21 March 2025. Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane
Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet is a long ballet—almost three hours (if we include the two intervals between acts). But it is such a strong work by MacMillan, and so magnificently performed by Queensland Ballet in this 2025 presentation, that those three hours just flew by.
The relationship between Romeo (Patricio Revé) and Juliet (Chiara Gonzalez), critical to the success of the work, was carefully developed throughout, whether at their first meeting, or during the now-famous balcony scene, or when engaging in a clandestine marriage, or right at the end when Juliet wakes in the family crypt and discovers that Romeo is dead on the floor beside her bed.
Much of their dancing took the form of pas de deux, a typical MacMillan approach, and MacMillan’s choreographic approach to every pas de deux was thrilling to watch. In particular I loved the detailed movement of the feet and the fluidity of the lifts that often had the bodies leaning in unusual ways.
The moments shared by the three friends, Romeo, Mercutio (Kohei Iwamato) and Benvolio (Joshua Ostermann), was also a highlight, whether joyous moments of friendship: or dramatic occasions involving sword fights; or attempts by Mercutio and Benvolio to keep Romeo’s behaviour safe and sensible. The three harlots, Georgia Swan, Laura Tosar and Vanessa Morelli also danced brilliantly as they engaged with the three friends, as well as with others in the market place. And Vito Bernasconi gave a powerful performance as Tybalt, cousin of Juliet. Such was his acting, as well as his technical performance, that I was involved enough to dislike him (as a character) for getting in the way of the relationship developing between Romeo and Juliet.
I missed a little the powerful input from the Capulet family that usually characterises the ball scene, although it was a pleasure to see Lisa Pavane making a return to the stage as Lady Capulet. But the ball scene lacked, I thought, the drama that I recall from a variety of other performances I have seen, including the 2019 production by Queensland Ballet. But I always enjoy the historical references that the dancing at the ball involves, especially the slight backwards tilt of the bodies as the dances proceed.
My one regret is that the design of the work from Paul Andrews seemed heavy and somewhat cumbersome. The scenes in the market place, a setting that figures prominently through the early part of the work, did not look as though the activities were actually happening in a market place but simply in front of a residence. The building that made up the background was very Italian-looking with its columned passage ways and its long flight of steps leading to the upper areas of the building. But it was darkly coloured and somehow gloomy, and the restricted space it created for dancing, and even the capacity for characters to move around in the upper passageways, was not conducive to interesting activity.
It is, however, pretty much impossible not to be carried along by this MacMillan masterpiece, especially when Queensland Ballet continues to dance so well, and when Nigel Gaynor continues to conduct the Queensland Symphony Orchestra so magnificently.
Michelle Potter, 23 March 2025
Postscript: An interesting discussion of the MacMillan Romeo and Juliet can be found in Jan Parry’s biography of MacMillan, Different Drummer (London: Faber and Faber, 2009) pp. 274 ff. Also interesting to watch via the ROH streaming platform (it needs a subscription) is Romeo and Juliet. The Royal Ballet in Rehearsal. It contains Royal Ballet rehearsal footage and a conversation with Deborah MacMillan, Donald MacLeary, Laura Morera and others regarding aspects of the ballet. It is especially interesting as Laura Morera has been the principal coach for the Queensland Ballet presentation.
Ever on the move in the development of dance, Sydney Dance Company just recently announced a new initiative—a teacher training program ‘dedicated to the art and practice of dance education’. Led by Linda Gamblin, Head of Training at Sydney Dance Company, the course will begin in July 2025.
This is an exciting initiative from Sydney Dance Company. Teaching is an art in my opinion and dance teachers need specialised teacher training in addition to having danced themselves. Follow this link for a detailed look at what the course will encompass.
Miracle in the Gorbals
In February I was drawn yet again to the Lifeline Book Fair, which has now become a huge Canberra event, and which these days is held more than once a year. My most interesting purchase was a somewhat battered copy of a book by Arnold Haskell that gave a detailed analysis of Robert Helpmann’s early work Miracle in the Gorbals. I saw this work in London in 2014 when it was produced for Birmingham Royal Ballet by Gillian Lynne, who performed in the original 1944 cast as one of the inhabitants of the Gorbals. My review of the Birmingham production is at this link.
The book was published in Edinburgh in 1946, just two years after the premiere of the ballet. It was a more than interesting read, especially the section entitled ‘5. Interpretation’, which I wish I had read prior to seeing the work when I did. But it is hard to know what actually was Haskell’s opinion of the work. Haskell spoke of Helpmann as being ‘a man of the theatre’, which he believed (I think?) was the reason Miracle in the Gorbals was successful. But in ‘Epilogue: A Warning’ Haskell wrote:
Ballet must return to the way of Fokine, who rescued it from decay. His works are not merely beautiful in themselves, they are object lessons in choreography and no one so far has proved himself to have so thorough an understanding of the medium.
Ballet does not need ideas to survive, it needs beauty of line and movement. If ideas can be incorporated at no loss, then well and good. Ballet is not a treatise on current affairs. BALLET MUST APPEAL TO THE EYE. [Haskell’s capitalisation]
All in all a very interesting purchase.
Li Cunxin honoured
Former artistic director of Queensland Ballet, Li Cunxin AO, has been presented with the Prix de Lausanne 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognises his exceptional career from overcoming adversity early in life, to his rise as a celebrated dancer before leading Queensland Ballet to global success.
The Prix de Lausanne has, since 2017, presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to a dancer or choreographer who has made an outstanding contribution to the ballet world. The recent award to Li is such a well deserved recognition of his contribution to dance! Other notable recipients include Wayne McGregor and Alessandra Ferri.
Houston Ballet, directed by Stanton Welch since 2003, has recently announced its 2025-2026 season. Among the works to be presented will be a world premiere from Australian choreographer Alice Topp as part of a triple bill called An Evening with the Stars. The triple bill opens in late May 2026. Neither Topp’s work nor its accompanying music has been named as yet but Topp’s choreographic career clearly continues to grow internationally. Read more about her work and career to date at this link.
An oral history I recorded with Topp for the National Library of Australia in November 2024 is now available online at this link.
News from Mirramu Creative Arts Centre
Vivienne Rogis, co-founder with Elizabeth Cameron Dalman of Mirramu Creative Arts Centre, has recently returned to Canberra from Melbourne, to rejoin Dalman at Mirramu as assistant director. The Mirramu website records:
Viv Rogis is a pilates and movement practitioner with 30 years experience. She believes in the power of movement as medicine for the body and mind. She is interested in movement as art, as fun, as medicine, as community.
Her practice incudes performance, choreography, teaching, curating, researching, & writing about dance. Most recently she has been focused on pilates to help people reach their movement goals including pain reduction, prehab and rehab, as well as strength and capacity building for athletes and dancers.
Rogis performed in Canberra on many occasions before moving to Melbourne. Read about some of those performances at this link.
Coming up …
I am looking forward to seeing Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet as staged by Queensland Ballet, which opens towards the end of March. Watch this brief clip in which ballet master Matthew Lawrence talks about staging the production. It is especially interesting to hear him discuss making the production ‘three dimensional’.
22 September 2024. Palace Electric Cinema, Canberra
Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, which premiered in 1974, has never been my favourite ballet. It has always seemed to be too long and to have a surplus of main characters that have often been hard to distinguish from each other. But I nevertheless went to see the film called L’Histoire de Manon as danced by La Scala Ballet in Milan to music by Jules Massenet. I was intrigued initially by the title and when reading about the ballet before seeing the film I discovered the following on the MacMillan website.
When the Paris Opera Ballet took Manon into its repertoire in 1991, a legal wrangle resulted in MacMillan’s ballet being re-titled L’Histoire de Manon. The heir to Massenet’s estate had objected to possible confusion between the opera and the ballet. Henceforth, the ballet has been known in Europe (with the exception of the United Kingdom) as L’Histoire de Manon and in the rest of the world simply as Manon.
To put it mildly, the film shows the ballet as a tour de force, completely understandable in all its facets and danced with remarkable technique from every performer. Standouts were Nicoletta Manni as Manon and Reece Clarke as the young student, Des Grieux, who falls in love with Manon and follows her to Louisiana, to where, as one of several prostitutes, she has been deported. Technically their performance of MacMillan’s choreography, especially the several pas de deux for them, with their flowing lifts, turns, slides and all manner of movements, was just spectacular. And as for their acting, the relationship between them was clearly evident. The audience could not have asked for more.
The same might be said for Nicola del Freo as Lescaut, Manon’s brother, and Gabrielle Corrado as Monsieur G. M., with whom Lescaut interacts to develop the connection with this rich old man who showers Manon with expensive items of clothing and jewellery. They are seen in the image below.
Even the ending in the swamp in Louisiana was so beautifully performed that its length seemed not to matter any more.
I admired Nicholas Georgiadis’ sets and costumes, as I have previously when seeing them used by London’s Royal Ballet in their production of Manon. They set up so well the difference between the rich and the poor in the story. (Manon will feature in the Australian Ballet’s 2025 season, when it will be performed with sets and costumes by Peter Farmer.)
More than anything, when looking back at my reactions while watching this film, I am very surprised by my emotional involvement in the production. I felt totally involved! It doesn’t happen all that often.
I have seen the La Scala company twice before, once in Brisbane in 2018 when they performed the Nureyev production of Don Quixote and once in Milan in 2019 when I saw their rendition of Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works. On both those occasions I was blown away by the performances and after Don Quixote wrote ‘This was a spectacularly good production from an outstanding company of artists.’ The film L’histoire de Manon simply confirmed my opinion that this company is just amazing.
Michelle Potter, 24 September 2024
Featured image: Nicoletta Manni as Manon
The photos used in this post come from publicity material for the film.
10–20 April, 2024. Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London reviewed by Sonia York-Pryce
It has been 10 years since the inaugural Elixir Festival, the brainchild of Chief Executive & Artistic Director of Sadler’s Wells, Alistair Spalding, and Artistic Programmer and Producer of the Elixir Festival, Jane Hackett. Created in 2014 as ‘a celebration of creative ageing’, the 4-day festival thrust the subjectivity of dance and ageing into the spotlight, highlighting the artistry of older professional dance artists. It featured works by Mats Ek, Pascal Merighi, Hofesh Shechter, Matteo Fargion and Jonathan Burrows with performances by Dominique Mercy of the Pina Bausch Company, Mats Ek with his muse Ana Laguna and Argentina’s Generación Del Ayer, plus former members of London Contemporary Dance Theatre returning to the stage. This program drew a full house confirming that audiences were interested in seeing diversity, with great artists performing irrespective of their age. The Company of Elders, Sadler’s Wells longstanding community dance company, performed alongside other amateur companies from the UK. The Art of Age conference brought together dance scholars, and educators to discuss the continuing age bias and the need for more inclusivity within the field of Western dance.
Move on a decade and the Elixir Festival 2024 has grown in stature and prominence. The festival has been co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union, as part of DANCE ON, PASS ON, DREAM ON. Spanning over eleven days, featuring performances from international professional dance artists from 12 countries, amateur dancers, workshops, Elixir on digital stage and talks. Dance featuring seasoned performers is certainly becoming more mainstream, but progress is still needed to maintain a permanent presence. Headliners included the Mother of African dance Germaine Acogny, performing alongside, Malou Airaudo from Pina Bausch Company, Louise Lecavalier, Charlotta Öfverholm, Dance On Ensemble Berlin, Ben Duke and Christopher Matthews to name but a few, accompanied by Sadler’s Wells Company of Elders, with UK based amateur performance groups.
The opening night’s triple bill was a feast of creative ageing and life experience. Germaine Acogny (79) founder of Senegal’s École des Sables and Malou Airaudo, who incidentally was celebrating her 76th birthday on the night, performed their first work together, Common Ground[s] to Fabrice Bouillon LaForest’s accompaniment on strings. Beautifully lit by Zeynep Kepekli to highlight the two acclaimed performers, with costume design by Petra Leidner, it is a work that shows them in a variety of modes, as warriors and survivors of dance. Whilst giving each other respect, there is tenderness, and a mirroring of motion. The audience were delightfully receptive to these two dance elders, and it certainly made a strong statement that seeing ‘age on stage’ was receiving the respect it warranted. This work has toured internationally as a worthy partner alongside Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring. Bausch was an early advocate for intergenerational dance, valuing the assets ageing brought to the performance.
To follow Louise Lecavalier (65), the punk princess of contemporary dance, famed for her incredible gravity defying performances with Edouard Lock’s La La La Human Steps in the 1980s, performed her work, Minutes around late Afternoon. She has come to choreographing late in life but through this work she continues to thrill with her ceaseless moving, arms in constant motion, mirrored by those feet as she bourrées endlessly, gliding across the stage, effortlessly. Dressed in black by designers Yso & Elizabeth Duran, she is defined by the starkness of the stage lighting by Alain Lortie and François Blouin, with her face at times obscured by her blonde tousled hair cascading out of a hoodie. She could be a teenager, judging by her unlimited stamina and presence as she moves continuously, with hardly a breath exhaled as she balances ceaseless motion with the accompanying sound mixing of Benot Beaupre. Music by Antoine Berthiaume (Lien 3), The black dog (Bass mantra, Greddy gutter guru), Dawn of midi (Atlas), are laudable partners to her performance. Lecavalier gives a masterclass in ‘seeing is believing’, defying all concepts that you are too old to thrill. She is just as exhilarating to watch now as she was when a ‘no limits barred’ dancer back in the 80’s. May she never stop!
The final work for the evening White Hare, was commissioned by Sadler’s Wells, and is described as a trio for 2 dancers and a tortoise. Choreographed by artistic director Ben Duke of LOST DOG with fantastic performances by 50 somethings Christopher Akrill and Valentina Formenti as a middle-aged couple navigating life. Duke is known for producing work with a dark satirical edge and this is no different as it traverses life in reverse with issues of Armageddon, survival, and trivialities of life. This alongside the aptly named Tipple the tortoise, who perhaps appears as a metaphor for longevity. It’s a beautiful, humorous piece with exuberant dancing from both, with the set design by Delia Peel and sound by Jethro Cooke. It is a fitting foil to end the evening’s wonderful inspirational performances.
Throughout the festival choreographer, performer and visual artist Christopher Matthews/FORMED VIEW premieres ACT 3, the final work of his trilogy, following on from My Body and Lads. Here Matthews explores queer masculinity, obscured emotions, identity, fragility, intimacy, ageism and the male gaze in later life. In an artist talk during the festival with Nicola Conibere he revealed how he needs to re-think dance history, questioning how masculinity is defined in dance. For ACT 3 he references Kenneth MacMillan’s bedroom scene from Romeo & Juliet, imagery from New York based photography collective PaJaMa, queer writers of the 1930s and 40s with further inspiration from the nude male Greek and Roman marble sculptures in Munich’s Glyptotek. The work features a cast of male collaborators all over the age of 60, Donald Hutera, Bruce Corrie, Andy Newman, Roberto Ishii, John Charles Marshall, Markus Trunk and Stephen Rowe. This is a statement in itself, as male performers of this age are rare to see performing. So, giving them a place to perform and be seen is a triumph. The set is minimal, a mattress covered in white fabric, the men similarly costumed, and the observed starkness brings for greater visibility of the content. By using the domestic setting of a bedroom, he experiments with intimacy by bending the boundaries of realism and fantasy. The work is improvised with butoh-inspired movements that explore tenderness and connection. Matthews is interested in what is considered high or low art and interrogating how an audience observes performance. The work was first shown on the opening night of the festival in the upstairs foyer of the main theatre then later in a similar space in the Lilian Baylis Studio. It was well received.
On April 12th the double bill brought together Charlotta Öfverholm and Jordi Cortés former members of DV8, In A Cage of Light and Susan Kempster’s Mother in the Lilian Baylis Studio. Öfverholm and Cortés, choreographed and performed the work alongside fellow collaborator Tobias Hallgren, with the score played by composer and musician Lauri Antila. Öfverholm and Cortés bring together a sublime physical theatre performance of wit, balance, showmanship, humour, melancholy, drama, authenticity and life experience. These seasoned performers are so comfortable on the stage. Not for one minute is there any respite for Öfverholm, as she is either swinging on a trapeze high above the stage ready to plummet or hanging by her fingertips from a ridiculously high steel bar fixed perilously high on the wall stage right, or metaphorically assuming the role of a cello artfully played by Cortés. These performers accomplish what we believe is impossible for older dancers let alone older people to achieve. The piece moves at a rapid pace and concentration is essential to keep a breadth of their performance through dance, voice, song or stillness. This is a well performed piece and timing is of the essence. Their love for performing is all encompassing and the audience love the ride.
Kempster’s Mother commissioned by Sadler’s Wells, featured an intergenerational duet which looked at intimacy, ageing and how this is perceived when we look at the relationship between an older woman and a young man or perhaps a mother and son. It is a work that looks at two different bodies, ambiguity and assumptions, contemporary dance partnering, with the connections and perceptions that inspire Kempster. Danced by creative collaborators Charlotte Broom and Harry Wilson, the work is bursting with free-flowing movements filling all angles of the stage with score by composer Dirk Haubrich. The dancers are costumed similarly in stunning bronze fabrics designed by Jessica Cabassa which enhance the movements of the dancers, with lighting design by Ros Chase. To follow on from the physical theatre of Öfverholm and Cortés was a hard task, with the lines of distinction at times blurred, but it was the pure dance that triumphed, and it appeared the dancers enjoyed the experience as much as the audience.
On April 17th in the Lilian Baylis Studio, Berlin’s Dance On Ensemble brought 2 works, London Story a reimagining of Merce Cunningham’s (1963) Story and Mathilde Monnier’s reworking of the former to produce Never Ending (Story). Dance On Ensemble is the first mature dancer company founded since the legendary NDT3, (1991-2006) and is on its second iteration with continued secured funding from the German Federal Government. They also form part of DANCE ON, PASS ON, DREAM ON. Sadler’s Wells is also one of 11 DOPODO partners co-funded by the European Union. Incidentally for Sadler’s Wells that partnership will come to an end after Elixir 2024, which is a great loss for the establishment and UK dance in general. Story featured dancers, Ty Boomershine, Tim Persent, Marco Volta, Emma Lewis, Gesine Moog, and Jone San Martin. The original improvised work was performed numerous times with constant changes and alterations allowed at each performance; with only one filmed version in 1964 for reference. So, the archive is indeed limited and much remains unknown other than some notes from Cunningham himself. With this in mind DOE has chosen to re-imagine the work with the assistance from Cunningham re-stager Douglas Squires. Centre stage is set with a huge pile of clothes that the cast rummages through, puts on, takes off and changes numerous times. The scenery consists of 2 black boards with text charting time changes, transitions, performance and movement notes, all are markers for the audience to understand how the performance will progress. Matching this is the score by Toshi Ichiyanagi with live music provided by Mattef Kuhlmey, with a digital clock that sets the pace as it runs simultaneously throughout the performance, clocking the clothing changes, transitions, changes of direction and much more. This version is colourful, joyful, amusing and certainly retains its modernity. The re-imagined choreography gave the cast wonderful opportunities to highlight their capabilities and they work beautifully as an ensemble. With lighting designs by Martin Beeretz, costumes by Sophia Piepenbrock-Saitz and visual artist Christopher Matthews assumes the role of Cunningham collaborator Robert Rauschenberg, providing ready-made stick images in primal coloured tape depicting dance moves offering further embellishment and humour to the work.
Mathilde Monnier’s Never Ending (Story) is her response to Cunningham’s Story using the poetry of David Antin (1932-2016), a contemporary of Cunningham and John Cage. Monnier experiments with how thought and movement come together. This work is the antithesis of Story in that it is a structured composition with the dancers constantly on the move. The contrast between Antin’s poetry and Monnier’s choreography frequently produces moments of real humour. The cast of Ty Boomershine, Marco Volta, Gesine Moog, Emma Lewis, and Jone San Martin, bring together, voice, movement, thought and repetitions in an altogether entertaining piece. Light design is by Martin Beeretz, costumes by Mathilde Monnier and sound design by Mattef Kuhlmey.
These two works illuminate the skills of Dance On Ensemble and demonstrate that artistry is at the forefront here. How fortunate the audience is to see this company demonstrate that dance need not have an expiry-date, but that age and life experience become assets that embellish and imbue a performance.
Sonia York-Pryce, 20 June 2024
Featured image: Elixir Banner, featuring Germaine Acogny and Mailou Airoudo. Image credit: Sadler’s Wells
10 June 2022. Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane
Li Cunxin has been at the helm of Queensland Ballet for close to ten years and the company’s latest production, an absolutely mind-blowing triple bill called Li’s Choice, is in celebration of those ten years of masterful leadership on Li’s part.
The program opened with Greg Horsman’s Glass Concerto, a work for six dancers performed to a violin concerto by Philip Glass. I saw this work in 2017 and, while I loved parts of it, especially what I called the ‘technical fireworks’ of the choreography for the third movement, it left me uninspired in other parts. Not this time. The opening moments were danced by all six dancers and the choreography was filled with beautifully rehearsed classical partnering for the three couples. From there the choreography unfolded to show the dancers in different groupings with some solo sections before it reached the so-called (by me) fireworks. Mia Heathcote caught my eye, as she usually does, in this case for her exceptional ability to add that tiny extra bit of expression (both facial and in the body) that makes her work stand out. But every dancer showed an inspired approach to Horsman’s choreography. They just looked spectacular, all of them.
Costuming by Georg Wu was, on the surface, quite simple—a black leotard-style garment for men and women with a more masculine look to the lower section for the men. But the detailing was quite beautiful—a bit of sparkle here, a cut-out section there, and with opaque sections contrasting with more translucent areas. All together Glass Concerto was a terrific opener.
The middle work was Natalie Weir’s very moving We who are left, which I also saw earlier from Queensland Ballet.* I was just as moved this time by a work that I think is a masterpiece from Weir. On the surface, We who are left is a simple story about five men who leave for a war zone, their activities in the war zone, the fate of the women they leave behind, and the return of one of the five men. But the emotion that Weir injects into the choreography takes the work to a truly inspiring level. This time I was especially taken by the choreography for the men when at war. While this section began in somewhat of a militaristic style, as the war continued the choreography became more fractured, more twisted, more death-like.
But still the highlight for me was the section ‘She who was left’, danced on this occasion by Lucy Green. The woman is joined by the man (Patricio Revé) who left her to go to war. He was one of those killed and returns in spirit to the woman. The pas de deux between them is just a brilliant piece of choreography. They dance together but never touch, although the emotional connection, the memory, is there in full. And what a different feel this pas de deux has from another in the same work, ‘Memories of love’, when a physical connection between Lina Kim and Vito Bernasconi is at the heart of the pas de deux
We who are left is complemented by a stunning lighting design by David Walters (revived by Cameron Georg), It delivers an emotional setting from beginning to end.
The closing work was Kenneth MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations, performed to music from Scott Joplin and other ragtime-style composers, with the chamber orchestra, Camerata, playing on stage. Nigel Gaynor conducted and was pianist for the orchestra.
Elite Syncopations is a series of routines featuring characters in a dance hall of some kind. There is not a storyline as such but the characters flirt amongst each other and vie for attention from others in the dance hall. Stand-out performances came from Neneka Yoshida, in a fabulous white costume with strategically placed red stars (costume design by Ian Spurling); Mali Comlecki as a suave character who seemed to want to put himself above everyone else; Luke Dimattina, who played a guy somewhat on the outskirts of the group but who wanted to be part of it; and Victor Estévez whose character seemed to be in competition somewhat with that of Comlecki.
Elite Syncopations gave everyone in the cast a chance to let their hair down and clown around a bit. The funny thing was that, having seen this work performed by the Royal Ballet, on whom it was originally made by MacMillan in 1974, I thought Queensland Ballet brought a new insight to the work. Somehow it seemed quite ‘Ocker’ in comparison the the Royal version! I loved it.
Apart from the breathtaking performances across the board, what really struck me was that this triple bill showed us what dance can transmit to an audience. We had a peek at the vocabulary of classical ballet and the beautiful athleticism and lyricism that dancers trained in the style can achieve, we saw how dance can transmit hugely emotional feelings about life and its many and varied aspects, and we were treated to the notion that dance is fun, joyous and often hilarious. While each of the three works was focused largely on one of these three ideas, there were traces of all in each.
The evening curtain call rightly included Li and the presentation to him of a huge bouquet of red roses. Justly deserved! Li’s Choice was an absolute cracker of a triple bill and shows Li as a great director. It also shows the Queensland Ballet staff as brilliant collaborators and teachers and the company itself as one of the best, perhaps even the best, we have in this country.
My original review of We who are left appeared in 2016 on the UK site DanceTabs. DanceTabs no longer exists but the review I wrote then is available at this link now.
Last time I wrote a book review for this site I was puzzled by the difference between a memoir and an autobiography. Well there is no struggle this time. Leanne Benjamin’s Built for Ballet is clearly an autobiography of a woman who has had an absolutely stellar career as a dancer across continents. It focuses not on one aspect of her life but, going back to where earlier I went searching for definitions, it ‘primarily focuses on facts—the who-what-when-where-why-how of [an author’s] entire timeline.’ We are privy to Benjamin’s dance-focused life from the time she took her first dance lessons, aged three, in Rockhampton, to 2020 when the book was completed. And it is a fascinating account of that life, written in a very conversational tone. It is hard to put the book down once one starts.
I am, however, curious about that conversational tone. While it is lovely to be carried along with the story, I couldn’t help wondering how it was written. Was it partly constructed as a result of oral interviews, with Benjamin’s words translated straight to written form? This would perhaps account for certain grammatical issues that I found a little grating. Speaking isn’t always grammatically correct, especially when agreements between verb and subject, and the use of ‘me’ and ‘I’ as subject or object are concerned. I am perhaps a pedant but I do find certain things annoying and wish that strict copy editing could remain an essential part of book production so that the written word retains its grammatical structure.
Moving on, however, Benjamin is thoroughly honest about her relationships with coaches, directors, other dancers and the like and it is great to read of her approaches to rehearsals, classes, being coached, partners, and performing. Then, one can vicariously feel the exhaustion of the extensive travel that Benjamin undertook both with the companies with which she was involved and as a guest artist around the world. The way Benjamin addresses the various injuries all dancers sustain over the course of a career also arouses a feeling of empathy for the pain and the loss of performances that have to be endured.
I especially enjoyed Benjamin’s discussion of her work with some of the most outstanding choreographers of her time. Her work with Kenneth MacMillan, and later with Wayne McGregor, stand out. What did she gain from being coached by them? And how was she able to pass on what she had gained to younger dancers when she became a coach herself? It’s all there. And yes, her thoughts on Ross Stretton and his time both with the Australian Ballet and the Royal Ballet are featured at one stage.
Benjamin does not gloss over her personal life either. We learn of her various love interests, her marriage and the birth of her son, and the fate of her extended family including her mother-in-law and father-in-law, both of whom had major dance or dance-related careers.
Perhaps one section that I found fascinating, largely because of where I live, concerned the photo that appears on the back cover of the book (although all the photos in the book are interesting and often quite personal). The back cover has a photograph taken in 2006 by Jason Bell at a location outside Alice Springs. It is a spectacular image. A print is in the collection of the National Library of Australia in Canberra and is often used as a publicity shot for anything to do with dance and the National Library. It is etched in my mind as a result. Benjamin discusses the circumstances surrounding the photo shoot.
Queensland Ballet has today announced that artistic director Li Cunxin has renewed his contract for a further three years from 2022. This is excellent news as Li’s directorship has been one of the great success stories of dance in Australia. Queensland Ballet is now an exceptional company with an exciting repertoire and, in addition, the company has expanded its reach beyond Brisbane, and has now also developed a first class training academy at Kelvin Grove State College.
Watching Li take a rehearsal gives a clear picture of his commitment to his role and his unquenchable thirst to achieve only the best. He has a strong team of teaching and administrative staff behind him, a resident choreographer in Natalie Weir, with Jack Lister as associate choreographer, and an outstanding musical director in Nigel Gaynor. It’s a company with everything to offer.
This announcement came at the same time as Queensland Ballet announced its 2022 season. Two programs, The Sleeping Beauty and a double bill of Rooster and B-Sides, will be performed on the Gold Coast where Queensland Ballet has set up a new home. In Brisbane four programs will be performed at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC)—Giselle in April (following a regional tour in March); a triple bill entitled Li’s Choice in June; Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon in September/October; and The Nutcracker in December. The company will also perform at the Thomas Dixon Centre with Peter and the Wolf slated for June/July; Bespoke, the annual program of new choreography, for July; and Queensland Ballet Academy Gala for August. Full details of the season are set out in this link. Information about three performances of Manon featuring Li and Mary Li can also be found there!
If I had to choose just one program to see in 2022 it would be Li’s Choice. Natalie’s Weir’s work We who are left is a moving, beautifully structured and choreographed work first seen in 2016, which I have wanted to see again for a while. It will share the program with Greg Horsman’s Glass Concerto and Kenneth MacMillan’s Elite Syncopations. A decidedly mixed triple bill. Read my review of We who are left at this link.
Let’s hope that in 2022 the Queensland Government will allow those of us who live outside that state (and who have been double-vaccinated and are happy to wear masks and engage in social distancing etc, etc) to enter Queensland to see a show or two.
28 August 2019. Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane
With its production of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Queensland Ballet once again displayed its constantly growing position as one of Australia’s leading dance companies. This Romeo and Juliet, for which the premiere dates back over 50 years to 1965, was first performed by Queensland Ballet in 2014 when the cast included several international guest artists. In 2019 the cast was home grown. The night really belonged, however, to Mia Heathcote as Juliet and Patricio Revé as Romeo. Both were promoted onstage at the conclusion of the performance.
The Heathcote/Revé partnership was an engaging one throughout. They shone in the several pas de deux on which the MacMillan production centres, and both provided us with believable interpretations of the characters they represented. Mia Heathcote’s confidence onstage and her ability to maintain her characterisation (and technique) throughout what is a long ballet with many changes of location, not to mention changes of emotional mood, was admirable. Revé clearly has many talents, although I suspect he probably needs a little more time before he has the stage presence that will match his technique.
I loved the group scenes in this production, all of which were imbued with great energy and so much interaction between all those on stage. Particularly impressive was the Capulet Ball, led magnificently by Steven Heathcote, guesting on this occasion from the Australian Ballet. There was just a touch of pride in the way he held his chest and turned his head that told us he was in charge. He maintained that dominance, a calm but obvious dominance, throughout, whether he was dismissing Tybalt’s attempts to remove Romeo from the ballroom, or demanding later that Juliet marry Paris. The ball scene was also distinguished by MacMillan’s beautiful choreographic approach in which the guests all danced with a slight tilt to the body. So appropriate to the era in which the ballet takes place.
The several fight scenes, staged by Gary Harris, were dramatic and spirited and, in the earliest of those scenes, the whole stage was abuzz with fiery action. The death of Mercutio at the hands of Tybalt was equally as dramatic with Kohei Iwamoto performing strongly throughout as Mercutio.
I was entranced too by a dancer (unnamed) playing the part of a disabled old man in the market place. Mostly he was high up on a kind of balcony that surrounded the market square but he was so involved with what was happening below that it was often hard to take one’s eyes away from him to watch the main action.
What confused me slightly (and probably only because I had not so long ago seen London’s Royal Ballet perform the MacMillan Romeo and Juliet) were the designs used by Queensland Ballet. I was, I have to admit, expecting the Georgiadis designs, which I admired greatly) but it turned out that Queensland Ballet has what Li Cunxin calls the ‘touring’ designs, which were rented from a company in Uruguay and are by Paul Andrews. For me they couldn’t match those of Georgiadis, although I admired Juliet’s bedroom with its red/orange drapes and its religious icon/prayer point in one corner. The costumes for the musicians who accompany the wedding procession in the market place were also impressive. They spun out beautifully during turning movements.
All in all though, another wonderful show from Queensland Ballet.
4 May 2019 (matinee). Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
It is always exceptional to see a work by a choreographer who is not the familiar one from one’s previous experiences of that work. Having seen John Cranko’s production of Romeo and Juliet countless times, as performed by the Australian Ballet, along with several versions by other choreographers, the Royal Ballet’s production of Kenneth MacMillan’s version of the Shakespearian tragedy was indeed an exceptional experience. I was lucky too, I think, to have seen Sarah Lamb and Vadim Muntagirov in the leading roles. While I thought Lamb’s interpretation was a little too child-like, I was fascinated by the changing emotions displayed by Muntagirov. In addition, the partnership between Lamb and Muntagirov was very secure technically and, as a result, MacMillan’s often swirling, curving, diving lifts were realised beautifully.
The MacMillan version of Romeo and Juliet received its premiere in 1965. It is a gutsy production from the beginning when the market place of the opening scene buzzes with activity and is filled with people who seem so real (and was that a side of a dead cow being carried through the crowd on the way to the market?). The sense of the real continues through to the middle scenes when Mercutio and then Tybalt die from sword wounds and do so in such a dramatically convincing fashion, and on to the end where Romeo’s and Juliet’s death scenes leave us emotionally exhausted.
Then, Nicholas Georgiadis’ sets have little of the romantic to them. The Capulets live in a fortress, as we see when the guests arrive for the Capulet ball. And, as Jann Parry tells us in her program notes, the inclusion of a fortress looks back to the Franco Zeffirelli theatre production, made for the Old Vic in 1960-61, when Zeffirelli had the Capulets live in such a structure as protection from enemies and in order to preserve their family treasures. Then the crypt in which the Capulets place the apparently dead Juliet is spectacular with its huge stone sculptures and its flights of dark stairs of stone. The production has a kind of rawness to it and just speeds along.
Muntagirov danced superbly showing off his spectacularly light and seemingly effortless jumps; his wonderfully controlled turns, including some in attitude devant as well as attitude derrière, along with some great manèges with various showy steps. But what I especially admired about his Romeo was the way he made his emotions so visible. A highlight was when he watched a wedding parade enter the market place (to the accompaniment of mandolins) in the early moments of Act II. As he stood downstage, almost motionless, we could read that he was thinking that he and Juliet could and should follow that very example. Another was his undisguised anger at what Tybalt had done to Mercutio, and his determination to avenge the death of his friend.
Sarah Lamb is not my favourite Juliet I’m afraid. I know Juliet is a mere 13 or 14 years old but, within the MacMillan structure, I would have preferred a more feisty Juliet. But with her beautifully proportioned limbs and sound technique she danced superbly and was a joy to watch from that point of view
I enjoyed Thomas Whitehead’s commanding presence as Tybalt, especially in the scenes in the market place where his dislike of Romeo was constantly visible, and in the ball scene where his carriage of the upper body marked him as being a proud and aristocratic Capulet. And incidentally, the corps danced beautifully in the ball scene as they tilted their bodies slightly back from the waist upwards in a show of historical deportment. Other dancers to admire especially were Marcelino Sambé as a vibrant Mercutio, Téo Dubreuil as a constantly concerned Benvolio, and Christina Arestis as a very haughty Lady Montague who clearly could not bear the Capulet family.
This production was highly engaging and I love to ponder its character beside the others that I have seen—those of Cranko, Graeme Murphy, John Neumeier, Stanton Welch, and the two versions that take particular liberties for one reason or another—those of Sasha Waltz and Natalie Weir. (I have no review on this site of the Cranko production. It has been a while since the Australian Ballet showed it).
Viviana Durante has just directed a short program of early works by Kenneth MacMillan, namely excerpts from House of Birds and Dansesconcertantes and the full Laiderette. Her dancers on this occasion came from several companies including the Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Ballet Black.I wanted more than anything to see Laiderette.Apart from anything else, the title had been a source of fascination for ages. What did it mean?EventuallyI discovered that it is a contraction of ‘laideronette’, and means ‘little ugly one’.
But it was its Australian connections that interested me in particular. Originally performed at a Sadler’s Wells choreographic workshop in 1954, it was designed by Australian artist Kenneth Rowell. It was his first commission from MacMillan (he later designed MacMillan’s Le baiser de la fée), and one of his earliest works after arriving in England on a British Council scholarship. In the Durante revival the printed program did not acknowledge Rowell (although he is acknowledged elsewhere) but gave the names of two costume designers covering the evening’s works: Rossella D’Agostino and Tjasha Stroud. How closely (if at all) they had investigated Rowell’s original designs is, unfortunately, not at all clear.
Laiderette was acquired by Marie Rambert for her company in 1955 and was in the Rambert repertoire until the late 1960s. The other interesting Australian connection, resulting from the Rambert acquisition, is that well-known Melbourne-based ballet teacher, academic, and former dancer with a range of companies in England and Australia, Maggie Lorraine, danced the leading role of Laiderette when the work was filmed in 1966.
As the story goes, the leading lady, Laiderette, is a member of an itinerant group of circus performers and is left by her colleagues outside a house where a masked ball is taking place. While she is sleeping a mask-seller puts a mask on her face. She is eventually discovered by guests at the ball. The Host is called and dances with her until, when masks are removed, her wig comes off at the same time. She is discovered to be bald and is rejected by all at the masked ball, notably the Host who has shown particular interest in her.
In the performance I saw the role of Laiderette was danced by Francesca Hayward and the host by Thiago Soares, both principals with the Royal Ballet. I could not have hoped for a better pair of dancers to bring MacMillan’s story to life, and in particular to advance the somewhat dark subtext of alienation, exclusion and rejection. It was a fascinating early insight into MacMillan’s interest in examining through dance certain psychological states of mind.
Of the other two works shown, the excerpt from Danses concertantes, a duet,was over almost before it had started, so short was it, and the costumes were breathtakingly awful, especially the black, tight-fitting wigs/skull caps each surmounted by a golden ornament of dubious meaning. Choreographically it seemed quite stilted, even somewhat awkward to me, although I took this to mean that MacMillan was making an effort to reflect the sharpness of Stravinsky’s music to which it was danced, and/or it was an indication of MacMillan’s counter intuitive approach to making dance. At the performance I saw, Australian dancer Benjamin Ella, now a soloist with the Royal Ballet, partnered Akane Takada, although the shortness of the excerpt gave little opportunity to make any sensible comment on their performance.
House of Birds opened the program and perhaps the best performance in the cast I saw came from the Bird Woman, danced by Sayaka Ichikawa from Ballet Black, whose pecking head was mesmerising. Based on a tale by the Brothers Grimm, also dark in its subtext, it follows the consequences that emerge when a Boy (Thiago Soares) and a Girl (Meaghan Grace Hinkis) are captured by a Bird Woman.
Bouquets to Durante for having the courage to restage these three works, thus providing an opportunity to consider how MacMillan’s later work developed from them. A video of the program in its entirety is available (with in some places a different cast from the one that I saw) at this link.
UPDATE July 2020: This video is now ‘private’ and only available with permission.
Michelle Potter, 22 April 2018
Featured image: Scene from Laiderette, Viviana Durante Company, 2018
