The Australian Ballet and Canberra

The discussion of the Australian Ballet and its visits to Canberra, or lack of them over recent years, has become very tedious. This morning The Canberra Times published yet another piece relating to the problems of presenting the Australian Ballet in Canberra.

‘The ballet company’s stunning performances of Romeo and Juliet and new versions of Swan Lake that drew rapturous praise in other parts of Australia could not be staged in the ACT because of a lack of a venue’, the article stated.

The article was wider in scope than a simple discussion of the difficulties faced by the Australian Ballet and was basically a plea for a bigger, better theatre. I agree it would be wonderful to have a new theatre that wasn’t the butt of complaints and that could take larger shows than the present theatre can adequately handle. But what do we do in the meantime? A new theatre will probably be built eventually but, like the very fast train, it may be a long time coming.

Does Canberra really have to be by-passed by the Australian Ballet as has happened over recent years? And yes, I know we had Telstra Ballet in the Park last year—and what a huge audience it attracted on a very inclement evening. And we’ve had a few tidbits as part of a couple of Canberra Symphony Orchestra matinee programs. But not many main-stage events recently.

The Australian Ballet’s 2013 Canberra program, opening shortly, is interesting in this regard. All three works on the program are relatively small scale in terms of the cast required. The pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain is just that, a pas de deux, a dance for two (the complete ballet is cast for just six dancers). George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments is cast for twenty-five dancers although they all come together only briefly at the end of the work. Garry Stewart’s new work Monument is, I understand, made for nineteen dancers. None of these three works needs a full orchestra; none is complemented by a huge set or needs masses of props. What’s wrong with the Australian Ballet coming on an annual basis and bringing this kind of ‘chamber’ repertoire?

Karen Nanasca, study for 'Monument'. Photo: Georges Antoni. — Karen Nanasca in a study for Garry Stewart’s *Monument*. Photo: © Georges Antoni. Courtesy the Australian Ballet

The Australian Ballet at present has a ballet mistress and repetiteur who is an experienced stager of the works of George Balanchine. So many Balanchine ballets fall into this ‘chamber’ category, and what remarkable ballets they are. Graeme Murphy, Stanton Welch and Stephen Baynes have all made works for the Australian Ballet that don’t have huge casts and elaborate sets and costumes. The list is endless. Way, way back Canberra was even the venue for the culmination of the Australian Ballet’s Choreographic Workshop program. Graeme Murphy’s beautifully sensual one act ballet Glimpses, depicting the world of artist Norman Lindsay and danced to Margaret Sutherland’s score Haunted Hills, had its premiere on one such occasion. Why not give Canberra back its annual visit and give it a program made up of works that suit the stage space, that are do-able in Canberra, rather than constantly returning to the chestnut of the facilities not being up to scratch? Let’s get over the prevailing attitude and look for what can happen, rather than what can’t.

What’s wrong with at least giving a ‘chamber’ program a go for a few years to gauge audience reaction? And of course the media have to write about it positively and intelligently so that it doesn’t seem that Canberra is only getting these works because the big ones can’t fit.

As for Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet, well there’s more to the Australian Ballet, and to ballet as an art form, than large scale works like these two, which in their most recent Australian Ballet manifestations didn’t draw ‘rapturous praise’ everywhere anyway. That’s a bit of hype, even though both works were thought-provoking and certainly worth seeing. And anyway for those hankering after blockbusters, Sydney is not far away while we wait for a new theatre. Plenty of us make the trip.

Michelle Potter, 4 May 2013

Symmetries, the Canberra triple bill from the Australian Ballet
23–25 May 2013. Canberra Theatre Centre

Dance diary. April 2013

ArtSound FM, Canberra: new dance segment

Beginning in May I will be hosting a ten minute monthly dance segment on ArtSound FM, Canberra’s community radio station focusing on the arts. The segment will be part of Dress Circle a program hosted by local arts identity Bill Stephens. Dress Circle is broadcast on Sundays at 5 pm and repeated on Tuesdays at 11 pm and my segment will focus on dance in Canberra and surrounding regions. Michelle Potter … on dancing, as the segment will be called, will be a feature of Dress Circle on the first Sunday of each month.

In the first program, which will go to air on 5 May, I will be talking about the Australian Ballet’s visit to Canberra with their triple bill program Symmetries, which opens on 23 May. Leading up to the program I have been talking Garry Stewart about his new work, Monument, and have been discovering some unusual and amusing stories about George Balanchine’s ballet The Four Temperaments. Monument and The Four Temperaments will be accompanied by the pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain in this Canberra-only program.

I will also be sharing some information about Liz Lea’s new work, InFlight, which will premiere at the National Library of Australia on 31 May. InFlight is danced by four female performers who are inspired to become aviatrixes when they see their heros, Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, taking to the air in 1928 and breaking the trans-pacific flight record.

Alison Plevery and Liz Lea, 'InFlight'. Photos: Lorna Sim — Alison Plevey and Liz Lea in costume for *InFlight*. Photos: © Lorna Sim, 2012

There will be other snippets of news as well, and I hope to have time to look back on some of the dance events I have enjoyed in the previous month.

Elizabeth Dalman and Australian Dance Theatre

There was some lovely news earlier this month from Australian Dance Theatre—Elizabeth Dalman has been named patron of ADT for the company’s 50th anniversary year, 2015. Dalman, along with Leslie White (1936‒2009), founded ADT in 1965. White moved on to other things in 1967 and Dalman continued to direct the company until 1975. After a varied career overseas, both before and after the ten years she spent at ADT, Dalman returned to Australia in 1986 and in 1990 founded the Mirramu Creative Arts Centre at Lake George, near Canberra. She continues to direct the Centre and its associated Mirramu Dance Company. Fifty years of ADT will also mark fifteen of Mirramu.*

Elizabeth Dalman in 'From Sapling to Silver', 2011 — Elizabeth Dalman in *Sapling to Silver*, Mirramu Dance Company. Photo: © Barbie Robinson, 2011

I didn’t post my Canberra Times review of Sapling to Silver when it was performed in Canberra in 2011, so here is a link to the review. [UPDATE August 2020: Online link no longer available]. Here is a link to posts about Elizabeth Dalman.

The Fabric of Dance

In April I had the pleasure of presenting an illustrated talk, The fabric of dance, at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, in conjunction with the Gallery’s exhibition Ballet and Fashion. In this talk I looked at how the tutu had developed over three centuries or so, and in particular at how its development had been influenced by changes in fashion and by new materials and fabrics that had become available. But, in putting the talk together, I found I was quite unexpectedly wanting to suggest a link between one of the costumes on show in the exhibition and Louis XIV in his famous role as Apollo in Les Ballets de la nuit of 1653, which I did. I am hoping to post the text of the talk, and the accompanying PowerPoint slides, on this site in due course.

One of the images I showed during the talk was of Paris Opera Ballet dancer Carlotta Zambelli, which I was only able to show as a black and white scan from an article first published in the Australian dance journal Brolga in 2005. My postcard of Zambelli was in colour but it disappeared as a result of being lent when that issue of Brolga was being prepared for publication. I despaired of ever seeing it again but it was returned to me a week or so after the Melbourne talk. So for anyone who was at the talk, below on the right is the image in colour, alongside another (also returned to me at the same time in the same circumstances) of Zambelli with an unknown partner in La ronde des saisons in 1906.

The Rite of Spring: Stephen Malinowski’s animated graphical score

I found what I think is an excellent review of Stephen Malinowski’s animated graphical score of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. I mentioned this score in a previous post without making much comment myself although what the animated score did instantaneously for me was bring me to a realisation of why I disliked Raimund Hoghe’s Sacre so much. Hoghe completely ignored the fact that the music has so much colour, drive and rhythm. The colour, drive and rhythm of the music is perfectly obvious when listening to the music of course, but seeing the animated score absolutely drives it home and opens up a new view of the intensity of the music. Here is the link to the review.

Michelle Potter, 30 April 2013

* Dalman has always been a strong voice in the dance world and she argued against a name change to Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre when Meryl Tankard became director of ADT in 1993. A brief account of that interlude appears in my recent publication Meryl Tankard: an original voice (2012). In a letter to Dance Australia Dalman argued that the company should not carry Tankard’s name as it was important to ‘maintain continuity and … respect for the historical background of the company’.

Morning Star. Mirramu Dance Company

1 March 2013, James O Fairfax Theatre, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Morning Star is the result of two years of research and choreographic development between Elizabeth Dalman and her Mirramu Dance Company based in Bungendore, New South Wales, and communities in Arnhem Land. The work is based on a sacred songline of the Yolngu people that deals with birth, life, death and rebirth. The cast of Morning Star consisted of indigenous and non-indigenous artists and the production was assisted by several cultural consultants, including the custodian of the traditional Morning Star story, Banula Marika, and didgeridoo player, Nalkuma Burarrwanga.

What made the show especially memorable, and indeed to my mind quite remarkable, was the way in which dances associated with the traditional songline were juxtaposed with contemporary versions of the same aspect of the story. So we saw, amongst other similar components of the production, a traditional spirit dance celebrating the rising of the morning star followed immediately by a contemporary spirit dance enhanced by powerful Western-style theatrical lighting and choreographed using contemporary dance vocabulary.

A particular highlight for me was a contemporary brolga dance, which in the spirit of the show followed ‘Mulung, Mulung’, a traditional brolga dance. Performed by Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal, a particularly powerful and captivating dancer, the undulating movement of the contemporary choreography expertly captured the notion of a dancing bird. The costume, designed and made by Peta Strachan, was exceptional: a long white, feathery gown with an extended ‘tail’, it was enhanced by a red flower placed on the breast area, which recalled the red plumage the brolga displays around its head.

But I also especially liked watching Albert David who danced strongly throughout and who had a duet with Miranda Wheen towards the end of the show that displayed both his and her technical strengths and strong stage presence. It was a delight too to see Janet and Djakapurra Munyarryun back onstage, in fact often commanding the stage.

I always feel slightly alarmed, however, at the prospect of non-indigenous dancers performing traditional indigenous movement and most of the traditionally-focused sections included non-indigenous dancers working alongside indigenous artists. But to their credit the non-indigenous dancers in Morning Star only occasionally looked out of place. I did find the section called ‘Kinship’ a little jarring though. In it each dancer came forward to explain his or her indigenous heritage or links, including those dancers without an indigenous background who had been adopted into a clan by an indigenous ‘brother’ or ‘mother’ and so on. I’m not sure it was necessary and program notes convey such matters much better I think. The commitment to the project shone through in movement and breaking that feeling with wordy explanations achieved little.

Morning Star was performed in the difficult space of the James O Fairfax Theatre. Its stage has little depth and little wing space and often requires dancers who perform there to radically transform their floor patterns to accommodate the space. But this show fitted beautifully and there were moments when the ambience, helped by a score from Airi Ingram that included the occasional crying child, transported the audience to an imaginary outdoor gathering place.

Morning Star is a beautifully honest show made with love and commitment.

Michelle Potter, 4 March 2013

Tammi Gissell, launch program, AIATSIS 2013

Centenary of Canberra. Indigenous Program Launch

The Centenary of Canberra Indigenous Cultural Program was officially launched today by Aunty Agnes O’Shea, an elder of the Ngunnawal people and local ACT identity, and Sir William Deane, patron of the Centenary of Canberra and former Governor-General. Following a welcome to country and assorted speeches, Tammi Gissell performed an excerpt from Liz Lea’s new work-in-progress Magnificus, magnificus in an outdoor setting beside the AIATSIS building on Acton Peninsula.

Magnificus, magnificus, a solo work for Gissell performed (at least on the occasion of the launch) to the accompaniment of didgeridoo and violin, builds on explorations into the habits of the Red-tailed Black Cockatoo undertaken by Lea while choreographer-in-residence at the CSIRO Discovery Centre. Both Lea and Gissell have just recently returned from Bourke, New South Wales, where they engaged in ‘back to country’ activities. Their experiences will feed into the development of Magnificus, magnificus, which will have its full-scale production in October as part of the Centenary celebrations. Of that journey home Gissell wrote (in part):

Biloela
Magnificus Magnificus
the Grandmother
and Grandfather
North-River Bourke mob
two Darlings flowing in me
still.
Black
still dusty
and still hot— © Tammi Gissell

Prior to the launch event I noticed Gissell going through the choreography before the performance. And what a setting she chose for her mini rehearsal—the huge, red, curling, concrete ramp that is the physical end of the National Museum of Australia’s ‘Uluru-axis’. The line it takes, which begins at the entrance to the Museum and follows a pathway past the AIATSIS building, appears to end with the curling ramp but in fact continues, in a conceptual sense, north-west to Uluru.

With thanks to Tammi Gissell.

Michelle Potter, 5 February 2013

Featured image: Tammi Gissell, launch program, AIATSIS 2013. Photo:© Michelle Potter

Liz Lea. More Canberra dance in 2013

When I first wrote about what Canberra dance audiences are likely to see in 2013 there was no mention of what Liz Lea, current artistic director of Canberra Dance Theatre, would be presenting over that year. Well, not surprisingly, Lea has a number of shows in development for 2013.

Over the past several months, Lea has been choreographer-in-residence at CSIRO Discovery in Canberra where she is researching bird flight, feathers and behaviour, and examining how the paths of history might inform current dance practice. Many of her plans for 2013 will build on the research and work-in-progress activities she has engaged in as part of the residency. A major venture is Seeking Biloela, which Lea will direct at the Street Theatre, Canberra, on 26 and 27 October. The show will consist of two solo works, ‘Magnificus, magnificus’ and ‘Kaught’.

‘Magnificus, magnificus’, performed by Tammi Gissell and directed by Lea, develops the work-in-progress that Lea showed at CSIRO Discovery during Science Week in August 2012 and in which Gissell made such an impression.

Tammi Gissell in rehearsal for the work-in-progress, *Seeking Biloela*, August 2012. Photos: © Lorna Sim

In its expanded form the work is inspired by the red-tailed black cockatoo, as indeed the work-in-progress was as well, and the developed work will, as Lea puts it, ‘explore the nature of being a performer, where we come from and how we go forward’.

‘Kaught’, created and performed by Lea, is inspired by the writings of the freedom fighter Ahmed Kathrada, who was imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela for 26 years. In particular, ‘Kaught’ focuses on Kathrada’s favourite Hindi song about a trapped bird. In addition to Lea, ‘Kaught’ will feature the ARIA Award winning tabla player Bobby Singh, along with composer and saxophonist Sandy Evans.

The creative team for Seeking Biloela 2013 also includes lighting designer Karen Norris, whose work for Bangarra Dance Theatre’s recent production, Terrain, was so impressive, and Japanese-Australian fibre installation artist, Naomi Ota.

Also during 2013 Lea will direct a company of four dancers to present InFlight, a work inspired by early Australian aviators and Australian bird life. This show has a two day season on 31 May and 1 June at the National Library of Australia. Other projects include a series of dance and science lectures at CSIRO Discovery in February; DANscienCE—a festival of dance and science at CSIRO Discovery and Canberra Dance Theatre studios for National Science Week in August; and a project in June at the National Gallery of Australia as part of Canberra’s Centenary celebrations.

More as information comes to hand but bouquets to Lea for her input into the Canberra dance scene. A bit of alternative dance life is definitely something the city needs.

Michelle Potter, 27 December 2012

Dance diary. November 2012

Meryl Tankard: an original voice

Following requests from a number of readers for a copy of Meryl Tankard: an original voice, which appeared in eight parts on this website between July and September, the book is now available in print form. [UPDATE: This book is no longer available]

Please note that this is a self-published initiative and has not had the benefit of professional design; nor does it include any illustrations. Both were beyond the scope of this venture. It does however include material not published online including a preface, introduction, bibliography, index and the full list of choreographic works, updated with the addition of Cinderella (2011) for Leipzig Ballet, which will be restaged early in 2013 in Leipzig, and The Book of Revelation, the film directed by Ana Kokkinos that Tankard choreographed in 2006.

Canberra news

The Canberra Critics’ Circle announced its annual awards during November. The dance panel gave two awards this year. One went to Adelina Larsson ‘for her initiative in facilitating the development and performance of contemporary dance in Canberra, in particular for her work as director of short + sweet dance, and for her collaborations with independent artists from across Australia to bring a broad spectrum of contemporary dance to Canberra’. Another went to Jordan Kelly local dancer and choreographer in musical theatre ‘for his body of work as an outstanding dancer, and consistent achievements as a talented choreographer, as evidenced in a number of musicals throughout 2012’.

In November, the ACT Government also announced its nominations for the Australian of the Year awards. At this ceremony the ACT Local Hero Award was presented to dancer and mentor, Francis Owusu. There is an enormous amount of community dance currently being practised in the ACT and Francis Owusu founded Kulture Break, a not-for-profit charitable creative arts organisation with a community focus. It acts as an outlet for young people to build self-confidence through dance.

Reviews: The Canberra Times

Here are links to my reviews published during November by The Canberra Times—performances by Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo and short + sweet dance. [UPDATE: Links no longer available]

On this site

The five most visited posts in November were: Thoughts in Pina Bausch’s ‘Rite of Spring’; ‘Icons’: the Australian Ballet; Lana Jones and Kevin Jackson dance Balanchine; ‘Concord’: the Australian Ballet; and ‘Swan Lake’: the Australian Ballet.

Michelle Potter, 30 November 2012

Canberra dance 2013

Today Canberra 100, the Canberra Theatre Centre and the Australian Ballet released their programs for 2013. It looks like Canberra will have a bumper year of dance in 2013—what a change!

The month of May will see the long awaited return of the Australian Ballet to the Canberra Theatre stage due largely, I suspect, to Robyn Archer, creative director of the Canberra 100 celebrations. Archer commissioned a new work from Garry Stewart for the centenary celebrations and Stewart will make Monument on dancers of the Australian Ballet. Stewart can claim a connection to the Australian Ballet School where he was a student between 1984 and 1985 but Monument will be his first commission for the Australian Ballet.

We will have to wait to see how this work develops but media releases currently say that Stewart will engage with the design principles behind the architecture of Parliament House to generate movement. Stewart will have as a creative consultant Aldo Giurgola, architect of Parliament House and a truly generous man who loves the city of Canberra. Fingers crossed for a great world premiere.

Brett Chynoweth and Karen Nanasca in a study for *Monument*. The Australian Ballet. Photo: © Georges Antoni, 2012

The Canberra program will also include Harald Lander’s Etudes, a showcase of classical ballet first made for the Royal Danish Ballet in 1948. It has been in the Australian Ballet’s repertoire since 1986 and its inclusion on the program is an interesting one as it too is somewhat architectural in nature. The American critic Arlene Croce one wrote that Etudes shows ‘that classical forms [in ballet] have a structural coherence’. The program of two works has been given the collective name of Symmetries.

The Canberra 100 program is an incomplete listing at this stage but it does include the Canberra Theatre Centre’s program ‘Collected Works Australia 2013’. Symmetries is listed as part of ‘Collected Works’.

In June, also as part of ‘Collected Works’, Garry Stewart will be back with his Australian Dance Theatre and their production of G, a ‘reinvention’ of Giselle. It has photography by Bill Henson and music composed by Luke Smiles, whom Canberra dance-goers may remember from the mid-1990s when he was a dancer with Sue Healey’s Vis-à-vis Dance Canberra. G may or may not stir the hearts of those who are aching for a Giselle fix in their dance lives, but it will certainly deliver a contrast to the forthcoming Australian season by the Paris Opera Ballet, which will be showing a traditional production of Giselle in Sydney in January and February.

Indigenous dance will feature in two programs in Canberra in March. Elizabeth Cameron Dalman will be combining with Albert David, Djakapurra Munyarryun and cultural consultant Uncle Banula Marika to direct The Morning Star a cross cultural collaboration between Dalman’s Mirramu Dance Company and dancers from the Yirrkala community. The Morning Star will be at the National Gallery’s James O. Fairfax Theatre.

Wesley Enoch, a Stradbroke Island man and currently director of Queensland Theatre Company, is artistic director of of Kungkarangkalpa: the Seven Sisters Songline. It will have an in-progress showing at the National Museum also in March and will feature senior desert dancers from the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara lands. This is a pilot performance of a larger work being developed over four years under an Australian Research Council grant.

In July KAGE, a Melbourne-based company led by former Canberran Kate Denborough and her artistic collaborator Gerard van Dyck, will show Team of Life—First Stage at Gorman House. This work is being made in conjunction with the Dulwich Centre Foundation, a charitable association dedicated to responding to groups and communities facing mental health difficulties as the result of significant hardships. Team of Life uses sport, in particular AFL and soccer, to tell stories of the search by young people for different kinds of freedom. The project will be performed by professional dancers and actors and informed by workshops with young refugees and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Team of Life is set to dissolve the boundaries between sport, theatre and identity.

Also in July Bangarra Dance Theatre will bring BLAK to Canberra. BLAK is a new triple bill production about the challenges to and rewards for Aboriginal young people making transitions to adulthood. Daniel Riley McKinley will choreograph Scar, Stephen Page Yearning, and the two will combine in Keepers. BLAK is part of the Canberra Theatre Centre’s 2013 program.

Sydney Dance Company will be back in Canberra in September with two works by Rafael Bonachela: Project Rameau in collaboration with Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and 2 One Another. Project Rameau has grown from Bonachela’s and Tognetti’s mutual passion for the music of Baroque composer Rameau, while 2 One Another celebrates relationships, interactions and the sheer beauty of the human form. Sydney Dance Company is one of the few companies that has toured to Canberra consistently since its beginnings in the 1970s. What a pleasure it will be to see them again as part of ‘Collected Works’.

Dance in Canberra’s centenary year looks promising. Other events and more dance performances are listed on the Canberra 100 website. [UPDATE August 2020. The website with listings is no longer available. The following quote, however, appears on the site:

“One of the great achievements of the Centenary of Canberra, in my mind, has been the unearthing of community and city pride. This is something we must carry forward as a legacy–the means to a permanent departure from Canberra bashing and self-deprecation about our city. A city brand is far more than a logo. It’s a collective idea–and a collective advocacy–about who we are and what we have to offer.”]

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher, 2013 Blackfriars Lecture at the Australian Catholic University

Michelle Potter, 5 September 2012

Seeking Biloela. Liz Lea

Dance and science came together in Canberra recently at a CSIRO Discovery Centre open day. Liz Lea, working with dancer Tammi Gissell, showed Seeking Biloela, a work in progress based on research into the red-tailed black cockatoo, which Lea has been undertaking while choreographer-in-residence at the Discovery Centre.

Tammi Gissell in rehearsal for Seeking Biloela, 2012. Photo: © Lorna Sim

‘Biloela’ is an aboriginal word (exact language not specified) for black cockatoo and Lea’s work at the moment is truly a ‘seeking’ for the way her work will ultimately develop. Will it focus on ecological issues (some sub-species of the black cockatoo are endangered); indigenous stories (the bird is believed in some areas to be a harbinger of rain); white colonial activities (the nineteenth-century name for Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour was Biloela); the bird’s qualities as expressed in poetry about it; or something else?

Gissell, a descendant of the Muruwari nation of north-western New South Wales, is an exceptional dancer. Every part of her beautifully-honed body is expressive and she is extraordinarily flexible in moving between vocabularies. She was equally at home demonstrating and discussing indigenous movement language as she was using Lea’s particular brand of contemporary Western choreography with its occasional allusions to Indian dance. Gissell also provided some insights into the transmission of indigenous knowledge as she discussed stories about the black cockatoo as told to her by her grandmother.

At CSIRO Lea is working with former CSIRO chief research scientist Dr Denis Saunders and researchers from CSIRO’s Sustainable Ecosystems area. Her residency with CSIRO came about as a result of a children’s show she created in 2011 about the science of flight, which was shown at Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra, during National Science Week.

Michelle Potter, 13 August 2012

Dance diary. May 2012

Heath Ledger Project

In May, on a very grey Parisian morning, I continued my interviewing for the Heath Ledger Young Artists Oral History Project with an interview with Hannah O’Neill. O’Neill is currently dancing on a seasonal contract with the Paris Opera Ballet, having dreamt of dancing with this company since she was a young child.

Hannah O’Neill at the *Pont neuf*, Paris, May 2012

O’Neill graduated from the Australian Ballet School in 2011 and in that year she also auditioned for the Paris Opera Ballet. She was placed fourth in a field of over 100 and as a result of the audition received a seasonal contract. Confident and articulate and looking every inch the dancer, she is taking Paris in her stride. She has recently had her contract extended until the end of July when she will have to audition again for a place in the company. In the meantime she is looking forward to a forthcoming season of La Fille mal gardée.

Meryl Tankard at the Cannes Film Festival

Over the past few years Meryl Tankard has been focusing her considerable talents on film making. She graduated from the directing course at the Australian Film Television and Radio School in 2010. It is a testament to her success in this endeavour that a short film she made called Moth was shown in May at the Cannes Film Festival. A glance at the program for the non-competitive Australian and New Zealand section of the Festival, Antipodes, puts her in exceptional company.

Tankard’s website has the following to say about Moth:

Moth is the story of three young women’s determination to be free, and is inspired by the stories from many reform schools in Australia in the 60s and 70s, and the brutal methods used to discipline the girls.

Pablo Picasso’s curtain for Parade

It was a surprise to discover hanging in the still quite new Pompidou Centre in the north-eastern French city of Metz the curtain from the 1917 Ballets Russes production of Parade. Conceived for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes by Jean Cocteau and first performed in Paris in May 1917, Parade had choreography by Léonide Massine, music by Erik Satie and costumes and settings by Pablo Picasso. The curtain is hanging in an exhibition entitled 1917, which has drawn together an array of visually disparate items, including some associated with war as well as with art in many of its manifestations. 1917 sets out to question the links between destruction, reconstruction and creation in a decisive year of World War I.

Curtain for *Parade* (detail). Photo: Michelle Potter

The exhibition carries some additional items relating to Parade, including a program and some interesting photographs of the 1917 cast. But it was, of course, the curtain that attracted my attention. Although it is of monumental proportions, it is quite an intimate, even gentle piece of art. Its colours are soft and blend easily with each other and the picture is built on exceptionally complex, allegorical imagery. In gives no clue to the strident characteristics of the performance and the antics of the dancers in Parade whose role is to attract an audience into the circus tent, which we see before us on the curtain.

I was in the fortunate position of being able to see a performance of Parade in 2005 when it was staged by the Ballet of Bordeaux at the Diaghilev Festival held in Groningen, the Netherlands. The article I wrote for The Canberra Times about the Festival was also published online by the magazine of the ballet.co site. Here is what I wrote about Parade:

Leonide Massine’s Parade was one of the most anticipated works of the festival and it did not disappoint as a significant collaborative work of the period. With designs by Pablo Picasso, libretto by Cocteau and music by Erik Satie, which incorporated the assorted sounds of a siren and a typewriter and several pistol shots, Parade was created in response to the well-documented demand from Diaghilev to Cocteau—’Astonish me!’ It was also inspired by the Cubist movement in the visual arts and brought Cubism off the canvas and into the theatre. Set outside a travelling theatre with the slight narrative centring on the attempts of the characters to entice an audience into the show, the work premiered in 1917 in Paris and was recreated by the Joffrey Ballet in the 1970s. In Groningen it was performed by the Ballet de Bordeaux and, while it will perhaps always remain slightly eccentric, its apparently simplistic and unadorned choreography is a perfect foil for its idiosyncratic designs and music.U

Canberra dance

I was not in Canberra in May when Liz Lea presented her latest staging of 120 Birds. It also had a brief showing in Sydney at Riverside, Parramatta, after the Canberra season. Lea has a site that gathers together reviews of 120 Birds, including those for the 2012 Canberra/Sydney staging. In addition, here is a link to a preview piece I wrote for the one-woman version of 120 Birds, made for the National Gallery of Australia early in 2011 in conjunction with its exhibition Ballets russes: the art of costume.

New York Public Library

Over the past two months I have been following with considerable interest the upheavals at the New York Public Library, which have been reported upon in The New York Times and other outlets. The most comprehensive background account of the situation is ‘Lions in winter’ by journalist Charles Petersen and appears in n+1 at this link.

Many have wondered why I left New York in 2008 after eighteen months as curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, given that it appeared to be the job of a lifetime for me. Well the issues that led to my resignation are complex (and it was not to get married as one report suggested!), but the majority can be grouped under questions of professionalism and accountability (or lack thereof in my opinion) in certain areas of the Library. In addition, I was dismayed by attitudes to curatorial autonomy, which in most cases did not fit with mine. It should, therefore, be fairly obvious where my opinions lie with regard to the present discussions.

Whether the Dance Division, and other research divisions at Lincoln Center, will be affected in the short or long term by the new plans reported upon by Petersen and others is not clear. However, I believe that the Dance Division is now but shadow of its former self and has been heading this way for some time.

Michelle Potter, 30 May 2012

Me right now. Quantum Leap

09 May 2012, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre

Often the beautifully choreographed ‘curtain calls’ (there is rarely a curtain) in Quantum Leap productions are the most revealing aspect of this youth company’s capabilities. It is then that the dancers relax somewhat and their joy in moving, and their intensity and commitment to the show, is wonderfully clear. Unfortunately with Me Right Now, which centred on ‘the state of being young’, I thought the curtain calls were the best part of the show.

There was a lot of spoken narrative in the first section, ‘You can’t perform a U-turn’, choreographed by Lina Limosani. Too much in my opinion. I’d rather see these young people expressing their ideas with a vocabulary of movement rather than words. And, while I understand the reason for the choreographic structure of the work being pretty much limited to having the dancers move across the stage in a straight line, Prompt to OP, it meant that overall the work lacked variety and subtlety. In fact, it became a little tiresome after a while.

Jade Dewi Tyas-Tungall’s ‘All to-get-her’ suffered a similar fate I think. Its title (remove the hyphens and run the words together) gives a clue to the reason for a choreographic structure that emphasised a certain kind of unity. But the constant crossing of the stage by lines of female dancers gave little visual variety and my interest flagged.

Matt Cornell’s ‘I do I will…’ showed what is a huge strength of the Quantum Leap endeavour—its ability to attract young boys to dance. I am also always impressed by the production values that Ruth Osborne and her team instill into every performance. And I always enjoy the way each section of the show blends seamlessly with the next. But for me Me Right Now lacked the kind of choreography that stops the mind wandering out of the theatre.

Michelle Potter. 13 May 2012