Dance diary. June 2026

Lucy Guerin moves on

Lucy Guerin, director and founder of the Melbourne-based contemporary dance company Lucy Guerin Inc, will step down from her position at the end of 2026. Guerin established her company 25 years ago and, while 25 years is a more than commendable time to have been at the helm of a dance company, the news came as something of a shock. Guerin said of her decision:

After 25 years, I have decided to step down as Artistic Director of LGI to explore new directions in dance. I founded the company in 2002 to support the making and touring of my productions, but over the years it has become so much more than that. It is now a centre for choreography, discussion, learning, connection and ideas and there are so many who have worked incredibly hard to support this organization. I am deeply grateful to all of them

Guerin will continue to lead the company until the end of 2026 and will perform a solo work in October before relinquishing her role as director. The LGI Board will begin a search for a new director in the coming weeks. It will be interesting to see who will be selected to take on the position vacated by Guerin, and what new role Guerin will take on in the future.

For posts about Lucy Guerin on this website follow this link.

Adelaide College of the Arts

I had the pleasure of being in Adelaide recently where I saw a performance by dance and design students from Years 2 and 3 at the Adelaide College of the Arts. The evening consisted of two original dance works, Made to_ by Singaporean guest choreographer Ru Ma, along with there & gone by Peter Sheedy, lecturer and course co-ordinator for the dance program at the College.

The students performed exceptionally well in both works although I especially admired the Sheedy work. It was a thoroughly abstract work making great use of onstage objects that were moved around the stage at various times. It also had the dancers constantly regrouping in various ways and was in fact an exceptional way of introducing students to the various possibilities of choreography. A great training piece although the dancers performed like professionals rather than students in training.

News from Loughlan Prior

Loughlan Prior’s production of Hansel Gretel, made originally for Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2019, has just recently been performed in Las Vegas by Nevada Ballet Theatre. It was really well received there and was described in one review as a ‘spectacular, surreal imagining’ of the well-known story with ‘stunning visual design’ and ‘high energy choreography’.

Read Jennifer Shennan’s review of the work as seen in Wellington in 2019 at this link, and also her review of the 2023 return season at this link.

Prior is currently working in London on a new show, The McRae/Vassiliev Project, in collaboration with director Natalie Abrahami, dancer and choreographer Steven McRae, musician Vasko Vassilev, and dancer Sarah Lamb. Inspired by the work of violinist Niccolo Paganinit, it will premiere in September in the Linbury Theatre at London’s Royal Opera House.

See more about The McRae/Vassiiev Project at this link.

Loughlan Prior and Laura Saxon-Jones performing with artists from the New Zealand School of Music, 2019. Photo: © Stephen Gibbs

Beth Dean

I quite accidentally came across a small manuscript collection of material about Beth Dean held in the National Library in Canberra (MS 10011, received 2004). I was always under the impression that her collection was held in Sydney at the State Library of New South Wales, and indeed there is a substantial collection there. But somehow a small number of items found their way to Canberra. It was a thrill to find some early photographs of Dean, which I had never seen before.

Beth Dean in Cleveland, Ohio, 1935. Photo: © Harry A Cole

But especially interesting, given that several years ago now (and without being aware of the NLA material), I had given a paper on dance in Australia in the 1950s. My talk focused on Australian themes and my mention of Dean included a brief discussion of her choreography for an Australia focused work called G’day Digger danced to a score by John Antill. So, I was especially interested in Dean’s writings in the NLA collection regarding her extensive research for her production of Corroboree, also danced to an Antill score and created especially for presentation during a visit to Australia in 1954 by Queen Elizabeth II. Of her approach to the story of her Corroboree Dean wrote:

The story of my “Corroboree” was about a young boy and his initiation, and his facing of himself and of the chimeras of our fears and our imagination. The Dreamtime stories of his ancestors are shown to him, as they were when we sat in the red dust with those people during all their ceremonies.

And of her background research she wrote:

For my version of the ballet I had spent those months [on which she elaborates at length elsewhere in the papers] living with the Aboriginal people studying their mythology, but even more finding the beauty and the depth of their discipline.

It is totally fascinating material, provided we look at it as coming from the 1950s.

Press for June 2026

– ‘Opera Gala (Snow Concert Hall ).’ Review of Opera Gala. Limelight Magazine, 1 June 2026. Online at this link.

– ‘Physicality fuels Sydney Dance Company’s engine.’ Review of Engine, Sydney Dance Company. CBR CityNews, 25 June 2026. Online at this link

Michelle Potter, 30 June 2026

Featured image: Portrait of Lucy Guerin. Photo: © Amber Haines

Dance diary. November 2025

Liz Lea: the latest

Liz Lea , ever engaged in new projects, has been commissioned by the Sydney-based AMPA (Academy of Music and Performing Arts) to create a new work for the dance students of the Academy for their upcoming end of year show, Euphoria. Lea’s work is called Promenade and will premiere on 5 December 2025.

Dancers from AMPA rehearsing for *Promenade*. Still from a rehearsal video

Watch below for an insight into the work.

Creative Australia Awards

Two dance artists, choreographer and director Kate Champion and dancer-choreographer Rosalind Crisp, have been honoured at the 2025 Creative Australia Awards held in Brisbane in November. Kate Champion received the Theatre Award and Rosalind Crisp the Dance Award.

Kate Champion, currently artistic director of Black Swan State Theatre Company in Perth, Western Australia, was honoured for ‘three decades contributing to Australian Performance’. Those decades include the founding of the much admired contemporary dance-theatre company Force Majeure in 2002, which she directed until 2015. Her credits extend across a variety of theatrical genres in addition to dance including opera, film, theatre and circus.

Rosalind Crisp was the recipient of the Dance Award. She founded Omeo Dance Studio in Sydney in 1996 and was invited to Paris in 2002, where she became Associate Artist at Atelier de Paris (2004–2014). She was awarded a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2015, and her work has toured nationally and internationally. She is currently commissioned by the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company.

Brief videos focusing on the awards are available online: Kate Champion at this link, Rosalind Crisp here.

Honouring Ana Gallardo Lobaina

My colleagues in Wellington, New Zealand, have let me know that on 19 November, His Excellency Luis Ernesto Morejón Rodríguez, Ambassador of Cuba to New Zealand, Cook Islands and Niue, was welcomed into the Royal New Zealand Ballet studios to honour principal artist Ana Gallardo Lobaina. His Excellency presented Ana, born and trained in Cuba, with an artwork by Cuban visual artist Yosvany Martínez Pérez. It is, I understand, a tradition in Cuba to honour artists who have made a significant input into the company with which they work. In presenting the award the Ambassador said:

Today, we are delighted to see a dancer born and trained in Cuba take her place among the principal figures of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, bringing her talent, sensitivity, and energy to this company. The recognition we are presenting to Ana today is a testament to her tireless work, unwavering perseverance, and artistic excellence.

I have greatly admired the dancing of Ana Gallardo Lobaina, in particular in Loughlan Prior’s production of The Firebird (2021), and the award is well deserved. For posts that feature the work of Ana Gallardo Lobaina on this website see this tag.

The Firebird, Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2021. Photo: © Stephen A’Court — Ana Gallardo Lobaina in the title role of Loughlan Prior’s *The Firebird*. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2021. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

… and then there’s Elizabeth Dalman

A similar honour will shortly be bestowed on Dr Elizabeth Dalman, AM. Elizabeth will be awarded the insignia of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Ambassador of France to Australia, His Excellency M. Pierre-André Imbert on 2 December at the Embassy of France in Canberra.

The award was established in 1957 to recognise eminent artists who have contributed significantly to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world. More after 2 December.

MIchelle Potter, 30 November 2025

Featured image: Liz Lea speaking to the public in 2021 Source: CBR CityNews, 01 February 2021 Photo: © Helen Musa

New Zealand School of Dance Performance Season, 2025

19 and 20 November, Te Whaea, Wellington
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

The NZSD end of year performance season has reverted to separate classical and contemporary programs alternating across a ten-day period.

The first night, classical program, opened with a suite of dances from La Sylphide, staged with care by Nadine Tyson (a former graduate of the School, dancer with RNZB, and a classical tutor on the faculty). The Sylph was danced by Kaiserin Darongsuwan (Mook) flirting gently with James, Hui Ho Yin (Mike) who performed with lively elevation. The 12 lyrical sylphs gave the realm of spirits in the forest at night a gentle atmosphere.

A moment from *La Sylphide*, Act II. New Zealand School of Dance. Performance Season 2025. Photo: © Stephen A’Court.

The Bournonville legacy from Denmark is a longstanding one in this country, thanks to Poul Gnatt’s founding of New Zealand Ballet in 1953 and the repertoire he introduced. It remains a vivacious and distinctive style within the balletic canon, challenging performers to harness the striking energy contained within the body, rather than striving for an extended alignment common to other styles of ballet. (A number of New Zealanders rose to international recognition for their mastery of the Bournonville style—Jon Trimmer, Patricia Rianne, Adrienne Matheson and Martin James leading them).

The second work, Curious Alchemy, is by Loughlan Prior (now a free-lance choreographer, following his earlier career dancing with RNZB, and also a graduate of the school). The style of movement in this piece is quirky with torsos and limbs moving in segmented isolations that certainly earn the first part of the work’s title. The choice of Beethoven and Saint-Saens compositions, set at unusually loud volume, made further contrast to the staccato moves of the four performers—Liezl Herrera, Ella Marshall, Lin Xi-Yuan (Ian) and Hiroki So.

Façade, choreographed by Jeffrey Tan, staged by Robert Mills, and set to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, is a pas de deux of emotional connection between the two performers, Ella Marshall and Lin Xi-Yuan (Ian). The rapport between them was strongly forged yet built to an unusual ending where the distance between them was emphasised and well-captured.

Esquisses, by Christopher Hampson, staged by Turid Revfeim, (also a graduate of the school, with a long and substantial career at RNZB and subsequently as director of Ballet Collective Aotearoa) is set to an energising (mainly piano) composition by Valentin-Alkan. Costume design is by Gary Harris, former director of RNZB who shared a spirited rapport with Hampson back in the day (Hampson’s Romeo & Juliet remains one of the strongest memories of the company’s powerful theatrical repertoire from that time).

Eleanor Bond & Patrick Nawalowalo McCrory in *Esquisses*. New Zealand School of Dance. Performance Season 2025. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

The tutu design by Harris is striking and cleverly used, there is élan, cheeky humour and whimsy in the choreography throughout, designed specifically for young dancers, until the male solo adagio by Hui Ho Yin (Mike) emerges and becomes quite the most beautiful, musical and poetic highlight of the evening, an embryo of the art of dance.

The contemporary program the next evening had five works, all world premieres, so an altogether different energy in the venue. The opening piece titled You Cannot Make a Deal with a Tiger, choreographed by Riley Fitzgerald, should be renamed You Can Make a Deal with a Tiger, since that’s what the dancers seemed to achieve—facing the fear, finding support from another, putting up the fight and surviving, with an ending that echoed the opening image.

A scene from *You Cannot Make a Deal with a Tiger*. New Zealand School of Dance. Performance Season 2025. Photo: © Stephen A’Court.

God is in the Room, by Tristan Carter, had a loopy zany vibe with smiling and playing games, making like animals, then moving to a frenetic sequences of shouting and group movement but not involving all individuals equally. Deliberate non-sequiturs in the movement, and quite random dress for individual dancers, underlined the program note ‘Energy never dies, it only transforms’.

Crybabies never Pelu, by ‘IsopeAkau’ola, draws on Tongan themes of resilience and support within a community. Pele is Tongan for ‘fold’ and the title here implies folding rather than breaking. The opening guitar sounds brought aural clarity to the line-up of black clad martial artists who used the discipline of stylised moves to get the dance up and running. The late great Futa Helu said that the Tongan definition of dance is ‘keeping time’—in that wonderful pun we can recognise here features of hand and foot movements from old Tongan ways of dancing, welded in to the new sequences for this focussed group dance that had gravitas, dignity and a contemplative quality to support a theme both contemporary and timeless.

A moment from *Cry Babies Never Pelu*. New Zealand School of Dance. Performance Season 2025. Photo: © Stephen A’Court.

Anatomy of Entanglement by Aitu Matsuda for a group of dancers clad in matching light and darker grey, explored the theme of the many moving parts within a larger entity, and had a compelling quality.

The Space Between, by Raewyn Hill, to an original score by Eden Mulholland, gave this two-program season the cadence and resolution it needed. A driving triple time beat was used as grounding for the sizeable group of dancers to build and grow beautiful waves of movement throughout the dance which became the great Waltz of Time. Some bars and some dancers alternated that waltz with a sarabande rhythm, still in triple time but with the accent instead on the second beat in each bar, keeping us mesmerised throughout…where will it go? where will it take us?

A moment from Raewyn Hill’s *The Space Between*. New Zealand School of Dance. Performance Season 2025. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

The work builds its strength as the entire cast stays on stage throughout. They became an entire community garbed in glorious colours, a dancer here and another there lifted aloft, to float or fly, then safely lowered to join the group, irresistibly happy dancers smiling, not because they’d been told to smile but simply because the work offered them such an uplifting quality of hope, and who’s to say that isn’t what graduating dancers need and deserve. It’s no surprise that Raewyn Hill, herself an illustrious graduate of this school in earlier times, came up with this treasure and it’s very good to see it sitting so well on these dancers.

******************

I am certainly not alone in the audience thinking that a single program combining classical and contemporary works, rather than setting them apart as separate realms, would allow the audience to see the fullness of the NZSD’s strengths, the range of professional opportunities awaiting the graduates, and enhance rather than isolate the ways in which all choreographers and dancers share the same goals of communicating themes and expressing moods and emotions through movement, albeit of differing styles.

It is clear that many of the graduates can look forward to fruitful and rewarding careers in dance, and we wish them all the very best in that.

Jennifer Shennan, 25 November 2025

Featured image: Eleanor Bond & Patrick Nawalowalo McCrory in Christopher Hampson’s Esquisses. New Zealand School of Dance. Performance Season 2025. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Homemade Jam. BalletCollective Aotearoa with Tawa College dance group

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 is Brigitte 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.

Alina Kulikova and Callum Phipps performing *Subtle Dances*, part of BalletCollective Aotearoa’s *Homemade Jam* program, in the inaugural Pōneke Festival of Contemporary Dance, 2024. Photo: © Lokyee Szeto

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.

Jennifer Shennan, 14 July 2024

Featured image: Scene from Subtle Dances. BalletCollective Aotearoa, 2024. Photo: © Lokyee Szeto

Possum Magic. The Ballet. The Australian Ballet School

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.

Grandma Poss and Hush (foreground) with Palova ladies in Perth. Photo: © Sergey Konstantinov

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.

Michelle Potter, 13 December 2023

Featured image: The characters in Possum Magic. The Ballet with Milana Gould as Hush (centre, held aloft by Koala). Photo: © Sergey Konstantinov

Hansel & Gretel. Royal New Zealand Ballet (2023)

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.

A moment from the opening scene in *Hansel & Gretel*. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2023. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

(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).

Luke Cooper as the Transformed Witch in *Hansel & Gretel*. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2023. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

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.

Ella Chambers as Gretel in *Hansel & Gretel*. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2023. Photo: © Stephen A’Court.

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.

Jennifer Shennan, 15 November 2023

Featured image: Ana Gallardo Lobaina as the Ice Cream Witch in Hansel & Gretel. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2023. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Sir Jon Trimmer (1939–2023)

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.

Featured image: Jon Trimmer as Captain Hook in Royal New Zealand Ballet’s 1999 production of Russell Kerr’s Peter Pan. Photo: © Maarten Holl. Courtesy Royal New Zealand Ballet

Dance diary. January 2023

New choreography about women writers

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.

Dance Australia e-news

Some readers may be interested in this link.

Michelle Potter, 31 January 2023

The best of … 2022

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.

Vito Bernasconi and Lina Kim in *We who are left* from the triple bill *Li’s Choice*. Queensland Ballet, 2022. Photo: © David Kelly

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.

Veronika Maritati and Zachary Healey in a scene from *Galileo*. Sydney Choreographic Ensemble, 2022. Photo: © Daniel Asher Smith

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.

Laurynas Vejalis as the Royal Messenger and Clytie Campbell as the Queen in *Cinderella*. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2022. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Michelle Potter, 30 December 2022

My year, 2022

by Jennifer Shennan

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.

Joshua Douglas in Loughlan Prior’s *Verse*. New Zealand School of Dance, 2022. Photo: © Stephen A’Court.

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.

Jennifer Shennan, 21 December 2022