Farewell to a year of dance, 2023

In Maori custom an address or oratory always opens with acknowledgment of those recently deceased, recognising ‘the mighty totara trees that have fallen.’ That puts Jon Trimmer right up there in the first line since he is/was unarguably the hero of New Zealand dance. Knighted for his unmatched artistry, and the longevity of his fabled performance career, Jon was loved by so many—for all the roles he danced but also for the plain common decency in the man. Fastidiously professional about his own work, he was always interested in the work of others, ever standing by to help should that be needed. Jon may have passed (26 October 2023, aged 84) but the memories of his mighty performance career will never be forgotten, never. Nor will we see his like again, ever. Jon carried the mantle from Poul Gnatt and Russell Kerr to safeguard the Company for decades. That now passes to those performers and directors who lead RNZBallet. One can only wish them courage. [The Company’s public tribute to Jon will be held in Wellington on Friday 2 February, 2024. See Company’s website for details and reservations. The next Russell Kerr lecture in Ballet & Related Arts, on Sunday 25 February 2024, will be devoted to Jon. Presenters include Turid Revfeim, Anne Rowse, Kerry-Anne Gilberd, Michelle Potter. For details and reservations, email jennifershennan@xtra.co.nz). Links to my obituaries for Jon are at this link and at www.stuff.co.nz

Jon Trimmer as Dr Coppélius in *Coppélia*. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 1996. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

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The Auckland Arts Festival began the year with two striking productions—Revisor, stunning dance-theatre choreographed by Crystal Pite, with dancers playing actors playing dancers. Scored in Silence was a deeply moving film-dance testament to the experiences of the profoundly deaf community of Hiroshima 1945.

Royal New Zealand Ballet’s mid-year season Lightscapes, had four works with for me the standout Requiem for a Rose by Annabella Lopez-Orcha—a beautiful mysterious meditation, and the powerfully atmospheric Logos by Alice Topp (an RNZB alumna). Their single performance Platinum, was a tribute to 70 years achievement. My enduring memory is of Sara Garbowski dancing exquisitely in the excerpt from Giselle Act II. Sara has since retired from her 15 year performance career, and I for one am sorry we did not see her in the complete ballet. (Perhaps if she finds retirement over-rated she could come back as a guest artist to perform it in a year’s time?). The Company’s year ended with a romping return season of Loughlan Prior’s Hansel & Gretel which the rejuvenated company performed with great gusto.

Sara Garbowski in *Giselle*, Act II. *Platinum* season, Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2023. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Mary-Jane O’Reilly’s Ballet Noir, a contemporary treatment of Giselle Act II, was a phenomenal achievement—independent dancers who nevertheless performed as a seasoned company, with flawless technique, integrated design and powerful dramatic effect. We don’t do Dance Oscars, thank goodness, but if we did, this work would probably score. Another memorable season was the dance opera, (m)Orpheus, with direction and choreography by Neil Ieremia of Black Grace dance company. The dancers combined seamlessly with the singers who found nobility in a contemporary urban setting.

It was terrific to hear of Raewyn Hill’s staging Douglas Wright’s exquisite Gloria on her Co3 in Perth. Rumours of other works by Douglas in their planning for re-staging, mean I’d better be saving for an airfare. In Wellington an exhibition, Geist, of Tessa Ayling-Guhl’s photo portraits of Douglas Wright from 2015, was a moving experience. Björn Aslund choreographed a solo, geist dance, accompanied by Robert Oliver on bass viol, in the gallery. It’s always special when a dance enhances an art gallery space, uniting both art forms. A gathering was held at The Long Hall on October 14 to mark Douglas’ birthdate — and an archival screening of The Kiss Inside made compelling viewing. We plan to host a similar event every year on that date, and are grateful to Megan Adams who maintains the Douglas Wright archive with fastidious care.

A capacity audience attended the Russell Kerr lecture, this time focussing on Patricia Rianne’s celebrated career, and viewing her 1986 ballet, Bliss, based on the Katherine Mansfield short story. 2023 marks the centenary of Mansfield’s death and I was honoured to present a paper KM and Dance, at the VUW conference held to mark that.

2023 also marked the centenary of the tragic incident in which a young dancer, Phyllis Porter, was performing in the Opera House in Wellington, when her tarlatan skirt caught on the gaslight in the wings and she was horribly burnt, and died four days later. Shades of Emma Livry in Paris, though no-one here makes a pilgrimage to Phyllis’ resting place.

2023 offered several memorable dance videos—the Arts channel had a repeat screening of the splendid Cloudgate in Lin Hwai Min’s Rice. Firestarter about Bangarra Dance Theatre again made compelling viewing. A doco, The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Dancing told of Tom Oakley, a young Liverpool boy with serious cystic fibrosis yet who had danced his way to win a scholarship to Rambert Dance school. The outstanding force in German dance, Susanne Linke, sent me an intriguing video of her dance project, Inner Suspension, in which she shares her pedagogy and technique. (Anyone interested to receive the link could email Inge Zysk at info@susannelinke.com).

Several dance books of interest featured in my year. David McAllister was appointed Interim Artistic Director at RNZBallet. His two books, Ballet Confidential and the earlier Solo, provide access to the backstage life of the ballet and proved popular among local readers. The book Royal New Zealand Ballet at Sixty which Anne Rowse and I co-edited back in 2013, was released in a digital edition by Victoria University Press.

If I had to signal the hour and a half of the year that offered the purest dance pleasure, it would be the RNZB Company class I observed taught by David McAllister. Clarity of physics, and the miracle of anatomy, combined with music and poetry from each dancer, reveals the art, unmarked by choreography, casting, costumes and champagne—all the things we go to the ballet for. Here by contrast is the forge and the chapel where the art of the dancer is daily honed and made good. It’s my favourite thing.

Season’s greetings to all—in happy anticipation of 2024 which will see Akram Khan’s The Jungle Book Reimagined—and mid- year an intriguing project, Bismaya, in which Chamber Music New Zealand are bringing musicians from India to combine with Vivek Kinra’s Mudra dance company in a national tour and workshops. Russell Kerr’s pedigree production of Swan Lake from RNZB comes up in May, and later their mixed bill, Solace which includes a new work by Alice Topp. A return season of Liam Scarlett’s magical Midsummer Nights’ Dream is the work that keeps his talent alive.

Jennifer Shennan, 30 December 2023

Featured image: Jon Trimmer as a Stepmother in Cinderella. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 1987. Photo courtesy Royal New Zealand Ballet

Ballet Noir. Mary-Jane O’Reilly and Company

28 October, 2023. Q Theatre, Auckland
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

Choreography: Mary-Jane O’Reilly
Script, design & production: Mary-Jane O’Reilly & Phil O’Reilly

From the program note: ‘Ballet Noir is a meditation on Giselle Act II as viewed though a Film Noir lens.’ We all know Giselle of course—or do we? I certainly found new resonance in this innovative and stylish treatment of the Giselle story, which incorporates both old and new elements—bringing the timeless themes of broken trust and hearts, forgiveness and love, up against the forces of vengeance and cynicism. It’s a contemporary reading less concerned with narrative, more with psychology of personalities, and should move both diehard balletomanes as well as first timers in the audience.

That achievement grows from Mary-Jane O’Reilly’s respectful treatment of ballet, while simultaneously being a force for contemporary dance. She trained at National School of Ballet, now New Zealand School of Dance—also in London—and danced with New Zealand Ballet when Poul Gnatt directed. MJ has choreographed the major work, Jean (about Jean Batten) for RNZB, as well as directing, dancing and choreographing for Limbs Dance Company from late 1970s until 1986, with her colleague, the late Sue Paterson.

It is apparent to anyone who thinks about it that ballet/contemporary dance/dance theatre are no longer useful or discrete categories, and certainly not opposites. Leading American dance writers—Selma Jeanne Cohen, Jack Anderson and Joan Acocella—have discussed these topics for years and their writings help us recognise the ways in which dance styles and techniques evolve and reflect the cultural and social contexts of their respective countries and companies. That’s a much richer complex than the binary of ballet/non-ballet. The really interesting professional dance companies in the world require equal strength and versatility in classical and contemporary techniques and interpretation, with dancers ready for whatever a choreographer might require. Ballet Noir straddles this perceived divide with great aplomb. It’s very clever to stage highly trained classical dancers in a contemporary psychological setting, which in turn for me resonates with how Antony Tudor choreographed his masterpieces.

There’s an 8-member troupe of The Cynics, (The Wilis to you), who stride and mince, twist and pose in high style of fashionable black, wearing soft ballet flats but on such high demi-pointe as to stab you with their stiletto heels a mile high. Their temps levé and penchée motifs are timed to the familiar music by Adam, but there are also interpolated soundscapes that take us to new places. Despite their strut, The Cynics are actually in the grip of the devastating Ice Queen, phenomenally played by Shona Wilson, long-time Auckland dance figure from the days of Limbs. We’ve never seen Myrthe dance quite like this before, and there are intriguing flashbacks for us to piece together her own backstory to explain this relentless revenge she holds against men. Shiver me timbers, she gave me the goosebumps.

Shona Wilson as the Ice Queen in *Ballet Noir*, 2023. Photo: © Dave Simpson

Giselle is a naive and lovely girl, the young bride who never quite makes it to the altar. Her vulnerable character grows in strength as she finds how to stand up to the Ice Queen, and there are poignant sequences in a beautifully shaped role. I saw two performances with a change of cast of soloists—Amy Moxham and Lucy Lynch each giving Giselle a convincing presence.

Two young men stray onto the scene—a couple of spivs, let’s call them Hilarion and Albrecht, out for a night on the town. (There’s no Act I in this story). Their dual routines are comic and clever—Jacob Reynolds and Oli Matheison in one cast, Kit Reilly and Thomas Harris in the other—giving as good as they get. Then acid rain starts to fall and they are sucked in to a circle of vengeance not of their own making, as though a nasty scene developed somewhere in the town sometime in the night, and it’s possible they won’t get to see the dawn, though any police will have quite a hard time piecing together what actually happened. We witnessed it though, so we could be interviewed.

Lucy Lynch (Giselle), Shona Wilson (Ice Queen) and Jacob Reynolds (Albrecht) in *Ballet Noir*, 2023. Photo: © Dave Simpson

Throughout the work there’s a backscreen of film sequences that range from slow and oily raindrops to a slow-motion tear running down a cheek, an exquisite crescent moon and a stormy sky, marauding packs of wild dogs and a silly little skit of a dog in a neck ruff doing tricks at a party, wee toddlers playing, grown men sparring. This all may sound like a distraction but in fact was fully absorbed into the danced work throughout.

The ‘Killer Queen’ in *Ballet Noir*, 2021. Photo: © Kezia Barnett

The design of costumes, with several quick changes in the shadows sidestage—long tulle skirts flashing around like evil cloth, then as capes of birdwings. The Ice Queen first wears a long pointed (clear perspex) beak facemask, like some Scandinavian mid-winter ritual dress-up, but in one gesture lifts that high onto her head to become a queen’s crown, or is that a unicorn horn. You tell me. I appreciated the way that a number of motifs through the work were open for personal reading, and all of them will be right readings.

This is an impeccable production that deserves to be widely seen, and would do well in a number of arts festivals. It’s emotionally nuanced, tight and spare, savvy and sexy. Albrecht and Giselle dance their lyrical lovemaking and I get the goosebumps yet again.

Jennifer Shennan, 5 November 2023

Featured image: The Cynics with Ariana Hond and Hosanna Ball centre front, in Ballet Noir, 2023. Photo: © Dave Simpson

International Dance Day?

Don’t we need more than one Day?—how about a Week? New Zealand Music gets a Month. Let’s make it a Year for Dance…one day at a time.
by Jennifer Shennan

How was your International Dance Week? For me…

Day One—Saturday 29 April
I’m in Christchurch to see Woyzeck (which I’ve reviewed elsewhere on On Dancing)—a thrill to watch actors who move in such focussed ways, they could be dancers. Director Peter Falkenberg tells me later he works with Laban movement concepts for each actor’s character before they even get to the script. Aha, so that’s why these actors can dance.

Musicians in Free Theatre’s *Woyzeck*, 2023. Photo: © Sabin Holloway

That same day I meet up with three former students from New Zealand School of Dance — 1990s but I remember each of them very clearly, for different reasons, these three decades later. It’s heartening to hear their memories, and to learn about the enterprising ways they have since carved dance-related careers for themselves (dance teachers or Pilates tutors— the world needs more of both, so bravo)—but it breaks my heart to learn they are still carrying student loan debts of up to $60,000 from their student days! They don’t seem as fazed by the facts or the dollars as I am on their behalf, but I know I would feel crippled and unable to sleep, let alone work, let alone dance, if I was shouldering such a debt. It’s madness and has negative effects in several directions—e.g. a further colleague of theirs won’t come back to New Zealand on account of her loan, so grandparents don’t meet their grandchildren … another, with a young family, is back here but can’t get a mortgage to buy a house … another won’t take a job here since that would mean having to pay back the loan. Which political cynic choreographed this chaos of educational economics, this dance of death? [Of course we well remember which Minister of Education introduced the scheme, we just don’t want to speak his name. Australia manages a much better and fairer system apparently].

Those former students and I plan to set up a dance club around the Youth Centre that is soon to open in Christchurch. We’ll be offering 500 year old break dancing (that’s galliards to you—along with some pavans and brawls). All we know at this stage is that it will be free for participants and there will be live music. We can do this. Not all the youngsters will want to join in, but some of them will.

Day Two—Sunday 30 April
I spend the day in Christchurch with Ian Lochhead, dance writer and historian, and a trustee of the Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts. We’re discussing suitable topics for next year’s RKL and thought we’d like to mark RNZBallet’s 70th anniversary in some meaningful way. We plan to canvas attendees widely, inviting their response to the question, ‘Which is your single standout memory of a production across the 70 years or so you’ve been watching this company? The work you recall as suiting the company uniquely and memorably?’ We’ll be intrigued to learn if our initial consensus as to which work is chosen will continue to find favour. The RKL will be a Sunday in late February 2024.

Day Three—Monday 1 May— M’Aidez.
I walk on the grass and remember May Day in history … ‘the first day of May, long celebrated with various festivities, as the crowning of the May queen, dancing around the Maypole, and, in recent years, often marked by labour parades and political demonstrations.’ There’s an interesting entry on Alastair Macaulay’s website about the maypole in Black dance history. On Youtube in Ashton’s La Fille mal Gardée a maypole is sweet and colourful but doesn’t have the urgency that outdoor rituals can offer, and seems to taper off rather than triumph at the cadence. (The late Annette Golding, a dance educator at Wellington Teachers’ College, used to mount a very spirited Maypole on her students back in the day). I spend several hours reading the titles on the spines of Ian’s very considerable dance library. I appreciate an update on the May Day gala dance event being organised by Maryanne Meachen for a performance in Palmerston North.

Day Four—Tuesday 2 May
I stay with John Cousins, composer friend, and Colleen Anstey, dancer friend, both of them tango milongueros. They had travelled to Buenos Aires for a tango festivaI a few years back but found themselves undone to learn the stories of Argentinian struggles, sufferings, deaths and disappearances. I listen to John’s very moving composition Tristeza de Corrientes with accompanying images, on the subject, and remember how no dance is isolated from the context of its community.

Cover image for *Tristeza de Corrientes* by John Cousins. Image courtesy of John Cousins

Day Five—Wednesday 3 May
I return to Wellington, to view a filmed excerpt from Mary-Jane O’Reilly’s Giselle, which she has re-named What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? I sincerely hope MJ finds funding to complete the full-length theatre version, as this is a striking and spiky wonderful contemporary re-choreographing of a classic work that departs from, yet pays respect to, the original.

Day Six—Thursday 4 May
I teach a Baroque dance lesson to a new and fired student who keeps us going at an impressive pace, and doesn’t mind appreciators watching our work. Robert Oliver, the viol player who accompanies us, is a joy to collaborate with.

I then go to Hunters & Collectors gallery for the opening of the exhibition, geist, photographs of Douglas Wright, by Tessa Ayling-Guhl, taken in 2015, but never before exhibited. They are astonishing images of this visionary dance force. Even though Douglas died in 2018, the memory of him is indelible for many. A dance performance by Björn Aslund, with Robert Oliver, is being prepared to close the exhibition.

I then go to St. James Theatre for a performance of Romeo & Juliet by Royal New Zealand Ballet, choreography by Andrea Shermoly. The role of Juliet is danced by Mayu Tanigaito who gives a beautifully tuned performance … but the real hero of the night is the conductor of New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Hamish McKeich, who leads the orchestra through the mighty and much-loved Prokofiev score, as much drama in the music as ever on stage. Not two years ago Hamish suffered a debilitating stroke leaving him with one arm and one leg seriously affected. This annoyed him as there is much he still wants to do. Hamish conducts this mighty music using just one arm and takes his curtain call from side, not centre stage as the walking stick might slow things down. If that’s not courage then nothing is.

I am reminded of the Auckland-based Touch Compass mixed-ability dance company, founded and led for years by the gifted and intrepid Catherine Chappell. As one performance ended, curtain calls over, audience readying to leave, curtain still up on an empty stage, Catherine’s voice over, ‘Would the dancers go back and help clear the stage of the various props and set please’ … a voice replies, ‘Oh but I’ve only got one arm. ..’ Catherine replies, ’Then that’s the one to use, isn’t it.’ Indeed it is.

Day Seven—Friday 5 May
I attend the funeral of the much-loved Margaret Nielsen, pianist and champion of New Zealand composers’ work. Margaret died close to 90, ‘ready to go now as I’ve selected all the music I want at my funeral.’ Many beautiful songs later, came the excerpt from her colleague David Farquhar’s Ring Around the Moon suite—composed as incidental music for a play in 1953—the year of the Queen’s coronation, the ascent of Everest by Edmund Hillary, and the founding of New Zealand Ballet by Poul Gnatt. Harry Haythorne used this music to stage the 30th Anniversary Gala—in 1983—everyone from the Company and the School onstage, dressed in swirling blue and dancing every spirited beat. Poul entered last and strode down centre stage, purposefully stepping on the off-beat. When Edmund Hillary was asked what is the essential attribute of a leader, he replied, ‘Well, involve everyone in the team, but the Leader has to have a Plan B.’ Poul always had a Plan B.

Margaret had chosen the Waltz and the Tango from Farquhar’s music. I ask myself—What else is there?

I come home to watch the choreography of the royal procession of the Coronation, and was especially impressed by the troupe of musicians mounted on horseback, playing their instruments and guiding the horses with their ankles and heels. Look, no hands! And there were Black gospel singers who (nearly) danced inside Westminster Abbey. It’s been a while since anyone danced in that Abbey I think.

Every day is Dance Day. That was my Dance Week. How about yours?

Jennifer Shennan, 8 May 2023

Featured image: Poster for Tessa Ayling-Guhl’s exhibition of her photographs of Douglas Wright, 2023. Image courtesy of Tessa Ayling-Guhl