What a pleasure it was to learn that Ako Kondo had been promoted to principal with the Australian Ballet, although I am not surprised. She was my pick in the category ‘Most Outstanding Dancer’ in the 2014 Critics’ Survey for Dance Australia. ‘Her technical skills are breathtaking,’ I wrote and I recall seeing her as Kitri in the the Dancers Company production of Don Quixote in 2011 when I wrote in The Canberra Times that she gave ‘a stellar performance’. I look forward to more. For other comments see the tag Ako Kondo.
It was good to see Canberran James Batchelor take out a 2015 Green Room Award just recently. Batchelor was a joint winner in the category ‘Concept and Realisation’ for his work Island. Congratulations to Batchelor and his team. A well deserved award. Island received a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award last year and is long-listed for a 2015Australian Dance Award in the category Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance.
James Batchelor
Here is a link to my review of Island, written after it was performed in Canberra last year.
The Dance: Benjamin Shine
The Canberra Centre, the city’s central shopping mall, has installed an exhibition called The Dance. The work of Benjamin Shine, it is an entrancing take on store models, positioned as it is outside the fashion floor of David Jones. It looks gorgeous. An article in The Canberra Times explains its genesis.
Site news
What a surprise to receive a piece of verse as comment! See comments on Yugen and headdresses.
Press for April 2015
‘Celebrating half-century of dance,’ preview of Elizabeth Cameron Dalman’s Fortuity.The Canberra Times, 18 April 2015, Panorama p. 12. Online version
Now that my book, Dame Maggie Scott: a life in dance, has been published, I have returned to my research into the life and art of Kristian Fredrikson. My article ‘Undercover designs’ will appear in the forthcoming issue (March 2015) of The National Library of Australia Magazine. The research behind this article reflects part of the work I did on the film Undercover (costume design by Kristian Fredrikson) while the recipient of a Scholars and Artists in Residence Fellowship at the National Film and Sound Archive in 2012. [Update: Here is the link to the article].
Blonde Ambition at the National Portrait Gallery
National institutions in Canberra often use dance in the public programs associated with their exhibitions. The National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia, in particular, have been active lately. Most recently, Blonde Ambition, the female trio who investigate through dance the ideal of the feminine, appeared at the National Portrait Gallery for two shows on 28 February in conjunction with the exhibition In the Flesh.
Wearing their trademark, light-coloured, contemporary version of the corset, they showed us their choreographed poses, their attitude to physical activity, to eating, and a host of other areas in which women find themselves performing. They move well, this trio of women, and manage to inject a good dose of humour and smart social comment without it being overblown or too exaggerated. They performed to a collage of bird sounds, the clip clop of horses and a variety of songs interspersed with narrative. Bouquets.
Harry Haythorne
Recently, while expanding on my obituary for Harry Haythorne for another purpose, I came across an article Haythorne had written in 2001 for a special Australian edition of the journal Choreography and dance: an international journal (volume 6, parts 2 and 3).This issue, which I had forgotten about until now I’m afraid, was edited by Meg Denton and focused on influences and trends in Australian dance. Haythorne’s article ‘How I became a dancer—Aussie style—in the 1930s’, is an exceptional account of Haythorne’s early training and childhood performances in Adelaide, and gives a good idea of terms that are no longer current, ‘fancy dancing’ and the like. Highly recommended.
Press for February 2015 (Update May 2019: Online links to articles published prior to mid 2015 in The Canberra Times are no longer available)
‘Understanding the dance unlocks supreme equation.’ Review of Metasystems and Post phase: the summit is blue, The Canberra Times, 14 February 2015, ARTS, p. 20.
Michelle Potter, 28 February 2015
Featured image: Fabric samples for Kristian Fredrikson’s costumes for the film Undercover, from the article Undercover Designs.
I am thrilled to welcome Jennifer Shennan as a contributor to this website. Based in Wellington, New Zealand, Jennifer is a renowned dance writer whose major publications include A Time to Dance: the Royal New Zealand Ballet at 50 (Wellington: RNZB, 2003) and The Royal New Zealand Ballet at 60 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2013), which she edited with Anne Rowse. Jennifer teaches dance history and anthropology and has a particular research interest in the Pacific. Her own teachers were Poul Gnatt and Russell Kerr. Now that is a proud heritage!
Jennifer’s first contribution was her tribute to Harry Haythorne and I look forward to publishing more of her writing as 2015 proceeds.
‘Pulse: reflections on the body’
The Canberra Museum and Art Gallery has been running a show since October 2014 called ‘Pulse: reflections on the body’. The exhibition has on display items by a range of artists working across several media. Amongst a collection of works on paper and canvas and some sculpture, two dance items are included—Australian Dance Theatre’s 15 minute video of Garry Stewart’s Proximity, and James Batchelor’s video, Ersatz. Batchelor has also been giving some live performances during the run of the show. As seen in the image below, his performance takes place on the highly polished floor in front of his video installation and, as with all his work that I have seen, it is meticulous in its fine detail and in its interest in the stillness that surrounds movement.
(The hand-blown glass objects in the foreground of the image are from a work by Nell)
Arthur Murch and the Ballets Russes
I was pleased to be contacted during January by the daughter of Australian artist Arthur Murch, who told me that her father had travelled to Australia from Italy on board the Romolo with some of the dancers coming to Australia for the 1939–1940 Ballets Russes tour. I was curious because I had been under the impression that the dancers had come from London on board the Orcades, with another group arriving from the West Coast of the United States on board the Mariposa. The two groups met in Sydney and gave their opening performance at the Theatre Royal on 30 December 1939.
It seems, however, that there were a few Ballets Russes personnel who did indeed travel on the Romolo from Genoa. They included Olga Philipoff, daughter of Alexander Philipoff, de Basil’s executive assistant; Marie (Maria) Philipoff, mother of Olga; and dancer Nicolas Ivangine. The Romolo was the last boat to leave Italy before Italy joined the war and Murch was returning to Australia after spending time in various parts of Europe. The Romolo and its passengers have, it seems, escaped the attention of Australian Ballets Russes scholars so far, as has Murch’s connections with the company. To date I have seen a photograph of a beautiful head sculpture Murch made of Mme Philipoff, and a photo of Olga Philipoff and Ivangine on the deck of the ship. I look forward to reporting further on this discovery at a later date.
Dance and criticism
The newest issue of Dance Australia (February/March 2015) includes its annual survey by critics from across Australia, although this year Karen van Ulzen has expanded the space given to the survey so that critics are able to give fuller accounts of their choices. It makes the survey more than simply a list and gives a touch of analysis, an essential element in good dance writing. The new look is a welcome initiative that I hope continues. It is always interesting, too, to see how varied the choices are.
Press for January 2015 (Update May 2019: Online links to articles published prior to mid 2015 in The Canberra Times are no longer available)
‘Vibrant, expressive show.’ Review Dancing for the gods, Chitrasena Dance Company, The Canberra Times, 19 January 2015, ARTS p. 6.
‘In the WRIGHT frame of mind.’ Profile of Sam Young-Wright of Sydney Dance Company, The Canberra Times, ‘Panorama’, 24 January 2015, pp. 10–11.
‘A classic in its own right.’ Preview of Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake, The Canberra Times. ‘Panorama’, 31 January 2015, p. 18.
Dimity Azoury, currently a coryphée with the Australian Ballet, remembers her grandmother with great fondness. She was a ballet student in Wellington, New Zealand, and even went on as an extra when the Ballets Russes companies visited New Zealand in the late 1930s. But, Azoury tells me, her grandmother’s parents thought that ballet was not an appropriate career for a young lady, which was not an uncommon attitude at the time. So her grandmother gave up her ambitions, married and moved to Australia.
‘I often used to look at a photo of her wearing a long, Romantic tutu,’ Azoury recalls, ‘and I think it was from her that my love of ballet came.’
Azoury’s career as a ballet dancer, a career now (happily) considered a worthy course to take in life, moved another step forward just recently when he received the Telstra Ballet Dancer Award, worth the substantial amount of $20,000. Her win was announced on stage at the Sydney Opera House at the final rehearsal for Sir Peter Wright’s Nutcracker.
‘I was in a state of shock when my name was called,’ Azoury says. ‘I was shaking and found it really hard to hold on to the flowers I was given. Then, when the curtain came down, all the dancers hugged me and were so supportive. This is one of the lovely things about working in the Australian Ballet. Everyone is so generous.’
Azoury was trained first in Queanbeyan and then in Canberra at the Kim Harvey School of Dance. She was twice rejected for the Australian Ballet School but, encouraged by her parents and by Harvey, she auditioned again and was accepted in the 2005 intake. She spent three years at the school and was taken into the Australian Ballet in 2008.
‘My aspirations are all with the Australian Ballet. I love the company and feel totally involved. And now I feel I am getting opportunities.’
She is looking forward to the company’s production of Maina Gielgud’s Giselle, a highlight of the 2015 season, and has enjoyed rehearsing under Gielgud’s direction. Gielgud, Azoury says, knows exactly what she wants and so it is easy to find a clear focus in rehearsals. It has also been especially exciting for her to have the opportunity to try the role of Myrthe, Queen of the Wilis. There are also rumours that her much-loved deerhound, Gunther, may have a walk-on part in Act I. ‘I guess he’ll have to audition,’ she muses.
In addition to regular company repertoire, since joining the company Azoury has also performed in every one of the annual Bodytorque programs, in which her fellow dancers try their hand at choreography.
‘Bodytorque feels like a collaboration. There is no pressure on the dancers and I love being able to help my friends bring their vision to the stage.’
The year long journey as a Telstra nominee has proven to be an exciting one for Azoury. She looks back with particular pleasure on making the video each of the six nominees created as part of the year’s work.
‘We were given a lot of freedom. We were each given a colour and an element to work with —my colour was blue and my element paint. While the camera angles were set, at one stage I was given the opportunity to show how many ways I could make the paint move. It was a wonderful experience for me and a way of celebrating the Telstra sponsorship of the Australian Ballet.’
Azoury recently married Australian Ballet senior artist Rudy Hawkes. Her no-strings-attached Telstra award will most likely be spent on renovations to their house in North Melbourne.
It was a slow year for local, professional dance in the ACT, especially after the very full dance calendar the city had during its centenary year, 2013. The dance panel of the Canberra Critics’ Circle offered only one dance award for 2014. It went to James Batchelor for his performance installation Island.
James Batchelor
During the Circle’s plenary session, at which nominations in individual categories are put forward to the whole group for discussion, a member of the circle questioned me about whether James should or should not be considered a Canberra artist given his strong links with the Melbourne dance scene. It was a good question and one I had discussed with Batchelor earlier in 2014. His reply was:
I left Canberra to go to university in Melbourne, but I don’t see that that makes me any less of a Canberran. I am in just my second year out from university and, as I establish my practice, I live a transient lifestyle. Recently I have worked all around Australia and in France, Thailand and the United Kingdom. But I am involved in a number of projects in Canberra this year and I definitely intend to employ my practice here in Canberra.
Independent artists working in dance are, as a matter of necessity, almost always peripatetic.
Dimity Azoury: Telstra Ballet Dancer Award, 2014
It was a pleasure to learn that Dimity Azoury, former pupil of Canberra dance teacher Kim Harvey, received the Telstra Ballet Dancer Award for 2014. A profile of Azoury, currently a coryphée with the Australian Ballet, will be coming to this website shortly.
Dimity Azoury in Paquita, the Australian Ballet 2014. Photo: Jeff Busby
Robert Ray’s Nutcracker
Teacher and choreographer Robert Ray tells me he has headed to New York to stage his Nutcracker for students from the Joffrey Ballet School with guest artists from the Joffrey Concert Group. His production of Nutcracker attracted my attention while I was writing Dame Maggie Scott: a life in dance. To quote from the book:
In 1985 Maggie had commissioned Ray to create a new version of the ever popular Christmas classic, The Nutcracker. It was a milestone in the School’s history being the first full-length ballet made especially for the School and was designed especially for students to perform and their end of year graduation. It was also a move to have a cost efficient work for the School, one that could be repeated over the years with roles that would suit students from across all levels of training.
‘It was a wonderful training ballet because the first year students could take roles like the mice and the soldiers, the second year students could dance the individual solo roles and the third years could aspire to the pas de deux and the principal roles’, Maggie suggests. ‘And Robert’s choreography was demanding. The students would compete for roles in it. We performed it for five consecutive years.
So now Joffrey Ballet School has taken advantage of this work and Ray believes it is likely to become a permanent fixture on the Joffrey Christmas calendar.
Hot to Trot: Quantum Leap
Quantum Leap in Canberra has just shown its sixteenth production of Hot to Trot, a program in which young dancers try their hand at choreography, and occasionally dance on film. Probably the most intriguing piece on the program of eight short dances and one film (also short) was Inside Out by Aden Hamilton. Hamilton is in Year Five at Telopea Park Primary School and, for someone so young, his duet, which he performed with Caroline de Wan, was astonishingly mature and complete in its structure. Someone to watch.
Press for November 2014 [Update May 2019: Links to press articles from The Canberra Times prior to 2015 are no longer available]
‘Bold effort but unwoven threads.’ Review of Kathrada 50/25, Liz Lea. The Canberra Times, 4 November 2014, p. 6.
‘Local links in national awards.’ Report on the Australian Dance Awards 2014. The Canberra Times, 10 November 2014, pp. 10–11.
Michelle Potter, 30 November 2014
Featured image: Dimity Azoury receives the Telstra Award for 2014. Photo: Jess Bialek
The Golds is the latest production from Sydney-based film maker, Sue Healey. It does much to strengthen her position as a leading maker of dance films in Australia. With an earlier career as a dancer and choreographer to inform her work, Healey is able to hone in on what is intrinsic to dance, as indefinable as those intrinsic qualities might be.
The Golds are the dancers of Canberra’s mature age dance group, GOLD. (Growing Old Disgracefully, is the expanded form of the name). They are all over 55, some are much older. What is especially noticeable, and what is perhaps the most moving aspect of the film, is that most of these older men and women dance without a trace of self-consciousness. Their bodies are not, and mostly never have been, dancers’ bodies but they show the transformative power of dance. From this point of view The Golds is a truly beautiful film and much credit must go to Liz Lea for her inspirational leadership of the group.
I especially enjoyed a solo by Greg Barrett, a tall man with a long white beard. Made as a slow motion segment, his beard and his black, loose-fitting outfit moved beautifully with his very fluid body. Then there were some lovely segments with another dancer, whom I only know at this stage as Jane, a nun of (I think) the Brigidine order, dancing with Abbie, her little blind dog. She showed such honest movement, both with Abbie and in another section, in which she performed in front of a wall covered in what looked like graffiti or old, torn posters.
Scene from Sue Healey’s film The Golds, 2014
The film might also be seen as a series of vignettes as individual dancers recount why they joined GOLD and what their backgrounds have been. Thus The Golds becomes a mini documentary. There are the expected responses to questions posed (off camera and not heard by the viewer). ‘It’s good exercise for an ageing body’, ‘I want to stay active’ and other similar remarks. But there are also some surprises. ‘No I can’t do the splits, but is it necessary? I don’t think so’, or ‘I was attracted by the word disgracefully in the name’.
Director of photography, Judd Overton, has selected some spectacular locations for this film. Canberra’s landscape and some of the city’s well-known architectural features form the background for much of the film. There are some eye-catching shots of figures in the landscape and figures interacting with features of the architecture. But there are also some interior locations. Some are domestic interiors, some are in Canberra institutions, including the National Portrait Gallery. They have all been carefully chosen and add a layer of exceptional visual interest.
Scene from Sue Healey’s film The Golds, 2014
The first public screening of The Golds was at the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, on 3 October 2014 as part of the Archive’s final Silver Screenings program. Sadly, this program now goes into limbo as part of budget cutbacks.
This screening of The Golds was essentially a preview, as Healey noted in her opening remarks. There are one or two technical issues to be fine tuned, she said, one of which she hopes will make the program suitable as a TV documentary.
In August The Canberra Times published my review of Devdas the musical, a show billed as a Bollywood-style event. One dancer stood out for me. She was young but her potential was obvious. There were no programs available for the Canberra showing—someone told me they had been left behind in Sydney—so I was unable to name this dancer in my review. Since then I have discovered that her name is Divya Saxena and I am pleased to be able to post a photo of her in her role as the young Chandramukhi in Devdasthe musical.
Divya Saxena (centre) as the young Chandramukhi in Devdasthe musical
I think her presence as a performer is clearly evident in this photo and her dancing had a similar power. I look forward to following her progress over the next few years.
Liz Lea
Liz Lea is reworking her show from 2013 about South African anti-apartheid activist and former political prisoner, Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada. The new production will feature a reworked version of her solo from 2013—reworked into three shorter solos—along with appearances by tabla player Bobby Singh; GOLD, Canberra’s mature age dance group; Kathak dancer Shruti Ghosh; and African dance and drumming group, Troupe Olabisi.
Liz Lea in her solo from Kathrada 50/25, 2013. Photo: Lorna Sim
Sadly for dance in Canberra, Lea has not been successful recently in obtaining artsACT funding for her work, so for this new show she has turned to crowd funding to assist with expenses. An online plea (now closed) for funding via Pozible is at this link. It shows excerpts from the 2013 show, including parts of Lea’s solo, and gives a clear picture of the theatrical breadth of the show.
Kathrada poster
Kathrada 50/25 (the title is explained in the Pozible footage) in its new guise is at Gorman House Arts Centre, Canberra, on 1 and 2 November 2014 (not 18 and 19 October as originally planned).
Rafael Bonachela in the Art Gallery of NSW
I continue to be surprised at the activities of Rafael Bonachela, artistic director of Sydney Dance Company, who has embraced his Australian role with unabashed enthusiasm. He and composer Nick Wales are being interviewed tomorrow (1 October) by Tom Tilley of Triple J on the inspiration they draw from poetry in the creation of their work, specifically Bonachela’s piece Louder than Words. It is part of the celebrity event series at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Press for September 2014 [Online links to press articles in The Canberra Times prior to 2015 are no longer available]
An American dream. Program article for the Australian tour by American Ballet Theatre.
‘Dance feast on the cards with two tours next year.’ Preview of 2015 Canberra seasons by the Australian Ballet and Sydney Dance Company, The Canberra Times, 20 September 2014, ARTS p. 21.
In August I had the pleasure of recording an oral history interview with Edna Busse, Borovanksy ballerina of the 1940s and early 1950s. The National Library had been working towards adding Edna’s memories of her life and career to its collection of dance interviews for many years, so it was a thrill that Edna, now aged 96, agreed to the invitation to participate in the program.
Other oral history interviews I recorded during August were not specifically focused on dance, but were interesting arts interviews nevertheless. They were with John Hindmarsh, founder of Hindmarsh Constructions and a major arts philanthropist in Canberra; and with artist John Olsen. The Olsen interview focused on his mural Salute to Five Bells, commissioned for the Sydney Opera House in the early 1970s. (The Olsen interview is too new to have a catalogue record). [Update October 2020: The Olsen interview is now available online at this link.]
The Johnston Collection
I was delighted to hear that the Johnston Collection, the remarkable Melbourne-based collection of decorative arts located at Fairhall House, recently received an award from the Victorian branch of Museums Australia. The award was for the Johnston Collection’s recent exhibition David McAllister rearranges Mr Johnston’s collection. The image below shows Desmond Heeley’s costumes from the Australian Ballet production of The Merry Widow, as displayed in the sitting room during the Fairhall House exhibition.
Costumes for The Merry Widow on display at Fairhall House
The text for my talk for the Johnston Collection as part of this award winning exhibition is at this link.
Press for August 2014 [Online links to press articles in The Canberra Times prior to 2015 are no longer available]
‘Odd mix misses the mark.’ Review of Boundless, Quantum Leap, The Canberra Times, 1 August 2014, ARTS p. 6. ‘S for spectacularly physical.’ Review of S, Circa, The Canberra Times, 8 August 2014, ARTS p. 7. ‘A swirl of colour.’ Review of Devdas the musical. The Canberra Times, 19 August 2014, ARTS p. 6.
Michelle Potter, 31 August 2014
Featured image: Edna Busse and Martin Rubinstein in Laurel Martyn’s Sigrid, Borovansky Ballet, ca. 1945. Photographer not known. National Library of Australia.
Last night (30 July) I went to the Canberra Playhouse to see, and review, the latest offering from Quantum Leap, Canberra’s youth dance ensemble. To my astonishment I received a phone call tonight (31 July) about my review, which had already appeared in The Age online before it had appeared either in print or electronic format in The Canberra Times. Here is the link and another image from the show.
I watched the recent Australian Story program, Leap of Faith, which followed the story of Li Cunxin’s acquisition of the Kenneth MacMillan production of Romeo and Juliet for Queensland Ballet. I would be interested to hear comments from others as I found the program more of a promo than an Australian story.
Here is the link to the online version and its transcript. I’m not sure for how long the ABC has the footage available online, although the the transcript of the show will remain for a little longer after the footage has been removed. [Update October 2020: The video is no longer available but the transcript is still online]
Dance and architecture
I have often been curious about the links that are often made between dance and architecture. They have always seemed to me to be very tenuous links. My most recent interview for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program, however, was with an architect, Enrico Taglietti, who made me think a little harder about those potential links.
Taglietti was born in Milan but came to Australia in the 1950s, initially at the invitation of Sir Charles Lloyd Jones to work on an exhibition of Italian design, ‘Italy at David Jones’. He and his wife came to Canberra after the exhibition had closed and fell in love with the city (such as it was in the 1950s). Taglietti has lived in Canberra ever since.
What fascinated me more than anything during our conversation was that he kept insisting that the exterior of a building was not architecture but urban design. Architecture, he maintained, consisted of the voids and volumes enclosed by a structure. Suddenly it struck me that perhaps there is a link between dance and architecture. Dance has much to do with filling voids and volume with movement, although only the best dancers (or those trained by Merce Cunningham) know how to use the space around the body to achieve maximum benefit.
Press for July 2014 [Update May 2019: Links to press articles in The Canberra Times are no longer available]
‘More decorative than communicative. Review of ‘Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Patyegarang. The Canberra Times, 21 July 2014, ARTS p. 6.
My biography of Dame Margaret Scott is now in the editing and design phase and is scheduled for release in October 2014. I originally interviewed Dame Margaret for the National Library’s oral history program in 1993 and, while that interview provided a skeleton plan, there was much more to discover, or at least many details to investigate further. And who would have thought I would find material in the Imperial War Museum in London, or the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra? But I did. Dame Margaret’s life is quite remarkable, apart from the role she played in the establishment of the Australian Ballet Foundation and as inaugural director of the Australian Ballet School.
The commission to write the book came unexpectedly and I had a very short time in which to complete the manuscript. But what an exciting journey it has been so far. It has meant, however, that posts to my website have been a little meagre over the past few months. I hope to rectify that situation shortly.
Honours
It was a real, pleasure to see two dance leaders honoured during June. Cheryl Stock was awarded an AM in the Queen’s Birthday honours list and Louise Howden-Smith was the recipient of the West Australian of the Year award for arts and culture.
Stock is Associate Professor in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Before turning to academia, she had a distinguished career as a dancer, choreographer and artistic director with a wide range of companies in Australia and elsewhere.
Howden-Smith made a major contribution to dance over a ten year period as executive director of West Australian Ballet. I have happy memories of her generosity to the media during those years. She is now director of Ochre Contemporary Dance Company, founding director as it happens. The company aims to promote Aboriginal culture through contemporary dance.
It was also good to see that Philip Piggin, who has been involved with community dance in the ACT for many years now, received a 2014 Churchill Fellowship to travel to the USA and the United Kingdom to develop skills and experience in teaching dance to people with Parkinson’s disease.
Press for June 2014 [Online links to press articles prior to 2015 in The Canberra Times are no longer available]
‘Shadowland showcases masters of movement.’ The Canberra Times, 25 June 2014, ARTS p. 6.
