Australian Dance Awards 2018 and 2019

The recipients of Australian Dance Awards for 2018 and 2019 were announced on 8 December. The announcement was streamed by Ausdance National in order to manage the various restrictions on travel, gatherings of people and the like as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. But it was relaxing at least to be able to watch from the comfort of one’s lounge room, or at a small ‘watch party’.

The two recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award were Jill Sykes (2019) and Janet Karin (2020). As is the usual practice, the Lifetime Achievement Awards were announced prior to the other awards and this information has been on the Ausdance National website since late November.

Both awardees have had astonishing careers for well over the forty years that is a requirement for nominations in this category, and their love for and commitment to dance is exceptional. Read the citations that accompany their award at the following links: Jill Sykes ; Janet Karin.

Below is the list of awardees in other categories with just one or two personal comments, some photographs, and links to my reviews, where available:

Services to Dance
Valerie Lawson (2018)
Philippe Charluet (2019)

The work of filmmaker Philippe Charluet crosses many boundaries from documentaries to the addition of film sequences in dance works (remember, for example, his black and white footage in Nutcracker. The Story of Clara). He has worked with many Australian companies including Sydney Dance Company, Meryl Tankard Company, and the Australian Ballet and his contribution to Australia’s dance heritage is inestimable. His website, Stella Motion Pictures, is at this link. Below is a trailer for his documentary on Meryl Tankard.

Services to Dance Education
Karen Malek (2018)
Sue Fox (2019)

Outstanding Achievement in Community Dance
Tracks Dance for In Your Blood (2018)
Fine Lines for The Right (2019)

Outstanding Achievement in Youth Dance
FLING Physical Theatre for Body & Environment (2018)
QL2 Dance for Filling the Space (2019)

Filling the Space was a triple bill program comprising Proscenium by James Batchelor, Naturally Man-Made by Ruth Osborne, and The Shape of Empty Space by Eliza Sanders. It was performed by QL2’s Quantum Leap group, the senior group at QL2.

Quantum Leap dancers in Ruth Osborne's 'Naturally Mad Made'. Filling the Space, 2019. Photo: © Lorna Sim — Quantum Leap dancers in Ruth Osborne’s ‘Naturally Man-Made’. *Filling the Space*, 2019. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Outstanding Achievement in Choreography
Narelle Benjamin and Paul White for Cella (2018)
Garry Stewart for South with Australian Dance Theatre (2019)

Outstanding Performance by a Company
Australian Dance Theatre for The Beginning of Nature (2018)
Bangarra Dance Theatre for 30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand (2019)

Dancers of Australian Dance Theatre in 'The Beginning of Nature', 2018. Photo: © David James McCarthy — Dancers of Australian Dance Theatre in Garry Stewart’s *The Beginning of Nature*, 2018. Photo: © David James McCarthy

Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance
Vicki van Hout for plenty serious TALK TALK (2018)
Laura Boynes for Wonder Woman (2019)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer
Narelle Benjamin for Cella (2018)
Marlo Benjamin in Stephanie Lake’s Skeleton Tree (2019)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer
Kimball Wong for The Beginning of Nature (2018)
Tyrel Dulvarie in Bangarra Dance Theatre’s 30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand (2019)

Scene from 'Unaipon'. Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud — Tyrel Dulvarie as Tolkami (the West Wind) in Frances Rings’ *Unaipon* from *30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand*, Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Dance, Musicals or Physical Theatre
The Farm for Tide (2018)
Strut Dance for SUNSET (2019)

Outstanding Achievement in Dance on Film or New Media
RIPE Dance for In a Different Space (2018)
Samaya Wives for Oten (2019)

Congratulations to the awardees and to those who were short listed as well. Some of the short listed items that I especially admired included the work of West Australian Ballet, especially the production of and dancing in Giselle and La Sylphide; Liz Lea’s RED; the performance by Anca Frankenhaeuser in MIST; and Alice Topp’s Aurum. Some results were very close.

Michelle Potter, 8 December 2020

Featured image: Rika Hamaguchi and Tyrel Dulvarie in a section from ‘to make fire’. 30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand, Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Marlo Benjamin, Kimball Wong and Jana Castillo in Tanja Liedtke’s construct. Australian Dance Theatre, 2017. Photo: © Chris Herzfeld/Camlight Productions

Construct. Australian Dance Theatre. ADAPT Season 2020

Tanja Liedtke’s Construct, a streamed performance from 2017, was an eye-opener. I had not, for various reasons, seen the work before and, while I had heard a lot about it, I really had no idea what to expect. Well, it was funny, it was sad, it was revealing, it was complex, it was about life (and at one stage about death).

Danced with great panache and skill by Marlo Benjamin, Jana Castillo, and Kimball Wong, it examined from so many points of view the notion of construction, as the name implies. The stage space was filled with various items used in building construction, a saw horse, items of timber, power tools, a ladder at one stage, and other such items. The construction of a house was intended as further items were added, and as the basic shape of a house took place. But on a different level the work was also about the ‘construction’ of relationships and often this was indicated by the touching (or not) of index fingers (à la Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling painting). Sometimes the human element was intense, at other times distant, but Liedkte managed to move from one situation to another with ease, often rapidly but, remarkably, without creating any confusion in one’s mind while watching.

Choreographically Construct was entirely different from anything I have seen before. Sometimes the movement seemed quite simple. There was walking, simple jumping, and lying on the floor. But most of the movement was complex and required extreme flexibility, even acrobatic skills from the dancers. But to me it never looked acrobatic or overly physical—just fluid, remarkable and unique.

The work opened with a very funny sequence in which Wong made a largely unsuccessful effort to balance Benjamin and Castillo in an upright position. The two women were as immobile as the strips of wood that became such an inherent feature of the rest of the work. As Construct progressed those strips of wood became windows, roofs, doorways, even a toilet seat at one stage. But looking back, the immobile ladies perhaps represented certain aspects of human relationships, the inability to control another person perhaps?

Construct is an astonishing work created by a choreographer who had a hugely inventive mind. I wish I had seen more of her work.

Michelle Potter, 9 August 2020

Featured image: Marlo Benjamin, Kimball Wong and Jana Castillo in Tanja Liedtke’s construct. Australian Dance Theatre, 2017. Photo: © Chris Herzfeld/Camlight Productions

Beau Dean Riley Smith (centre) as Bennelong, Bangarra Dance Theatre 2017. Photo: Vishal Pandey

Australian Dance Awards 2018. The short list

The names of short listed nominees for the 2018 Australian Dance Awards have just been released. As usual the list shows the amazing variety of dance and dance practitioners we have in Australia, so it was not easy to decide which image to use as the featured one on this post. In the end I opted for an image by Vishal Pandey, a photographer who is relatively new on the Australian dance scene and who has been active in Canberra recently. It is of Beau Dean Riley Smith who is nominated for his role as Woollarawarre Bennelong in Bangarra’s work, Bennelong. Joining Smith on the short list for the award of Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer are Richard Causer, Nelson Earl and Kimball Wong. All gave spectacular performances in particular works in 2017 and any one of them could take out the award.

Here is a link to the media release, which gives the full short list. The recipient of the award for ‘Lifetime Achievement’ will be made public shortly before the awards ceremony. The ceremony for 2018 will be held in Brisbane at the Powerhouse on 8 September 2018. Tickets for the ceremony are available now. Follow this link. The booking link also contains all kinds of useful information about the event and the venue

Michelle Potter, 9 July 2018

Featured image: Beau Dean Riley Smith (centre) as Bennelong, Bangarra Dance Theatre 2017. Photo: Vishal Pandey. With Smith are (left) Tara Robertson and (right) Kaine Sultan-Babij