6 July 2024. Te Auaha Theatre, Wellington reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
This attractive program takes the unpretentious title Homemade Jam, as if to say, ‘We can’t afford to import posh marmalade from Harrods so we’ve made our own jam from the fruit in the orchard here.’ With a full house at both performances, and sold-out printed programs, BalletCollective Aotearoa (BCA) must be pleased to know there are clearly audiences keen to follow their work.
Earlier this year Turid Revfeim staged the triumphant production of the late Russell Kerr’s Swan Lake for RNZBallet, and 2024 will be long remembered for that tribute to the father of ballet in New Zealand. Without delay Turid turned her attentions to a BCA season at the Taranaki Arts Festival where it was very well received (involving NZTrio, a leading chamber music group, and a dance cast headed by Abigail Boyle, how could it not be?)
And now, with a different cast, to this Wellington season as part of the Pōneke Festival of Contemporary Dance. The energy all this takes cannot be underestimated, and it’s the combined resilience of BCA, with the participants’ independence of thought (something not always possible for those in a company structure) that is noticeable. It’s impressive when any dancers’ careers flourish, though how this troupe does it, with high performance standards on a zero budget, is anyone’s guess.
The opening work, Last Time We Spoke, is by Sarah Knox, graduate of NZSchool of Dance and now a faculty member of University of Auckland Dance program. It echoes back to Covid-era experiences, and is a study of the sense of community that can prove so vulnerable to such circumstances. Set to music by Rhian Sheehan, it has a poignant atmosphere and is beautifully danced, opening with Callum Phipps who moves as liquid amber.
preference for reason is an impressive large group work by students from the Dance program at Tawa College, whose creative director isBrigitte Knight. The work takes a theme of isolation and connection in an era of digital communication, and is staged with clarity and focus by the group of 24 youngsters giving their all. One of the dancers knows how to let his face become absorbed as part of the overall dancing body, so ‘the whole body does the talking’. This is an innate ability, can barely be taught, is rare, and should therefore be recognised when it happens. He will go far, but all the students will have been thrilled to share the program with BCA.
The third and final work, Subtle Dances, by Loughlan Prior, is a smooth smart, sassy work inspired from tango but carrying further the emotions that that stylised dance form usually keeps internalised. Prior is a choreographer who has made a major contribution to dance in New Zealand (including BCA’s premiere work, Transfigured Night, to Schoenberg, under Chamber Music New Zealand’s auspices). He is a past master at setting groups that capture and build atmosphere, and this stylish piece is no exception.
Well done to BCA and to all involved for a heartening demonstration of the joy that dance can offer if we let it. The name of the venue, Te Auaha, means to leap, throb, thrill with passion…so go for it, I say.
8 December 2023. The Playhouse, Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne
I was more than curious when I heard that Loughlan Prior was preparing a ballet based on the much-loved children’s book by Mem Fox, Possum Magic. I mean how on earth was he going to manage the invisibility of Hush, the possum character on whom Grandma Poss casts a spell making Hush disappear from sight in order to save her from danger in the bush? Despite the invisibility, Hush continues to play an ongoing, major role as her visibility slowly reappears. She rarely leaves the stage.
Well I need not have worried. It all happened with cleverly introduced costume changes and terrific input from the other characters who acted beautifully throughout to stage a pretence that they couldn’t see Hush while she was under the spell of invisibility.
Grandma Poss has forgotten the magic that will return Hush to a state of visibility and, as the story progresses, the invisible Hush and Grandma Poss hop on a bike and travel through the Australian countryside and the country’s major cities, nicely shown through snippets of film, looking for human food that might restore Hush’s visibility. After eating some typical Australian delicacies at various stops, including Pavlova, Lamingtons, Vegemite, Minties, Anzac biscuits and others, Hush returns slowly to a visible state. The critical items are Pavlova, Vegemite and Lamingtons and the return to visibility, and arrival back in the bush where the characters live, is warmly welcomed by everyone.
Milana Gould as Hush danced beautifully. Her finely boned body and her long and flexible limbs brought out the best in Prior’s choreography, which shows not only classical steps and combinations, but some more contemporary movements as well. Kit Thompson as Grandma Poss gave an outstanding performance with excellent stage presence and I especially enjoyed watching two sparring kangaroos (Thomas Boddington and Tadgh Robinson) and an impressive and quite dominant koala (Ethan Mrmacovski).
Possum Magic. The Ballet showed Loughlan Prior at his theatrical best. His insertion of film was exceptional as was his varied choreography to suit the characters, especially for the Pavlova ladies whose dancing was very classical indeed. His collaborators worked beautifully with him with a very danceable score from Claire Cowan, costumes and set from Emma Kingsbury (I especially loved the Pavlova tutus—red skirts trimmed with white Pavlova slices around the edges); and lighting from Jon Buswell. The ballet is a delight to watch and encapsulates beautifully the Mem Fox book on which it is based. It deserves further showings.
The second half of the program consisted of three short items, Degas dances from Paul Knobloch and largely danced by Level 4 students of the School with some outstanding solo sections from Ruito Takabatake; Nexus from Stephen Baynes for Level 7 students; and Techno Requiem from Lucas Jervies showing a contemporary dance style and strongly performed by Level 8 students. I was particularly thrilled to see Nexus as Baynes’ choreography is not often on show these days. Nexus, danced to Capriccio for Piano and String Orchestra by Graeme Koehne, shows Baynes’ innate musicality, his beautiful and sometimes surprising use of space, and his unique choreographic style and structure. But in all this second part showed off the range of dance that is taught at the Australian Ballet School.
10 November 2023. Regent on Broadway, Palmerston North, Manawatū reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
This return season of Hansel & Gretel, from choreographer Loughlan Prior and composer Claire Cowan, is a colourful riot of a pantomime romp that the dancers milk to the max. There are some very skilled comic performers among the soloists who use every moment and centimetre of opportunity to entertain us.
I have come to Palmerston North for the performance in Regent on Broadway, a venue that always offers a sense of occasion. The 1400 seat grand theatre, converted and beautifully restored from the original cinema house built in 1930, is a source of local pride and rightly so. The opening to this production of Hansel & Gretel, designed by Kate Hawley, is cleverly styled as a silent movie, so it’s an echo to the days of Busby Berkeley, Whoopee! and Flying High! I don’t suppose there’s anyone in the audience tonight who saw those movies here first time round, but hey, who’s to say there isn’t?
The folktale as we’ve known it from the Brothers Grimm is not the narrative adopted for this choreography. Instead the opening has fashionable well-to-do folk and their snobbish children striding about, flaunting their wealth and casting scorn on the poor little Hansel and Gretel who have nothing much except a toy rabbit to cling to. Their wicked Stepmother is instead recast here as simply the poor wife of the poor husband whose mischievous children are always hungry, so leave home in search of food. The danger of a cruel Stepmother within the family is thus replaced by two worlds of ‘those who have’ and ’those who have not’ as the scenario.
(I sensed here a poignant hint of Katherine Mansfield’s story, The Doll’s House—where the magnanimous Burnell children allow the working-class kids, the Kelveys, a brief visit to see their prized possession. There’s extra resonance in that, since Prior’s recent choreography, Woman of Words, was made as a tribute to the illustrious KM in her centenary year, though has seen only one performance in an arts festival town in the distant south. Many would love to see that work presented on a national scale, and it would further convert to a film of considerable international interest. Now there’s a gauntlet to the recently welcome new Artistic Director of the Company).
There are fetching scenes of Bird-children, Dew fairies and a Sandman who guide the siblings’ journey, and the gingerbread house of Act Two opens up to fill the stage with the aromas of candy floss, toffee apples and soft-serve ice cream, though with danger lurking in the spokes of a punk-steam bicycle. The role of Hansel was danced with great spirit and comic timing by Shaun James Kelly, and Gretel was fetchingly played by Ella Chambers. Sarah Garbowski dances with a lovely lyricism so the role of gentle Mother suited her well. Ana Gallardo Lobaina, a stunning performer with a magnetic quality that claims your eye whenever she is on stage, was an outrageous Ice Cream Witch, but Luke Cooper as The Transformed Witch probably shares the prize for his high camp and wickedly funny performance, OTT but never out of time.
I like trying to imagine the reinstatement of Hansel and Gretel’s cruel stepmother into a ballet, since that is a trope society still has to deal with, and would bring stronger drama to the somewhat lengthy divertissements in several scenes. But having said that I can also admit to being swept along by a madcap ballet that throws comic opportunities at numerous dancers who relish moving to Claire Cowan’s terrific and lively score. The redoubtable Hamish McKeich conducts three different orchestras for the seasons in the main centres, but it is a recording of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra that we hear in this performance. It is inspired music that truly motivates the dancers, but has also achieved recognition in its own right.
There’s a new and happy energy in the excellent printed program, with essays from all the main contributors in the team that created this production.
Jon Trimmer, KNZM, MBE, dancer with Royal New Zealand Ballet from its earliest days, who also performed with the Australian Ballet in the 1960s, has died on 26 October aged 84. An obituary from Jennifer Shennan will be posted on this website a little later. In the meantime Jennifer has sent this brief statement:
Jon Trimmer, New Zealand’s leading ballet dancer, joined Poul Gnatt’s New Zealand Ballet company in 1959. He performed in every subsequent artistic director’s term for decades, and his artistic contribution to dance and theatre in this country is close to incalculable. In numerous roles he portrayed the full range of noble through to naughty, mysterious, magical, marvellous, musical and more. He was not just a mighty totara, he was a forest of mighty totara. We will not see his like again. The New Zealand, and indeed the wider dance world, is in mourning at the loss of a very great artist. E te rangatira,haere, haere atu. Moi mai rā.
I have a very clear memory of meeting Jonty, as he was familiarly called, at a cafe in Wellington in 2019 to talk to him about his memories of working with New Zealand born designer Kristian Fredrikson. Some of what we talked about subsequently appeared in my book Kristian Fredrikson. Designer. I remember in particular his words about the costume made for Captain Hook, Trimmer’s role in the 1999 Russell Kerr production of Peter Pan. The costume, which he is wearing in the featured image on this post, had to be remade because (as was sometimes the case with Fredrikson’s work) it was a little too heavy in which to perform well. Trimmer said, ‘The jacket was very heavy and the choreography quite demanding. After the first tour Kris made a new jacket. It looked the same but was made from lighter material so I was able to move more easily.’
I also have fond memories of seeing him perform, along with William Fitzgerald, in Loughlan Prior’s short work Lark in 2018 when I delivered the inaugural Russell Kerr lecture. In the brief footage below Trimmer talks about that work.
Vale Jon Trimmer. As well as being a remarkable dancer he was, from my brief encounters with him, a kind and generous man and his death is deeply felt by many. I look forward to posting an obituary from Jennifer Shennan in due course.
Update: Jennifer Shennan’s obituary of Jon Trimmer is now posted. See this link.
Michelle Potter, 29 October 2023
For more about Jon Trimmer on this website see this tag.
The featured image for this post shows dancers of the Royal New Zealand Ballet in rehearsal for a new work from Loughlan Prior, Woman of Words, which will have its premiere at the Wanaka Festival of Colour with two performances on 27 March 2023. Woman of Words focuses on the career of New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield, and in a recent newsletter Prior writes:
Mansfield played a central role in modern literature by experimenting with style, subject matter and theme, with the analysis of anxiety, sexuality and existentialism embroiled within her writing. In remining true to her brilliant and singular voice, she created a body of work that redefined the genre.
Katherine’s intense, captivating and all too short a life is brought to the stage using integrated text and sound design in collaboration with award winning editor Matthew Lambourn. Beginning with her early years growing up in Wellington, to the height of London bohemia and the Bloomsbury group, to her death at the age of thirty-four, Woman of Words celebrates Katherine’s winding journey and her passion for creativity, love and life.
See this link for more about Loughlan Prior. And if Prior’s recent works are anything to go by, Woman of Words will be a courageous production.
But to my surprise (and pleasure), I was reminded that another choreographer is looking at a woman writer as the subject of a new dance work, this time for Queensland Ballet. British-born Cathy Marston is preparing a one act ballet that focuses on the work of Australian writer Miles Franklin (full name Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin). It will premiere in Brisbane on 16 June as part of a triple bill season named Trilogy. Marston has been called a ‘narrative ballet choreographer’ so it will be interesting to see how the narrative unfolds in My Brilliant Career. But two women writers as subject matter within the space of just a few months has to be somewhat remarkable!
Publicity image for Cathy Marston’s new work, My Brilliant Career.
For more about Cathy Marston and the development of My Brilliant Career, see this link from Queensland Ballet. Another link will take you to an interview with set and costume designer for My Brilliant Career, David Fleischer.
Russell Kerr Lecture 2023
From my colleague Jennifer Shennan, here is the news about the next Russell Kerr Lecture.
The fifth Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts will focus on Patricia Rianne, New Zealand dancer, choreographer and teacher with an extended career both here and abroad. She was a member of New Zealand Ballet, Ballet de l’Opéra de Marseilles, Ballet Rambert (in its new guise after Norman Morrice took over the directorship from Marie Rambert), Scottish Ballet, and was memorably partnered by Rudolf Nureyev, Peter Schaufuss, Ivan Nagy and Jon Trimmer. Trisha staged classic productions and choreographed for RNZ Ballet, also in China and Hong Kong, and taught at NZSchool of Dance and London School of Contemporary Dance. Her choreography for RNZB, Bliss, inspired by the story by Katherine Mansfield, will also feature within the lecture.
Sunday 4.00—6.00pm, 26 February 2023 The Long Hall, Roseneath, Wellington. email jennifershennan@xtra.co.nz for registration
Patricia Rianne as the Dowager Princess in Swan Lake. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 1985.
News from James Batchelor
It is always interesting to hear James Batchelor’s latest news as he traverses the world making work. In 2023, however, in addition to being in Europe on several occasions, he has a number of engagements in Australia, especially in Canberra and Melbourne. He lists the following as ‘upcoming in 2023’:
Performances of Deepspace and Hyperspace in Europe soon to be announced.
Performances of Shortcuts to Familiar Places in Ngunnawal Country/Canberra and Naarm/Melbourne.
Long-form workshop and creation for Canberra Dance Theatre.
New creation with students from the Victorian College of the Arts.
Residencies in Turin, Potsdam and Nîmes for research and development of collaboration Echo Field with Arad Inbar and Leeza Pritychenko.
New creation with Norrdans in Sweden.
Below is a brief trailer for Shortcuts to Familiar Places, a work in which Batchelor explores a movement lineage through his childhood dance teacher Ruth Osborne to the modern dance pioneer Gertrud Bodenwieser.
Talking to Shaun Parker
Just recently I had the pleasure of talking to Shaun Parker about his return season of KING to take place at the Seymour Centre from 24 February to 4 March as part of Sydney WorldPride. I am planning to include a longer website post ‘Talking to Shaun Parker’ in February.
In 2022 I managed to see more live performances than I did in 2021. I was even able to get to New Zealand to see Loughlan Prior’s Cinderella. There were still a number of online offerings to add to the year’s viewing of course, and online watching has become part of my life I think.
As I did in 2021, I have chosen just five performances as my highlights for 2022, and the pluses and minuses experienced in 2021 were pretty much the same in 2022: difficulties resulting from choosing such a small number, but the advantage of having to focus strongly on what defines for me an outstanding work.
Below are my ‘top five’ productions for 2022, arranged chronologically according to the date of performance. I have included a link to my review in each case and have simply included in this post the main reason why I chose each work. All posts refer to live performances.
LESS (Canberra. Australian Dance Party, March)
LESS was a brilliant collaborative endeavour, and an outstanding site-specific work, the ongoing focus of Australian Dance Party. Here is the link to the review.
(As a Canberra-based writer I also chose LESS as my highlight for 2022 for Dance Australia and my comments should appear in that magazine soon).
Kunstkamer (Sydney. The Australian Ballet, May)
Kunstkamer was an outstanding work that showed the Australian Ballet and its dancers in a totally new light. Here is the link to the review.
Li’s Choice (Brisbane. Queensland Ballet, June)
Li’s choice showed the exceptional diversity of Queensland Ballet’s dancers and the equally exceptional directorship of Li Cunxin and his support staff. Here is the link to the review.
Galileo (Parramatta. Sydney Choreographic Ensemble, June)
Francesco Ventriglia skilfully demonstrated how choreography can convey a huge range of ideas and while doing so make a totally absorbing and focused work. Here is the link to the review.
Cinderella (Auckland. Royal New Zealand Ballet, August)
Loughlan Prior gave his Cinderella a setting and storyline that was a courageous and totally unexpected look at a well-worn story, Here is the link to the review, and another link to an interview with Loughlan Prior in which he talks about Cinderella.
My year’s list of dance highlights seems thinner than usual since a number of productions didn’t make it to curtain-up. There are no lowlights though (why would you write about lowlights?) so I’ll just call them lights.
From a screen viewing I followed with interest the choreographic venture, Journey, by Lily Bones. I remember Lily’s serene sense of line as an unusual individual dancer at both NZSchool of Dance and later in RNZBallet. After a time performing in Europe she is now based in Sydney and is a colleague there of Martin James. Her resilience in surviving serious illness, and her determination to make dances despite zero external resources has given her a maturity and quiet confidence to choreograph themes that speak and that we can hear. No glamour or glitz, just her truth. Refreshing.
It was a treat indeed to see again an Arts Channel broadcast of Cloud Gate Dance Theatre in Rice. Choreographed by Lin Hwai Min in 2013 (and toured to Auckland in 2017), it is talisman to their repertoire, with typically perfect proportion in shaping the cycle of rice growth and harvesting. Like all Lin’s work, there is pacing and spacing through the episodes that deliver at one level of nature at work in the titled theme, and also allegorical layers of reference to human and personal experience. The erotic sensuality in a single central duet in Rice defines the original power of creation. I own a dvd of this work but choose not to watch it alone—so how is that different from sitting alone and watching a broadcast? just a sense that there will be others out there watching ‘with me’, a feeling of being in the audience that is shaped by a performance in time. Cloud Gate’s repertoire has a strength in its Chinese legacy and vocabulary that is yet accessible to the wider world. Riveting.
Another memorable experience on screen was the final sequence by the young boy in the studio, as epilogue to the film The White Crow, the dramatisation by Ralph Fiennes of Nureyev’s defection to the west. Overall I was not as transported by the film as others seemed, but was certainly moved by how that final dance was allowed to speak for itself. Poignant.
Pump Dance Studio’s Roll the Dice also transformed the commitment of young performers into something more than the sum of its parts. Infectious.
From NZSchool of Dance, Loughlan Prior’s Verse, a solo to the Folies d’Espagne played by the consummate ensemble Hesperion XXI, shone with the clarity of a beacon, both in choreography and performance. Luminous.
Two books—by Michelle Potter on Graeme Murphy, and by Ashley Killar on John Cranko—offered insights into those prolific choreographic careers, with welcome reminders of the live performances we have seen by their companies. Revelatory.
Not from this year, but nevertheless shaped by the pandemic term we are still experiencing, the tour de force of Strasbourg 1518 by Lucy Marinkovich and Lucien Johnson, remains the total standout dance season of recent times. Their earlier work, Lobsters, also holds its place on the list of memorable works of the decade. Indelible.
It has been indeed moving to follow the heroic project by Raewyn Hill, artistic director of Co3 Contemporary Dance in Perth, where she re-staged Gloria, the celebrated work by the late Douglas Wright, New Zealand’s visionary choreographer. Immortal.
A dance lives for as long as it is remembered, and can cheat death by a measure. Russell Kerr died earlier this year, and for many people the memory of his production of Petrouchka in which he cast Douglas in the title role, also stands as an indelible milestone in this country’s dance history. Legendary.
We are looking forward to the fifth in the series of the Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts, in Wellington, late February. The subject will be Patricia Rianne, celebrated dancer, teacher and choreographer whose long career spans years both in New Zealand as well as UK, Europe and Asia. A delight.
Season’s greetings and good wishes to all those who watch dance, who create dances, who perform, who write and who read about dancing. Sprezzatura.
16 November 2022. Te Whaea Theatre, Wellington reviewed by Jennifer Shennan
This year’s Performance Season by New Zealand School of Dance offers two programs that alternate throughout a ten-day season. The opening program has five works all choreographed by Loughlan Prior, performed by the school’s stream of classical ballet students. The following evening has five works each by a different choreographer, performed by contemporary dance students.
Loughlan Prior graduated from NZSD, followed a performing career and has more recently become a full-time free-lance choreographer. Even as a student he knew the pull towards choreography and has already a prolific output, one could say outpouring, of both short and full-length works, including a number of dance films, to his credit. His works have been seen widely in New Zealand and also staged in a number of countries abroad.
His pithy and helpful program notes are reproduced here since they don’t need re-writing…
Storm Surge Music: Matteo Sommacal, The Forgotten Strains (For Piano and String Quartet); Exile Upon Earth: 3. Pensive; Follow It Blindly (For Piano and Cello); The Sign of Gathering (For Piano and String Quartet) Costume Design: Max de Roy Inspired by the wild weather of Wellington, this newly created work explores the drama, beauty and fragility of the human body. Placed within varying environments, small fragments of movement are pieced together to create a complex matrix of shifting forms and patterns. The dancers are seen to dart and weave through a vibrant landscape evoking turbulent skies
The opening section in low light had a mesmerising quality in arm movements suggesting the ebb of kelp tossed in the tide. Next a duo of abstract movement in unison, followed by a sequence with emotion newly introduced, gave the sense that the choreography was evolving through layered references, the weather outside towards the weather inside. All eight dancers were focussed and in form for this premiere performance, with Aidan Tully particularly noticeable in the cast.
Verse Music: Antonio Martin Y Coll, Differencias sobre las Folias Physical calligraphy. A script embodied in flesh dedicated to Wellington arts patron, the late David Carson-Parker
Verse, a solo, beautifully performed by Joshua Douglas, is a carefully chiselled transition of a 17th century sarabande towards a contemporary sensibility. Prior has taken the minimalism of baroque dance movement vocabulary, through which intense emotion can be conveyed, from its iteration as the legendary Folies d’Espagne. The first known review of a dance performance in European literature is of a sarabande, by François Pomey mid 1660s, and I’ve yet to come across a finer account of a danced performance in any era. I’m drawn to art that reminds us infinity lies in both directions, ever outward, ever inward, as we walk backwards into the future. I would vote Verse as my favourite work from both programs if it were a competition, which thankfully it’s not.
(Verse takes its strength from the single music source, Diferencias sobre las Folias, theme and variations by Antonio Martin Y Coll, superbly rendered by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX1. In contrast, a number of the other dances across both evening’s programs use excerpts from many different music sources for a single dance work, leaving a choreography to devise its own structure, predictably with varying degrees of coherence).
Curious Alchemy Music: L.v Beethoven String Quartet no.3, op.130; C.Saint-Saens, String Quartet no 1, op.112 This short work was commissioned for students of the Canadian National Ballet School for a festival in 2017.
Four dancers in smart red contoured leotards moved with an attractive energy, conveying a playful mood of youthful enthusiasm. MIguel Herrera was particularly immersed in the humour of the style.
Time Weaver Music: Philip Glass, Metamorphosis This hypnotic and seemingly infinite, arrangement of Glass’ work for harp is symbolic of our relationship with the continuum of time and the perceived linear passage in which we live our lives. Two figures are captured curving, sculpting, playing, ‘living’ inside an unending duet, an ouroboros. If the stage light was never to fade, the dance could go on forever.
India Shackel and Aidan Tully performed this sustained pas-de-deux with unflinching care and admirable command of the technical demands it makes, resulting in a ritual or prayer-like atmosphere.
Coloratura Music: N. Porpora, O. Davis, G.Giacomelli, R.Broschi – numerous excerpts. Originally created for Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden, this stylish work never made it to the stage due to the Covid pandemic. Now in 2022 the piece finds a new home at NZSD and has been expended into a large ensemble work to feature the talents of every classical student. Fun, quirky and irreverent, Coloratura pays homage to the vocal mastery and comedic timing of world-renowned mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli. There is high energy and pure joy in every note, inspiring an infectious celebration of dance and music.
Fun, quirky and irreverent, indeed, as the excesses and extremes of staged opera are satirised. A lip-synching Diva, played by a masked Rilee Scott draped in fineries, struts the stage while he delivers many repeats of soft vague arm gestures in floating arm-covers to assist delivery of the lyrics. However the variety of would-be dynamic gestures that opera singers actually use while performing is a minefield waiting for choreographic exploration, since these are the often clumsy remnants of the earlier time when singers also danced and dancers also sang. Here a large dance chorus of attendants played backing, fronting and siding roles and one could imagine an expanded version of this piece in a heightened explosive finale with the ripped bodices and revelations of star performers in competition laid bare, as opera’s surreal characters sing and love, sing and dance, sing and suffer, sing and die, then come back to life for the curtain calls.
One suspects that Loughlan Prior finds a new dance idea every day of his waking life—and more in his dreaming life. This was a special opportunity to showcase his work on many young dancers who clearly relished their roles and gave spirited performances.
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17 November, 2022. Te Whaea Theatre, Wellington
The contemporary dance program opened with the premiere of Craig Bary’s State of Perpetuation. In an arresting beginning to a vocal section, the dancers held sculptural shapings in what was possibly the best lit work of the evening. It invited our own response, and the recurring motifs of hands quivering in wiri, or circular motions of wrist that suggested the thrust of poi movement I found both subtle and memorable.
(I know it’s important to thank the sponsors but one could hope space could be found in an 18-page printed program for a summary profile of each choreographer. Craig Bary was an exceptional student at the school years back, and later a phenomenal performer in a number of Douglas Wright’s choreographies. Dance is ephemeral enough by its nature so deserves the respect of memory within its legacy at every possible opportunity).
Midlight, choreographed by Christina Chan and Aymeric Bichon, was a duet danced by Persia Thor-Poet and Seth Ward. Their two bodies intertwined as one almost throughout, inviting thoughts about where individual identity is reshaped within a relationship.
Rubble, by Holly Newsome, had a large cast moving to vocal and percussion sections. Its theme involved the motivation needed to get up and get on with the daily dance. The song, Rise & Shine, framed the work with humour.
A Kind Tone, by Tyler Carney-Faleatua, again with a large group cast, explored the lifting of layers, both literally in swathes of draped costume, and metaphorically in regard to how a community supports individuals. Sequences of a slowly locomoting tight-knit group from which different individuals had to push and struggle to emerge, were memorable.
Sarah Foster-Sproull, another graduate from NZSD some years back, is a gifted choreographer with a major output. Her work here, To The Forest, To The Island, with music by Eden Mulholland, gave a strong cadence to the program and the dancers were galvanised into energised performances as they explored the notion of the places where we take refuge.
The work was originally conceived for film by students at Auckland’s Unitec. In this live version, a number of tube light sticks carried and positioned around the stage then reflected sequences of many bright colours which moved towards strobe effects. This seriously challenges the audience’s viewing access, and I confess my response is always to close my eyes at any time where lights are shone at the audience or strobe effects are used in the theatre. It was clear however that the committed dancers relished the chance to perform in a strong and animated choreography.
In different ways, works on both programs referenced themes of identity of individuals and of groups, as well as motivation in how to respond to challenges. The last three years of tumultuous experiences related to the global pandemic have affected life for every individual, family, neighbourhood in the country, indeed in every country on the planet. The resilience needed to adapt and continue when continuity is often the first casualty, with dance training programs probably more challenged than most enterprises, is reflected in many of these works.
To many the divide between ‘classical’ and ‘contemporary’ dance is more of an aesthetic concept than a reality in today’s professional dance world, and several of the works we saw could have been performed in either program. The school’s whakatauki or motto—Kia kōrero te katoa o te tinana/to talk with the whole body—offers encouraging reminder of the choreographic aspiration to get the physics of motion to reveal the physics of emotion.
While in New Zealand to see Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Cinderella, I had the pleasure of engaging in an extended conversation with choreographer Loughlan Prior. Not unexpectedly, much of the conversation focused on his production of Cinderella, a production dense with allusions of various kinds.
One aspect of the production that intrigued me was the references to Swan Lake that were noticeable during the show. The first was not enormously obvious, but perfectly clear to anyone who had seen Swan Lake multiple times. It happened quite early in the first act when the image of a bird flew across the digital backdrop. Prince Charming, who was somewhat frustrated by his domineering mother, the Queen, gathered up his hunting gear and set off, clearly with the intention of shooting the bird. Shades of Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake as he sets off after his birthday celebrations to shoot swans! But Prior’s Cinderella changes the story when the Queen, in an act that demonstrated her overbearing behaviour, shot the bird first. I learnt later that the bird was a magpie and, to emphasise the Queen’s reaction and her overbearing behaviour, a black and white magpie decoration was layered onto the dress she wore to the ball in Act II.
A much more obvious reference to Swan Lake appeared in the second act of Prior’s Cinderella, when guests at the ball were dancing and generally cavorting.
The two Step-Sisters, whose behaviour became more and more outrageous as the night wore on (swinging from chandeliers for example), linked arms and performed steps in a manner that was instantly recognisable. If the arms and movements weren’t recognisable to some then the music (performed in this production by a brass band) certainly would have been. Those Step-Sisters were dancing (or trying to dance) the so-well-known Dance of the Little Swans from Swan Lake. Why I wondered?
Prior tells me he had Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake in his mind and also Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in which Wheeldon had the Queen of Hearts parody the Rose Adagio from The Sleeping Beauty. But he also added that the Little Swans in this case also referred back to the Stepmother who, he said, was ‘an ultra stage-mum’ who had had her daughters taught a fabulous dance that they were not capable of doing properly.
‘This show is quite irreverent,’ Prior explains. ‘It pokes fun at various things.’ He also uses the words ‘eclecticism’, ‘flamboyant’, ‘many cultural references’ and ‘set in a world of excess’. As I wrote in my review, one viewing is definitely not enough to absorb everything about this multi-faceted production.
Prior also spoke of his admiration for and ongoing collaboration with Claire Cowan, composer of the score for Cinderella. ‘Claire is not afraid to use unusual instruments,’ he says. ‘She loves percussion, and there are also four recorders in the orchestra [for Cinderella] giving a medieval feel at times.’ With Cowan he has also established a company called Lo Co Arts and the first full-length work from Lo Co Arts will premiere at New Zealand’s next Tempo Festival.
Prior, now a dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand, plans to work across Australasia (and beyond). To date his major works have been in New Zealand but he is quite clear that he has to be able to work elsewhere as well. ‘It’s crucial for me to be working around Australasia,’ he says. ‘There’s not enough work to be choreographing full-time if I’m just in New Zealand.’ But, going back to Cinderella, he remarks, ‘My real passion is in storytelling. I’m really pleased with what the company has let me do. They trusted me to follow a particular journey.’
Loughlan Prior’s journey is one to follow I suggest. See my review of Cinderella at this link.
Choreographer Loughlan Prior was born and educated in Australia before moving to New Zealand for further dance training. He is now a dual citizen of those countries and his latest work for Royal New Zealand Ballet, where he has been choreographer in residence since 2018, is a production of Cinderella. But it is Cinderella in a whole new guise.
Many of the basics of the storyline we know from traditional productions of Cinderella, even from a few more up-to-date productions, are still there. Cinderella is still subject to bullying and other poor behaviour from the two Step-Sisters and is pushed into compliance by the Stepmother. She still goes to the ball aided by a Fairy Godmother, and the shoe (a pointe shoe as it happens) that is left behind after the ball finds its way to her home (and fits, of course).
But Prior has looked beyond and beneath the well-worn narrative and has created a ballet that investigates the notion of having the courage to follow one’s dreams and desires in whatever form they may take. Cinderella (Mayu Tanigaito) doesn’t marry Prince Charming (Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson). He has found love elsewhere with another Prince, Prince Dashing (Shae Berney) from a neighbouring kingdom. The question of sexual orientation is probably the major change Prior has made to the storyline. As for Cinderella, she finds her happiness with the Royal Messenger (Laurynas Véjalis), whom she first meets when he comes to her home with invitations to the ball.
Prior’s Cinderella moves the audience well into the present day, and not simply with the focus on sexual orientation. There are moments when present day fashions for living and entertainment are introduced. In a scene where Cinderella chooses a ball gown we meet the Fab Five, five outrageously garbed gentlemen who act, in a way, as influencers. But perhaps the move to the present is nowhere more apparent than in the final scene at the ball where by the end of the evening alcohol and drugs have been consumed to the extent that some, the Step-Sisters (Sara Garbowski and Kirby Selchow) for example, are somewhat the worse for wear.
And yet there are times too when Prior asks us to look to the past. Before the ballet begins the stage space (with curtain raised) is occupied by a large structure representing a tapestry weaving machine. There three adult dancers and eight or so young children (child labour?) are busy at the machine. We are reminded that in times past stories were told on large tapestries that filled the walls of stately homes. ‘Cinderella’ is the the word being woven and we see this as the house lights go down and the ballet begins.
Prior’s choreography for this ballet covers a range of styles from classical (or perhaps neo-classical is more appropriate) to the crazed disco-style movement that we see in the final ‘Happily ever after’ scene. Highly memorable were the four duets between Cinderella and the Royal Messenger, which grew in intensity as their relationship blossomed. Similarly the duets between Prince Charming and Prince Dashing showed, in choreographic terms, an equality between the two men. Each had moments of partnering and being partnered.
One of the great strengths of the work was the way in which Prior has developed the various characters so strongly, and how, as a result, the way the dancers rise to the occasion with extraordinarily believable performances. Véjalis stood out for me as the Royal Messenger. He held his body proudly and there was just a subtle lift of the chin and a lilt in his walk that gave him a charm that was somehow quite seductive. No wonder Cinderella fell for him. I also enjoyed the performance by Paul Mathews as Cinderella’s father. The role of the father is often not well-developed in productions of Cinderella but here we understood his plight and rejoiced when Cinderella came to his rescue and allowed him the freedom to be a well and happy man once more. Ana Gallardo Lobaina was a vindictive Stepmother and her performance drew out a spiteful, hateful nature.
I enjoyed the full-of-fun scene when Cinderella chose the dress that she was to wear to the ball and the final moments when she was lifted off the floor and rose into the space above wearing the magnificent, Spanish-style, golden gown of Emma Kingsbury’s design. Kingsbury’s design was an absolute highlight throughout and was as diverse as Prior’s choreography and character development.
But perhaps the most moving scene was that when Cinderella and Prince Charming were alone on stage, each dancing separately and each recalling the lives into which they had been drawn and from which they longed to escape. It was not only beautifully and movingly danced but was lit by Jeremy Fern so that the two dancers were seen as separate people but, as we could see from the projections that appeared in the background, with similar problems that they needed to overcome.
The score for this Cinderella was commissioned from Claire Cowan, who has worked before with Prior and with whom he shares a strong collaborative aesthetic. It too was diverse in musical styles and influences. It had a strong percussion component and a lot of brass, but at times looked back to medieval sounds, Baroque court dances and a host of other new and old musical allusions.
Prior calls this work ‘maximalist’ and it certainly wasn’t minimalist, not choreographically, not musically, not thematically, not in design which included some great visual effects from POW Studios, not in any way. I found some parts of the work, especially the way the Step-Sisters were portrayed, somewhat overdone, and audiences need to be prepared for the unexpected. Audience reaction on opening night in Auckland varied and included spontaneous clapping along with the music and dancing at various times, as well as a few people not returning after interval. Only several viewings would allow us to appreciate and follow fully the extraordinary diversity of ideas that fill the work. There is no doubt that we will never see another Cinderella like this one.
MIchelle Potter, 13 August 2022
A shortened version of this review appeared in Dance Australia. Follow this link.
