As August approaches I am looking forward to a number of dance performances beginning in Wellington with Royal New Zealand Ballet’s triple bill program Solace. Solace opens on 1 August and consists of Wayne McGregor’s Infra and two new works, To Hold by Sarah Foster-Sproull and High Tide by Alice Topp. Infra was seen in Australia in 2017 when it was performed by the Australian Ballet in a season called Faster. It is not my favourite McGregor work and it suffered somewhat in 2017 by being programmed alongside an absolutely brilliant work, Squander and Glory, by Tim Harbour. But I am very much looking forward to seeing the new works by Foster-Sproull and Topp.
I interviewed Topp in November for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. It is available to listen to online at this link.
Then, in mid-August, the fifth Ballet International Gala begins a series of one night stands in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra. Annoyingly it is not clear which works will be presented in Australia. Nor is it clear which dancers will be performing. I guess we just have to wait and see! Here is the website, which may eventually include some specific information.
James Batchelor was recently funded by artsACT to develop a new work ‘inspired by the late choreographer, Tanja Liedtke.’ This follows on from his Shortcuts to familiar places, which examined the influence of Gertrud Bodenwieser on those who were close to her and those who followed her methods of dancing and teaching.
Liedtke’s career was relatively short. She tragically died when quite young (she was just 29) and, while she was definitely an influential choreographer, she was, as a result of her early death, without the extended connections Bodenwieser had developed over many decades. So, it will be interesting to see how Batchelor develops this new work.
News from QL2 Dance
Late in July, at the invitation of the Australian Embassy in Thailand, some dancers from Canberra’s youth group QL2 Dance performed in Bangkok as part of a large-scale event to celebrate the birthday of His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Phra Vajiraklaochaoyuhua. Two First Nations’ dance artists, Julia Villaflor (Wagiman) and Jahna Lugnan (Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr) were part of the celebration and performed Connected, a duet they had created that acknowledges and explores their connection to the land and each other. Villaflor and Lugnan were accompanied on their journey to Bangkok by Alice Lee Holland, incoming director of QL2 Dance.
Li Cunxin’s farewell as artistic director of Queensland Ballet was celebrated in a gala show over three performances on 12 and 13 December. Below is a tribute to Li from a range of people who worked with him, along with some terrific photos and footage from the decade of his directorship, and earlier. So worth a look!
See more about Li and his incredible input into the growth of Queensland Ballet at this link.
Leanne Benjamin and that outback photograph by Jason Bell
Early in her autobiography, Built for ballet, Leanne Benjamin talks about the circumstances surrounding the creation of the photo taken of her in outback Australia, which I have used on this website on occasions and which (not surprisingly) always generates comments of one kind or another.
Benjamin was in Australia in December 2006 as a participant in Advance 100 Leading Global Australians Summit, which she says brought together ‘a diverse group of 100 of the best international minds in business, science, education, research and the arts’. A photo shoot with English photographer Jason Bell and his team, unrelated to Advance 100, followed. It was specifically for a Royal Ballet series called A World Stage in which artists were shown in images, and sometimes on brief film footage, reflecting their country of origin. Benjamin calls it ‘an advertising campaign … which emphasised the international character of the Royal Ballet, and the Opera House where it has its home.’ Her costume, which she describes as ‘a Chanel lipstick-red dress with a skirt that would flash out behind me as I moved, and catch the breeze if we were lucky enough to get one in forty-degree heat’, was made in London by the costume department of the Royal Opera House.
‘Jason’s idea,’ Benjamin writes, ‘was to go for the centre of the continent, where even the colour of the earth tells you that you are in Australia. We’d hoped to shoot in front of Uluru, the country’s most famous landmark, but we couldn’t get permission to film there. The previous day, the team had been to the iconic domed rocks of Kata Tjuta and I’d had a terrific time, going through my paces on a flat floor, surrounded by looming boulders. It was as if someone had built a perfect set for a shoot.
The next day—the day we actually got the photograph Jason had been dreaming of—the terrain was much rougher, and the weather more overcast. To my surprise, the team had organised for a local ‘truckie’ to drive an authentic Australian road train slowly back and forth behind the shoot for a few hours. ….. This was not a stunt photograph, it was me, launching myself into the sky, in touch with the red, red earth of my beloved country.’
Who can forget that image?
Quotes above are from Benjamin’s book Built for ballet. An autobiography (Melbourne: Melbourne Books, 2021) pp. 21–22.
Oral history interview with James Batchelor
My final National Library oral history interview for 2023 was with James Batchelor, Canberra-born performer and choreographer who works between Australia and Europe. Amongst the many topics addressed during the interview was a discussion of his choreographic process, including in relation to two of his most recent works—Event and Short cuts to familiar places—and some information about his trip to the sub-Antarctic, including how it came about and the developments that followed the trip. The interview, once processed, will be available for all to hear.
Stephanie Lake. New resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet
Alice Topp’s term as resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet finished at the end of 2023 and the newly appointed holder of the position is Stephanie Lake. Lake will present her first work for the Australian Ballet, Circle Electric, in Sydney in May 2024 and in Melbourne in October 2024. Circle Electric will share the program with Harald Lander’s Études, which explores the intricacies of the classical ballet technique. The potential is certainly there for audiences to experience two vastly different approaches to dance.
Two of Lake’s recent works (for companies other than her own Stephanie Lake Company), are reviewed on this website at these links: Auto Cannibal (2019) and Biography (2022)
Promotions at the Australian Ballet
There were a number of promotions announced as the Australian Ballet’s 2023 season came to an end. Seen below in a scene from Don Quixote are newly appointed principals Jill Ogai and Marcus Morelli.
In addition, Yuumi Yamada is now a senior artist, Maxim Zenin, Aya Watanabe, Katherine Sonnekus, Misha Barkidjija and Cameron Holmes have been newly appointed as soloists, and Montana Rubin, Evie Ferris, Saranja Crowe, Sara Andrion, Hugo Dumapit, Adam Elmes, Larissa Kiyoto-Ward, and Lilla Harvey have been promoted to the rank of coryphée.
Yuumi Yamada has constantly impressed me over recent years and her promotion is definitely worth celebrating, but congratulations to all who were promoted. I look forward to watching their progress in 2024.
Some statistics for 2023
In 2023 this website received 48,959 visits, that is just over 4,000 per month. The top five 2023 posts in terms of number of visits were, in order, ”Talking to Martin James … about teaching’, ‘Swan Lake. The Australian Ballet (2023)’, ‘Strictly Gershwin, Queensland Ballet’, ‘Alice Topp’s Paragon’, and ‘David McAllister. An exciting retirement opportunity’. Of posts relating specifically to dance in New Zealand the top five posts accessed, again in order, were ‘(m)Orpheus. New Zealand Opera and Black Grace’, ‘Lightscapes. Royal New Zealand Ballet’, ‘Myth and Ritual. Orchestra Wellington with Ballet Collective Aotearoa’, ‘Platinum Royal New Zealand Ballet’ and ‘Ballet Noir. Mary-Jane O’Reilly and Company’. Top tags accessed, some used largely it seems for research purposes, were Mary McKendry, The Australian Ballet, Vadim Muntagirov, Graduation Ball, and Bodenwieser Ballet
Unfortunately Google Analytics, from which my data is obtained, has changed its format and the ability to access the number of visits from particular cities is limited to just one week prior to the period of each visit! But of overseas cities, London and New York appear every week.
Michelle Potter, 31 December 2023
Li Cunxin, 2023. Farewell image from Queensland Ballet. Photographer not identified.
The news has finally been released! Leanne Benjamin, AM OBE, is to take over from Li Cunxin as artistic director of Queensland Ballet. Rockhampton-born and trained, and former principal dancer with London’s Royal Ballet and other major ballet companies, Benjamin will take up the directorship early in 2024. Her autobiography, Built for Ballet (written in conjunction with Sarah Crompton), was published by Melbourne Books in 2021.
My reviews of productions in which I have had the pleasure of seeing Benjamin perform have been filled with superlatives, beginning in 2002 when she visited Australia with the Royal Ballet then under the direction of Ross Stretton. But I recall in particular her performance in London in 2010 in the first movement of Balanchine’s Symphony in C when I wrote, ‘She was beautifully self-assured, a ballerina always aware of her audience with a technique that shone from the moment she stepped onto the stage.’ And of her autobiography I wrote, ‘an engrossing read’ and ‘honest to the core’.
Since her retirement from the Royal Ballet in 2013, Benjamin has coached dancers and companies across the world, and has engaged in a variety of dance-related activities. Everything suggests that she will make a committed director and will constantly interact with a range of dance communities in a variety of ways.
I guess my major interest at present, however, is in the kind of repertoire Benjamin will bring to Queensland Ballet. The 2024 season has already been announced and has been curated by Li Cunxin so we won’t really have an idea of how Benjamin will approach repertoire until the 2025 season is announced. It is very clear from changes to directorship here in Australia and elsewhere that artistic directors have their own specific interests and I am under the impression that they (perhaps rightly) feel the need to step away from previous approaches and be themselves. Sometimes this works, sometimes not to any great extent. I wonder in particular whether she will continue Queensland Ballet’s encouragement of Australian choreographers, both established and emerging (side by side of course with the classics from across the decades/centuries)?
Time will tell but the outlook seems positive! It is a more than interesting appointment and Benjamin is even the first female artistic director of Queensland Ballet.
Below is the photo of Benjamin that accompanied the official announcement of the appointment.
But of course I could not have any other featured image than the amazing shot of Benjamin in the outback, which I have used before on a number of occasions. Both photos are by Jason Bell.
My talk for Melbourne’s Johnston Collection, Kristian Fredrikson. Theatre Designer Extraordinaire, will finally take place on 22 June 2022 just one year later than scheduled. No need, I am sure, to give a reason for its earlier cancellation. I am very much looking forward to presenting this talk, which will include short extracts from some of the film productions for which Fredrikson created designs, including Undercover, which tells the story of the founding of the Berlei undergarment brand.
The Australian Ballet has announced a number of changes to its performing and administrative team. In May, at the end of the company’s Sydney season, ten dancers were promoted:
Jill Ogai from Soloist to Senior Artist Nathan Brook from Soloist to Senior Artist Imogen Chapman Soloist to Senior Artist Rina Nemoto from Soloist to Senior Artist Lucien Xu from Coryphée to Soloist Mason Lovegrove from Coryphée to Soloist Luke Marchant from Coryphée to Soloist Katherine Sonnekus from Corps de Ballet to Coryphée Aya Watanabe from Corps de Ballet to Coryphée George-Murray Nightingale from Corps de Ballet to Coryphée
In administrative news, the chairman of the board of the Australian Ballet has announced that Libby Christie, the company’s Executive Director, will step down from the position at the end of 2022, after a tenure of close to ten years.
But the Australian Ballet will also face a difficult time in 2024 when the State Theatre at the Arts Centre in Melbourne, where the Australian Ballet performs over several months, and which it regards really as its home, will close for three years as part of the redevelopment of the arts precinct. Apparently David Hallberg is busy trying to find an alternative theatre in Melbourne. But then the company faced similar difficulties a few years ago in Sydney when the Opera Theatre of the Sydney Opera House was unavailable as it too went through renovations. It was perhaps less than three years of closure in Sydney but the company survived then and I’m sure it will this time too.
And from Queensland Ballet
Queensland Ballet’s Jette Parker Young Artists, along with artistic director Li Cunxin, a group of dancers from the main company, and Christian Tátchev from Queensland Ballet Academy, will head to London any day now. The dancers will perform in the Linbury Theatre of the Royal Opera House from 4-6 June as part of a cultural exchange between Australia and the United Kingdom. They will be taking an exciting program of three works under the title of Southern Lights. Those three works are Perfect Strangers by Jack Lister, associate choreographer with Queensland Ballet and a dancer with Australasian Dance Collective; Fallen by Natalie Weir, Queensland Ballet’s resident choreographer; and Appearance of Colourby Loughlan Prior, resident choreographer with Royal New Zealand Ballet.
In addition to the performances, Li will be joined by Royal Ballet director Kevin O’Hare and dancer Leanne Benjamin for an ‘In Conversation’ session, and Tátchev will conduct open classes for dancers from the Royal Ballet School
Not forgetting New Zealand
The Royal New Zealand Ballet has also announced a retirement. Katherine and Joseph Skelton will give their last performance with the company in June. It has been a while since I saw Royal New Zealand Ballet perform live but I have especially strong memories of Joseph Skelton dancing the peasant pas de deux with Bronte Kelly in Giselle in 2016. Both dancers are mentioned in various posts on this website. See Katherine Skelton and Joseph Skelton.
RNZB is filming the pair in the pas de deux from Giselle Act II and the film will be made available on RNZB’s Facebook page on 1 June.
Street names in Whitlam (a new-ish Canberra suburb)
There has been discussion at various times about naming streets in Canberra suburbs after people who are thought to be distinguished Australians. There was quite recently discussion about abandoning the process completely with complaints being made that the process was not an inclusive one, and that in particular men outnumbered women (along with several other issues). Well not so long ago I joined Julie Dyson and Lauren Honcope in helping the ACT Government select names of those connected with dance to be used as street names in the new-ish suburb of Whitlam. The suburb was named after former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and the decision was to name the streets after figures who had been prominent in the arts (given Whitlam’s strong support of the arts). I looked back at what was eventually chosen (and it was for an initial stage of development of the suburb), and its seems to me that the argument that diversity was lacking is not correct (at least not in this case). The names selected for this stage included men, women, First Nations people, and people known to belong to the LGBTI… community. Some have a lovely ring to them too—Keith Bain Crest, Laurel Martyn View, Arkwookerum Street for example. I’m looking forward to what the next stage will bring.
Michelle Potter, 31 May 2022
Featured image: Still from Undercover, Palm Beach Pictures, 1982
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.
The news for May is headlined by the announcement that David McAllister, artistic director of the Australian Ballet since 2002, will retire at the end of 2020. McAllister has always been generous in situations that are about dance but fall outside performances. He launched, for example, two of my books, A Collector’s Book of Australian Dance and Dame Maggie Scott. A Life in Dance. In this month’s featured image (above) he is seen in the Chunky Move studios in Melbourne launching A Collector’s Book. The banner on the left shows an image that appears in the book, which was taken by Greg Barrett.
I have also enjoyed seeing McAllister at various conferences, including the first BOLD Festival held in Canberra in 2017.
Who will be the next director? The names that have been mentioned in the press so far (I have arranged them alphabetically by family name) include Leanne Benjamin, David Hallberg, Li Cunxin, Graeme Murphy, and Stanton Welch. One or two of them have declared they are not interested (not sure if I necessarily believe that). I have one or two others in my mind but I won’t mention them here! I do hope, however, that whoever survives the selection process and becomes McAllister’s successor will be someone who will be audacious in repertoire choices.
Shaun Parker and Company
In September 2010, dancer (and singer in the counter tenor mode) Shaun Parker registered a name: Shaun Parker and Company. Next year the company that bears that name will celebrate its 10th anniversary with, I believe, a special program.
The company has just recently returned from the Middle East and Austria where Parker’s most recent production, KING, was performed. In the meantime, Parker is now working on a new show for young people, IN THE ZONE, which will premiere in Sydney this coming September. It will feature street dancer Libby Montilla and the technology of AirSticks.
Among the finalists for the 2019 Archibald Prize, Australia’s well-known portrait prize hosted by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was a portrait entitled Mao’s Last Dancer by Chinese-born artist Jun Chen. Chen, who is currently based in Brisbane, was commissioned last year by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra to paint a portrait of Li Cunxin, artistic director of Queensland Ballet. It was one of twenty portraits commissioned to celebrate the Gallery’s twentieth anniversary. Chen followed up with a second portrait of Li and entered it for the Archibald Prize. While it didn’t take first place it was good to see a portrait of a dancer among the 2019 finalists. See all the finalists here.
Mao’s Last Dancer: Jun Chen’s portrait of Li Cunxin
Following new posts
I have had a number of requests recently asking how to join up to receive notification of new posts. Here’s how to do it:
1.Make a comment by going to the ‘Leave a reply’ form, which you will find at the end of every post. 2. Before hitting the ‘Post comment’ field, check the box that says ‘Notify me of new posts by email’. (Make sure you have also filled out your name and email address. A website address is not necessary). 3. After you have submitted the comment you will receive a follow-up email asking you to confirm. It will say ‘Confirm follow’. Once you have clicked on this field you should begin to receive notifications of new posts.
[UPDATE: A new ‘subscribe’ box is now on the home page just under the box that says ‘View Full Tag Cloud’].
Canberra’s youth dance organisation, QL2 Dance, runs an annual project for younger dancers in Canberra and beyond. This year, with a program called EAT, the theme was food, including marketing issues associated with what we eat.
For various reasons, I looked with different eyes this year and was impressed with how the choreographers, all professionals working with contemporary dance, handled the situation. With technical capacity varying so much between the dancers (they ranged in age from 8 to 18), it was illuminating to see the theatrical concepts that were being taught to these young people—how to make entrances and exits, how to occupy the performing space, how to be in line and so on. In fact, young people in Canberra are lucky to have the opportunities that QL2 offers. May it continue.
The Royal Ballet’s Australian tour, 2017
The Royal Ballet will tour to Australia (Brisbane only as part of QPAC’s International Series) in June and July 2017 with a contemporary repertoire of Woolf Works from Wayne McGregor and The Winter’s Tale from Christopher Wheeldon.
The Royal last visited Australia in June 2002 when Ross Stretton was the company’s artistic director. They brought Swan Lake, Giselle, and a mixed bill comprising Tryst, Marguerite and Armand and The Leaves are Fading. For that tour I wrote a piece for DanceTabs (sadly a link is no longer available) subtitled ‘Some personal reflections on the recent Royal Ballet tour to Sydney…’. Here is what I wrote as a conclusion:
The highlights
To die for: Alina Cojocaru’s double attitude turns in Giselle. So turned out, so light, so controlled. Divine.
Partnership of the season: Alina Cojacaru and Johan Kobborg in Giselle and Leaves. This partnership looks good physically and Cojocaru draws out a tenderness in Kobborg that adds an emotional dimension to the technical strength of the partnership.
Favourite moment: Belinda Hatley giving an audible whoop of excitement before launching into a joyous, absolutely irresistible Neapolitan dance in Swan Lake.
Australian moment: Leanne Benjamin’s deliciously playful but very mature interpretation of the central pas de deux in Leaves.
Non-dancing moment: The backcloth/lighting in Tryst, which had the dramatic and expressive qualities of a Mark Rothko painting.
Most annoying comment: ‘Darcey Bussell fell over in the fouettes in Swan Lake on opening night.’ (What happened was that she turned 27 or 28, went for a big finish, did a triple pirouette, had too much momentum but couldn’t go for four, finished slightly off balance and ended the sequence with a bit of a hop as she put her back foot down). But what attack! She was ferocious.
Favourite comment: ‘I had the two best cries I’ve had for years.’ (On the Cojacaru/Kobborg Giselle).
Disappointment: Neither Jonathan Cope nor Massimo Murru as Armand could match Sylvie Guillem’s Marguerite.
Dancer to watch: Corps de ballet dance Lauren Cuthbertson who made her presence felt in a soloist role in Tryst.
What an astonishing season that was! But recent viewings of the Royal in London suggest we can expect something spectacular this time too. In the meantime, I found the two images below from Les Patineurs. They are from a much earlier visit from a touring arm of the company, when the company was, in fact, in a state of flux (which I won’t go into now)!
Royal Ballet tour, Melbourne 1958, Les patineurs. Photos: Walter Stringer. National Library of Australia
Frederick Ashton’s La Valse—what a swirlingly beautiful opening to the Royal Ballet’s recent mixed bill program. Ashton’s choreography seemed slightly idiosyncratic with its unexpected shifts in épaulement, swift lifts of the arms, quick bends of the body and a range of nuanced movement. Yet it was perfectly attuned to the changes of colour and rhythm in the Ravel score. In addition, the Royal Ballet dancers performed with such aplomb and brilliant attack not to mention a beautiful classical technique based, as it should be, on turned-out, centred movement.
The two works that followed were both exceptional distillations of involved narratives. Kim Brandstrup’s new work, Invitus, Invitam (Against his will, against her will) essentially compressed Racine’s play Bérénice into three pas de deux, while Kenneth MacMillan’s Winter Dreams distilled Chekov’s work The Three Sisters into one dramatic act.
In Racine’s version of part of Suetonius’ history of the Roman emperors, Titus is forced by the senate to send Bérénice, his mistress, away, against her will and against his will. In Brandstrup’s work we see three encounters between Titus and Bérénice: in the first Bérénice is aware that Titus has a concern that he is not speaking openly about; in the second Bérénice knows what is to happen and is devastated, as is Titus; and in the third they part in mutual sorrow. Leanne Benjamin is perfectly cast as Bérénice. All her maturity as an artist comes to the fore as the inevitable parting approaches. Edward Watson is her partner and he too captures the sense of impending drama.
Choreographically Brandstrup’s three pas de deux draw the two protagonists together and at the same time separate them from each other. Both Benjamin and Watson gave exceptional performances, strong yet tremulous with emotion. Benjamin’s dancing was faultless and her portrayal of the role was vulnerable in the extreme. Richard Hudson was responsible for the costumes and minimal setting, so in empathy with the distillation of the story. His screens and scrims and his use of computerised writing and sketches, which appeared sporadically on the screens, added just the right sense of location. The contemporary score by Thomas Adès was based on the work of Couperin and again was empathetic to Brandstrup’s overall conception. Invitus, Invitam was intensely moving and certainly deserves further performances.
Winter Dreams was led by Sarah Lamb as Masha and Thiago Soares as Vershinin with minor principal roles being taken by Mara Galeazzi as Olga and Roberta Marquez as Irina. Together they provided a strong performance of this bleak story.
The closing work on this generous program, the pièce de resistance in my mind, was Balanchine’s Theme and Variations. I was not at the opening night’s performance when, I am told, Tamara Rojo and Sergei Polunin took the leading roles and when Alicia Alonso, creator of the ballerina role for Ballet Theater in 1947, was in the audience. But I was more than happy to see a radiant Marianela Nuñez partnered by a dashing Nehemiah Kish dancing with all stops out in this ferociously demanding work. From the opening moments when the ballerina and her partner present themselves to us, to that wonderful moment as the work comes to a close when grands battements merge into high-kicks, this is a work to be savoured for the remarkable display of the classical technique that it is. And again the entire complement of dancers showed what an outstanding company the Royal is at the moment.
I could, however, have done without Peter Farmer’s set for Theme, which to my mind suffers from a surfeit of draperies. Simplicity is all that is needed as a foil to Balanchine’s intricate weaving of bodies across the stage. But what a pleasure it was to see such beautifully trained bodies dancing with such a secure sense of classicism.
If the Royal Ballet’s recent triple bill of Chroma, Tryst and Symphony in C did anything, it showed quite clearly that ballet is not dead, dying or even momentarily dormant as has occasionally been debated on this site. It is in full swing, vibrant, growing gloriously and proudly relishing both its heritage and its future—at least in London.
Although I was looking forward most to Wayne McGregor’s Chroma after seeing his Dyad 1929 in Australia in 2009, it was George Balanchine’s Symphony in C, which closed the Royal Ballet’s program, that was the standout work for me. The array of principals was simply dazzling and their dancing was equally dazzling.
Leanne Benjamin, partnered by Johan Kobborg, led the first movement. She was beautifully self-assured, a ballerina always aware of her audience with a technique that shone from the moment she stepped onto the stage. Alina Cojocaru, partnered by Valeri Hristov, was grace and poetry epitomised in the second, andante movement. In particular, Cojocaru’s exquisite arabesques traced a long, expressive arc through space as the leg lifted and once the high point had been reached the line seemed to extend forever. Roberta Marquez and Steven McRae in the third section performed in almost perfect unison, fulfilling the challenging requirement of the choreography for this scherzo movement. It was a thrilling display with Marquez performing the almost unimaginable by not only keeping up with McRae’s stunning jumps and turns but doing it with an expression of joy coursing through her whole body. In the fourth movement, before all the principals joined them for the final section, Laura Morera and Richard Cervera made a strong impression.
In each movement, the corps de ballet and soloists provided a beautifully executed backdrop of dancing for the principals. Symphony in C was staged for the Royal by Patricia Neary and a huge bouquet must go to her for giving such clarity to a work that can too often have a look of sameness across its movements.
The program opened with Chroma, Wayne McGregor’s 2006 commission for the Royal. As in his Dyad 1929 McGregor explored the extreme possibilities of the human body in motion. However, with Chroma being performed without the women wearing pointe shoes, the choreography had a quite different feel, more fluid perhaps, or more complex in its exploration of how the torso and upper limbs can bend, fold and extend.
The outstanding feature of Chroma to my mind though was its collaborative aesthetic and what emerged as a result. The set by architect John Pawson was extreme in its minimalism and reflected Pawson’s interest in Cistercian architecture with its emphasis on simplicity and the stripping back of non-essential elements of colour and embellishment. At first the set seemed to consist of a large screen or wall stretching across the stage space. It was positioned about one third of the way down the stage and appeared to have a white rectangle set slightly above the stage floor at its centre. But as the set was lit (by Lucy Carter) in different shades of white, grey and black, it became clear that the rectangle was actually a void. In it we occasionally saw dancers appear and disappear and we watched as the rectangle/void advanced and receded with changes in lighting.
Against the simplicity of the set, with its clean shapes, limited colour palette and play with volume and void, McGregor’s choreography looked on the one hand even more complex and exploratory, yet on the other it was tempered by the lack of overt scenic embellishment. It was an intellectual exercise in contrast to the Balanchine ‘don’t think, just do’ principle.
The third work on the program, Christopher Wheeldon’s Tryst looked a little contrived eight years after its premiere, especially during the first movement when its upturned feet and awkward contractions of the arms from the elbow looked awkward and without purpose. The high point of this work has always been the central pas de deux and on this occasion Sarah Lamb, with her beautifully proportioned body, danced eloquently.
Symphony in C was danced to the Bizet work of the same name, Chroma was danced to an amalgam of music by Joby Talbot and Jack White III and Tryst was danced to an orchestral work by James MacMillan. Each was conducted by a different conductor with Tryst being conducted the composer.
Michelle Potter, 30 May 2010
Postscript: on a musical note it was refreshing to see that the dancers acknowledged the orchestral players with due deference by bowing when the conductor asked that the musicians be acknowledged. The Australian Ballet habit of having the dancers lean into the orchestra pit and clap for what seems like an inordinate amount of time seems to me undancerly and to be taking acknowledgment too far.
