of a shock than anything.
It will be interesting to see how the Chaos Project develops in future years under the direction of Alice Lee Holland. Personally, I hope the future may bring stronger choreographic input across the entire production.
On a closing note, I loved the image on the back of the printed program, which I think was created by Millie Eaton. She is acknowledged in the program’s list of the ‘creative & production team’ as doing ‘Program illustrations’. She also appeared in Fire, the work for the youngest members (aged about 8) of Elemental. The image indicated a complete involvement in the production, which is a feature, or certainly the aim, of every Chaos Project.
Michelle Potter, 20 October 2024
Featured image: Dancers from QL2 in a moment from Earth. Photo: Olivia Wikner, O&J Photography
In September the Australian Ballet announced its 2025 season and, amazingly, the season includes a visit to Canberra. The company has largely avoided the national capital for years now with various reasons given, none of which ever mentions a major, contentious situation that developed relating to orchestral involvement. That aside, it is also amazing that the company is bringing to Canberra Johan Inger’s magnificent Carmen rather than an ‘old favourite’ like The Merry Widow. See this link for my review of Inger’s production of Carmen from the Australian Ballet’s 2024 Sydney season.
The Canberra Symphony Orchestra will accompany the performances, which pushes the contentious issue alluded to above into the background, thankfully. Here’s hoping we are back on track and that the national company will continue to include, frequently, the national capital in its annual seasons. See the company’s website for details of the complete 2025 season.
Akira Isogawa
It was a thrill to see designer Akira Isogawa collaborating again with Melanie Lane on Love Lock, Lane’s recent work for Sydney Dance Company. Isogawa’s previous collaborations with Lane have included Slow Haunt for West Australian Ballet in 2021, and MOUNTAIN, an independent work from 2023.
Isogawa has also worked often with Graeme Murphy, both for works Murphy made for Sydney Dance Company while that company’s artistic director, and for Murphy’s production of Romeo and Juliet for the Australian Ballet. Some of Isogawa’s distinctive and intricate costumes, including items for Romeo and Juliet, were seen close-up in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria back in 2013. See this link.
I was sorry to hear of the death of Edith Campbell in Wellington on 24 September. I first met Edith in 2018 when I was in Wellington to deliver the first Russell Kerr Lecture, in which I focused on the work of designer Kristian Fredrikson. I talked a little in that lecture about productions by Opera-Technique Inc., the Wellington-based operetta company for which Fredrikson created some of his earliest designs, and in which Edith appeared as a performer.
The day after the lecture Edith showed me some material from Opera-Technique Inc. As I was in the throes of putting together my book about Fredrikson, Edith’s material helped enormously in filling in details about Fredrikson’s early work. I loved talking to Edith and am forever grateful for the help she gave me. After the book was published, Edith wrote about it and I published on this website what she had written. Read it at this link.
I was planning to review Chicago, which played at the Canberra Theatre Centre for a large part of September. But in the end I couldn’t bring myself to do it. For one thing (amongst others), I wondered how much of the text (spoken and sung) was being lip-synced. The voices sounded quite American in accent and I couldn’t believe that the Australian cast had those accents. Perhaps that’s the way things happen these days? But it’s not quite what I find satisfying in a theatrical presentation.
Press for September 2024
– ‘Dance triumph with a Canberra connection.’ Review of Twofold, Sydney Dance Company. CBR City News, 19 September 2024. Online at this link.
As August approaches I am looking forward to a number of dance performances beginning in Wellington with Royal New Zealand Ballet’s triple bill program Solace. Solace opens on 1 August and consists of Wayne McGregor’s Infra and two new works, To Hold by Sarah Foster-Sproull and High Tide by Alice Topp. Infra was seen in Australia in 2017 when it was performed by the Australian Ballet in a season called Faster. It is not my favourite McGregor work and it suffered somewhat in 2017 by being programmed alongside an absolutely brilliant work, Squander and Glory, by Tim Harbour. But I am very much looking forward to seeing the new works by Foster-Sproull and Topp.
I interviewed Topp in November for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. It is available to listen to online at this link.
Then, in mid-August, the fifth Ballet International Gala begins a series of one night stands in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra. Annoyingly it is not clear which works will be presented in Australia. Nor is it clear which dancers will be performing. I guess we just have to wait and see! Here is the website, which may eventually include some specific information.
James Batchelor was recently funded by artsACT to develop a new work ‘inspired by the late choreographer, Tanja Liedtke.’ This follows on from his Shortcuts to familiar places, which examined the influence of Gertrud Bodenwieser on those who were close to her and those who followed her methods of dancing and teaching.
Liedtke’s career was relatively short. She tragically died when quite young (she was just 29) and, while she was definitely an influential choreographer, she was, as a result of her early death, without the extended connections Bodenwieser had developed over many decades. So, it will be interesting to see how Batchelor develops this new work.
News from QL2 Dance
Late in July, at the invitation of the Australian Embassy in Thailand, some dancers from Canberra’s youth group QL2 Dance performed in Bangkok as part of a large-scale event to celebrate the birthday of His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Phra Vajiraklaochaoyuhua. Two First Nations’ dance artists, Julia Villaflor (Wagiman) and Jahna Lugnan (Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr) were part of the celebration and performed Connected, a duet they had created that acknowledges and explores their connection to the land and each other. Villaflor and Lugnan were accompanied on their journey to Bangkok by Alice Lee Holland, incoming director of QL2 Dance.
27 June 2024. The Vault, Dairy Road Precinct, Canberra
The Dataset took place in the Vault, an expansive, untheatrical space in the Dairy Road Precinct in Fyshwick, a largely industrial area in Canberra. The Vault has been used effectively before by Alison Plevey’s Australian Dance Party, in particular with From the Vaultin 2019. But it needs an exceptional production to ensure that the characteristics of the space, especially its dark and unwelcoming environment, are used to advantage. The Dataset was unappealingly dark at the beginning, although it brightened up somewhat, at least in terms of lighting, as the work progressed.
Indeed as the work progressed, the two dancers who formed the cast, Alison Plevey and Sara Black, who were wearing identical white outfits, were subjected to examination by a program in which every conceivable aspect of the dancers’ bodily and emotional characteristics were measured by what appeared to be an artificial intelligence program. We could see the program unfolding in words on the large back-screen in the performing space. Those words were also spoken aloud by an American voice. We watched as the dancers attempted to address the suggestions the AI program offered them.
Eventually, presumably because the AI program suggested that friendship was the next step, the dancers removed their short white jackets, under which they were wearing an individually distinct, decorative black and white top. They danced together with choreography that (perhaps unsurprisingly) was very much in the style we have come to expect from Australian Dance Party—lots of floor work, lifts with stretched limbs emerging out of the shapes formed, along with a variety of twisted poses.
Slowly, however, the data on the screen began to fall apart, with words breaking up and lurching around. AI was no longer working well. In the end, darkness descended and the dancers made their way around the space using torches as they set up a kind of camp site to which they invited several audience members to join them. The work came to the end in this calm and very different environment.
The Dataset falls within the Australian Dance Party’s focus on social and environmental aspects of the world in which we currently exist. Media material from the company explains that the work ‘imagines a world where we physicalise the data that forms us and interrogate its purpose and power. What happens when the system rules us? What happens when the system is broken? The Dataset highlights our adaptability as humans in the face of adversity.’ It is certainly an interesting concept to address and the collaborative elements were at times engrossing and entertaining, especially the ever-changing images that flashed across the back-screen as the dancers were developing their friendship.
But from the beginning of The Dataset my mind kept recalling Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (published 1932) and George Orwell’’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (published 1949). Both were dystopian novels that examined potential changes in society, and their effects on humanity, by developments in fields such as science, economics and the like. The Dataset had a similar narrative, although I wondered constantly whether dance could address such issues as effectively as the written word. In the case of The Dataset I think the answer is no. In this case the choreography, which is the heart of dance, seemed unnecessary as the work unfolded.
16 May 2024. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre
Below is a slightly enlarged version of my review of Subject to Change, which was published on 17 May in Canberra CityNews.
Three separate works made up Subject to Change, the 2024 production by Quantum Leap, the pre-professional youth performance group at Canberra’s QL2 Dance. First up was Kaleidoscope choreographed by Gabrielle Nankivell, then came Alpha Beta from Alisdair Macindoe. Both Nankivell and Macindoe are professional choreographers with extensive experience across Australia and overseas with much to offer young dancers. Voyage was the third work on the program and the final work from current artistic director of QL2 Dance, Ruth Osborne, as she prepares to hand over the directorship to Alice Lee Holland.
The overarching theme of the evening was the effects of a rapidly evolving world and the need to adapt to changing conditions. Not all works were easily or instantly understood within that theme, but the standard of dancing was exceptional, as was the overall theatricality of the production, especially in terms of the lighting design from Antony Hateley and the film input from Wildbear Digital.
Nankivell’s Kaleidoscope was structured in a series of short sections, each separated by a sudden blackout. It focused on negotiating change and contained what was probably the most complex choreography of the evening. The dancers had to move on and off stage with speed and the work contained a vast array of choreographic patterns, all filled with what was also a vast array of movement. One of the dancers I spoke to used the word ‘wild’ (without in any sense condemning the work) to describe the choreography. The movements were often quite intricate and sometimes unexpected and certainly required an ongoing and strong input from the dancers. It was performed to a score by Luke Smiles and, given the speed and complexity of both music and choreography, the ability of the dancers to give the lively performance that they did was outstanding.
Macindoe’s Alpha Beta, performed to a score by Macindoe himself, was second on the program and looked at concepts of individualism and collectivism. After the fast-moving Kaleidoscope, Alpha Beta seemed, at least initially, quite static with the dancers often standing still or engaging in sharp movements of the arms into positions that they held fixed for a few seconds. While it ended with the dancers engaging in a kind of rave, which was in opposition to the stillness that permeated the early sections, for me Alpha Beta wasn’t quite so engaging as the previous work.
The final work was Osborne’s Voyage, which in true Osborne fashion was clearly structured in terms of a strong and varied use of the stage space and a constantly changing arrangement of groupings of dancers. Performed to music by long-term collaborator with QL2, Adam Ventoura, Voyage examined the experience of change, often in an emotionally moving way. It was probably the most clearly understandable of the three works in terms of giving an insight into the overarching theme. This was most apparent when on a few occasions the dancers came together in a single line across the stage and appeared to be examining their individual responses to change.
Voyage was enhanced by some exceptional film footage created by WildBear Entertainment and used as a kind of backcloth. What made it special was that it had been edited in an engaging manner to be seen not as a series of single frame shots, but sometimes as a collection of two or three different moments of footage placed side by side, or as a series of mirror images of one particular section of footage.
Costumes were by Cate Clelland. also a long-term collaborator with QL2 Dance. As with her previous costumes for Quantum Leap programs, they were simple but effective in design and in the use of colour.
Subject to Change was one of Quantum Leap’s strongest productions and a fitting farewell to Ruth Osborne who has been at the helm of QL2 Dance since the beginning of its existence some 25 years ago. The list of alumni that Osborne has taught and mentored and who have gone on to make a career in dance is quite simply incredible and some of those who danced in Subject to Change are very likely to join the list.
