An Australian Dance Collection. The oral history component

Below, attached as a PDF file, is a list of oral history recordings with artists working in dance related fields, as held in the National Library of Australia (NLA) and the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA). Interviews conducted by the National Library are in audio format while many of the National Film and Sound Archive projects are film/video recordings, although the list includes early radio interviews acquired by the NFSA.

The collection was significantly augmented as a result of an Ausdance National initiative to create an Australia Council-funded project spread over several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Its ultimate aim was the building up of a national dance collection that crossed two of Canberra’s major collecting institutions—it was to cover dance across a range of media and was to have a coherent and easily accessed existence. The oral history recordings made as a result of this project augmented existing oral history material in both institutions, and the collecting of dance material in oral history format has continued to grow. The ultimate aim of the Australia Council-funded project was, however, never fully realised. A website, Australia Dancing, made an important start but it was closed down as an active site in 2012. An Australian Dance Collection certainly exists but the links between organisations, and even links within individual organisations but across formats, are not always easy to discover.

There have been other significant projects in which oral history has been a major component, including the Esso Performing Arts and Oral History Archive Project, managed by the National Library between 1988 and 1990, and the Heath Ledger Oral History Project with emerging artists, managed by the National Film and Sound Archive in 2011 and 2012. The featured image on this post shows Geoffrey Ingram, an early general manager of the Australian Ballet, being interviewed in 1989 as part of the Esso Performing Arts and Oral History Archive Project. Below is a brief excerpt from an interview with Joe Chapman for the Heath Ledger Project.

More information about individual interviews can be found via the catalogues of the respective institutions. Access to the interviews varies according to the wishes of the interviewee. Many National Library interviews, however, are available online and online access instructions are also available via the catalogue. The significance of the oral history dance collection across the National Library and the National Film and Sound Archive cannot be overestimated. So often an oral history recording is the sole record of the life and career of certain of our dance artists.

I encourage readers of this post to alert me to any NLA or NFSA interviews that are missing from the list. There are sure to be some! Here is a link to the current list.

Michelle Potter, 10 August 2021

Featured image (detail): Geoffrey Ingram being interview by Michelle Potter. National Library of Australia, 1989. This interview is available online at this link.

Dance diary. June 2021

Queensland Ballet’s Joel Woellner promoted to principal

It was a thrill to hear that Queensland Ballet’s Joel Woellner has been promoted to principal artist. I have long admired Woellner’s dancing and especially remember his performance as the Widow Simone in Queensland Ballet’s production of Marc Ribaud’s La Fille mal gardée. After watching that show in 2017, I wrote:

Joel Woellner as the Widow was totally outrageous. He was the slapstick hero(ine) and milked the audience at every opportunity. And of course the audience loved it and responded with laughter and cheers.

I look forward to seeing him in other leading roles at some stage soon (perhaps princely roles as I didn’t see him as the Prince in the recent Sleeping Beauty). In the meantime, in the image below he is on the left as Paris in Romeo and Juliet in 2019.

Steven Heathcote (centre) as Lord Capulet with Joel Woellner (left) as Paris and Vito Bernasconi (right) as Tybalt in 'Romeo and Juliet'. Queensland Ballet, 2019. Photo: © David Kelly — Steven Heathcote (centre) as Lord Capulet with Joel Woellner (left) as Paris and Vito Bernasconi (right) as Tybalt in *Romeo and Juliet.* Queensland Ballet, 2019. Photo: © David Kelly

Adroit. Clever or skilful in using the hands. Houston Ballet

Stanton Welch continues to make work that keeps in mind that we are still in the middle of a pandemic. That work includes short films and, in an interview with Houstonia Magazine earlier this month, Welch remarked:

Film is a unique experience. It’s also extraordinarily disjointed. Usually, you run something for an hour, half an hour. This you run something for 12 seconds, 35 seconds. And then you shut down the entire shoot, you move, and relight. And you add Covid problems to all of that.

I especially admired a recent short film shot in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston called Adroit. Clever or skilful in using the hands. The dancers were indeed adroit and their Mozartian costumes were quite beautiful. But what was particularly pleasing was the way Welch used the space of the Gallery. His dancers did not just dance in the space but through it and it was constantly surprising to be confronted by new art as the dancers moved through doorways and around corners. Adroit made me want to visit Houston.

Adroit also reminded me of Life is a work of art, Liz Lea’s production for Canberra’s GOLD company and performed in the National Gallery of Australia. It was never filmed (as far as I know) but some scenes used the space of the Gallery as beautifully as did Welch and his team in Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts. In particular with Life is a work of art, I recall a section called ‘A gentle spirit’, which was somewhat different from Adroit in that we, the audience, moved through the space rather than watch the dancer do so. But the emotional attractiveness was similar.

'A Gentle Spirit'. Moving towards Gallery 9, National Gallery of Australia, 2013 — ‘A Gentle Spirit’. Moving towards Gallery 9, National Gallery of Australia, 2013. Photos courtesy National Gallery of Australia

'A Gentle Spirit' (2). Moving towards Gallery 9, National Gallery of Australia, 2013 — ‘A Gentle Spirit’. Moving towards Gallery 9, National Gallery of Australia, 2013. Photos courtesy National Gallery of Australia

Patrick McIntyre, the National Film and Sound Archive’s new chief executive officer.

The National Film and Sound Archive has announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer, Patrick McIntyre. Although McIntyre is moving on from Sydney Theatre Company, where he was executive director for 11 years, I remember him in particular for his role with the Australian Ballet where he was associate executive director (perhaps associate general manager in those days?) for several years. That was a time when I had quite strong connections with the Australian Ballet (thank you Maina Gielgud and Ian McRae) and so also spoke to McIntyre at various times.

Patrick McIntyre. Photo: Sydney Theatre Company and Nic Walker

Given his connections with dance in Australia (he also worked for a while with Sydney Dance Company), perhaps we can hope that he will take a particular interest in the exceptional dance material that is housed in the NFSA? That material includes footage from productions by the Bodenwieser Ballet; Ballet Rambert; the Australian Ballet; Sydney Dance Company (under Graeme Murphy); Australian Dance Theatre (especially under Jonathan Taylor and Leigh Warren); Danceworks (under Nanette Hassall); Queensland Ballet (especially works from the time of directors Charles Lisner and Harry Haythorne); extraordinary Ballet Russes material filmed by Dr Joseph Ringland Anderson and Dr Ewan Murray-Will; dance documentaries including examples of the work of outstanding film directors Don Featherstone and Michelle Mahrer, and even three documentaries that I had a hand in putting together in association with Sally Jackson; filmed interviews with choreographers, dancers and directors; filmed news items; and much more. There is unlimited scope for a research project to produce an exhaustive list of the Archive’s dance material for potential use by future researchers.

In the meantime the appointment of McIntyre, whose experience with cultural organisations is wide, seems an excellent one.

Michelle Potter, 30 June 2021

Featured image: Portrait of Joel Woellner, Queensland Ballet 2021. Photo: © David Kelly

Lana Jones and artists of the Australian Ballet in ''The Merry Widow', 2018. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Dance diary. May 2018

The Australian Ballet in Canberra

The Australian Ballet made a trip to Canberra in May, after an absence of three years, bringing with it an audience favourite, Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow. The local press made much of the fact that several Canberra trained dancers would be performing and indeed on opening night Lana Jones led the company as Hanna Glawari, the very widow of the work’s title.

Audiences in Canberra are starved for professional standard performances of ballet and many travel interstate to get their ballet hit. So it was no wonder that The Merry Widow was greeted with huge enthusiasm in Canberra. Those in the audience laughed, clapped, they hummed along with the well-known tunes, and cheered and whistled.

The Canberra dance scene has plenty for audiences to enjoy in the area of community dance, and professional contemporary dance also has strong presence thanks to Liz Lea and to Alison Plevey and her Australian Dance Party. And of course QL2 makes its mark with its excellent work in youth dance. In addition, some of the country’s best contemporary companies make annual visits to Canberra and have been doing so for decades—Sydney Dance Company and Bangarra Dance Theatre for example. So the city can claim to have access to excellent dance throughout the year. But adult audiences need a bit of ballet and wish it would happen more than once every three years.

Maybe a petition to have the national ballet company visit the national capital as part of its regular touring schedule?

Lana Jones as Hanna Glawari, the Widow, in 'The Merry Widow'. The Australian Ballet 2018. Photo: Daniel Boud — Lana Jones as Hanna Glawari in *The Merry Widow*. The Australian Ballet, 2018. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Thomas E. S. Kelly

In May, dancer and actor Thomas E. S. Kelly was awarded the Australia Council’s 2018 Dreaming Award at the National Indigenous Arts Awards. The Dreaming Award celebrates an inspirational young artist (18–26 years old) and gives him or her the opportunity to create a major body of work through mentoring and partnerships, nationally or internationally.

I interviewed Kelly in 2013, shortly after his graduation from NAISDA College, for the Heath Ledger Young Artists Oral History Project. The project recorded filmed interviews with emerging artists who were recommended by their training institution as potential leaders in the arts. So it is pleasing to see Kelly fulfilling the promise that his teachers identified.

The project covered various art forms but, as a matter of interest, the other graduate from NAISDA College who was also part of the project was Beau Dean Riley Smith. He too has proved himself to be a future leader. From the Australian Ballet School the two dancers selected were Hannah O’Neill and Joe Chapman. All the interviews are now part of the National Film and Sound Archive’s collection.

Press for May 2018

’Long-running ballet a firm favourite.’ Review of the Australian Ballet’s The Merry Widow. The Canberra Times, 29 May 2018, p. 35. Online version

Michelle Potter, 31 May 2018

Featured image: Lana Jones and artists of the Australian Ballet in The Merry Widow, 2018. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Simple Symphony. Walter Gore

Earlier this year Rafael Bonachela choreographed a work to Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony for his Sydney Dance Company. As a result, a few questions and comments arose on various websites about the use of this music for dance. Then, more recently, the Dancing Times carried letters about Walter Gore’s ballet Simple Symphony (danced to the Britten score) with some questions about the date of that production. In the course of research for another project, I had occasion to look at some archival material relating to the Ballet Rambert tour of Australia and New Zealand in the National Library of Australia, including the scrapbooks of Australian dancer Charles Boyd. From those sources I can add the following:

Gore’s ballet was created in 1944 and Mary Clarke in her Decca Book of Ballet states that its first performance was in Bristol on 29 November 1944. It was initially performed on Arts Council tours for the troops in England. The ballet was notated in Laban notation by Australian Cecil Bates in 1992 who notes that the work was taught to him by Gore when Bates joined the Rambert company during its Australia tour of 1947–1949. A copy of the notated score is part of the National Library’s music collection. Bates also notes that the version he learnt was unaltered from the 1944 original. Bates restaged it for his South Australian Ballet company in 1963.

Other notes on the Laban score state that the work was created by Gore during World War II during periods of leave from duty in France with the armed forces, and that it was created largely on Sally Gilmour and Margaret Scott. The work was performed throughout the Rambert Australasian tour. Its first Australian performance was at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne, on 24 October 1947 with Gore and Sally Gilmour in the principal roles. A note in Rambert Australian programs says it was ‘a thank-offering created by Walter Gore, Rambert’s premiere danseur, a few months after he was twice torpedoed on D-Day’.

It was also filmed during the Australian leg of the Australasian tour at Sandgate, a beachside suburb north of Brisbane, by Alan Denby for the ‘Public Instruction Department’. It was anticipated that the film would be distributed to schools in Queensland, although I am not sure whether this ever happened. Charles Boyd’s scrapbooks indicate that the photo below, taken on location during the filming, appeared in Brisbane’s Courier Mail in September 1948.

Filming Walter Gore's 'Simple Symphony', Sandgate, Queensland,1948 — Filming *Simple Symphony*, Sandgate, 1948

A copy of this film is in the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra.

Michelle Potter, 15 November 2013

Dance diary. July 2013

Australian Dance Awards 2013: Lifetime Achievement and Hall of Fame

Ronne Arnold and his Contemporary Dance Company of Australia in 'Spirituals', 1971. Photo Roderic Vickers — Ronne Arnold and his Contemporary Dance Company of Australia in ‘Spirituals’, 1971. Photo Roderic Vickers

The 2013 Australian Dance Awards will be presented in Canberra on 5 August. In advance of that date, recipients of the two major awards, Lifetime Achievement and Hall of Fame, have been announced. Ronne Arnold is the recipient of Lifetime Achievement and he is seen above with members of his company, the Contemporary Dance Company of Australia, in a finale to one of their shows.

I was a student with Joan and Monica Halliday when Ronne began to teach there in the 1960s and, while I was far from a jazz dancer, I took Ronne’s classes and also followed him one year to an Arts Council Summer School. He was (and no doubt still is) a wonderful teacher and I continue to treasure memories of those classes. My brief story about him for The Canberra Times is at this link. [Update 28 April 2019: link now no longer available]

An oral history interview with Ronne Arnold, recorded in 1997 and 1998, is held by the National Library of Australia. Cataloguing details are at this link. (Note of caution: the transcript, although classed as ‘corrected’ in the catalogue, still needs a number of corrections here and there!)

The recipient of the Hall of Fame award is Alan Brissenden whose book Australia Dances. Creating Australian Dance 1945–1965 (co-authored with Keith Glennon), has been invaluable to me in many ways since it was published in 2010 by Wakefield Press. He too will receive his award on 5 August.

Heath Ledger Project

In mid-July I was lucky enough to record the first of the interviews with NAISDA graduates for the Heath Ledger Young Artists Oral History Project. Beau Dean Riley Smith graduated from NAISDA in 2012 and is now dancing with Bangarra Dance Theatre. He gave a wonderfully frank interview, punctuated with much laughter, and it was a thrill to see him perform in Blak the next night at the opening of Bangarra’s Canberra season. I was impressed with the way he immersed himself totally in the production and admired his exceptional physicality.

Beau Smith interview. Heath Ledger Project, NFSA 2013. Photo: Brooke Shannon — Beau Smith interview. Heath Ledger Project, 2013. Photo: Brooke Shannon. Courtesy National Film and Sound Archive

The interview was conducted in a studio at the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra surrounded by all kinds of sound equipment being used for restoration projects (which does not make an appearance in the recording!), as you can see in the image above. Another NAISDA graduate, independent artist Thomas E S Kelly, is to be interviewed for the project during August.

And as an update to the project in general it was a thrill to hear that Hannah O’Neill, who was interviewed for the project in May 2012, was placed first in the Paris Opera Ballet examinations this year and has been offered a permanent (that is lifetime) contract with the Paris Opera Ballet. A singular achievement and one that demonstrates not only O’Neill’s exceptional talents but her absolute determination to make it in the company she regards as the best ballet company in the world.

In addition, the other Australian Ballet School graduate interviewed for the project in 2012, Joseph Chapman [now going by the name Joe Chapman], tells me that, although his first eighteen months with the company have been ‘challenging’, performing has been a real highlight for him.

Cecchetti Society Conference 2013, Melbourne

At the beginning of July I had the pleasure of chairing a session at the 2013 Cecchetti Society Conference in Melbourne. The session concerned the National Theatre Ballet, a company that gave its first performance as a fully-fledged company under the directorship of Joyce Graeme in 1949.

Former dancers of the National Theatre Ballet. Cecchetti Society Conference, Melbourne 2013. Photo: Wendy Cliff

In the photo above I am standing behind the eight participants on the panel, all former dancers from the National Theatre Ballet: (seated left to right, Lorraine Blackbourne, Jennifer Stielow, Dame Margaret Scott, Athol Willoughby, Norma Hancock (Lowden). Phyllis Jeffrey (Miller) Maureen Trickett (Davies) and Ray Trickett. Each of the participants had wonderful stories to tell of their time with the company and the session could have gone on for many hours.

There is still much to be written about the impact of Ballet Rambert in Australia. Here, however, is an article, an overview of the Australian tour, which I wrote for National Library of Australia News in December 2002.

Press for July

‘Tragedy without end’. Review of Big hART’s Hipbone sticking out. The Canberra Times, 5 July 2013. [Online link now no longer available]

‘New direction respects company’s past’. Review of Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Blak. The Canberra Times, 13 July 2013. [Online link now no longer available]

‘Moving body of work’. Article on Ronne Arnold as the recipient of the 2013 ADA Lifetime Achievement Award. The Canberra Times, 30 July 2013.[Online link now no longer available]

In July The Canberra Times also published an article I wrote on Paul Knobloch although for reasons of copyright I am not providing a link.

Michelle Potter, 31 July 2013

Dance diary. May 2013

Symmetries. The Australian Ballet

Symmetries has come to and gone from Canberra. What a wonderful program it was and people are still talking about it. As a friend said, ‘It had the WOW factor’, and those who missed it are sounding regretful. And I was amused to find Monument alluded to in Ian Warden’s column on the lack of poetry in the Centenary of Canberra celebrations. ‘…the sad fact is we have marked this year almost entirely in prose (with the odd ballet about a building thrown in, of course)’, Warden wrote in The Canberra Times. Such is the instant fame of Monument in Canberra.

Here is the link to a review of Symmetries I wrote for Dance Australia online. Other material, about Monument in particular, is at this link.

Heath Ledger Project

The National Film and Sound Archive now has an update to its Heath Ledger Young Artists Oral History Project website. On this site you will find details of those young artists who have been interviewed to date, including extracts from the interviews in some cases. My interviews with Joseph Chapman [now using the name Joe Chapman] and Josie Wardrope have some lovely footage included.

I am currently negotiating interviews with two recent graduates from NAISDA, which I hope will be added to the archive in the next few months.

Press for May 2013

In addition to articles and reviews relating to the Symmetries program, other press articles in May include a preview of Liz Lea’s InFlight for The Canberra Times, and also for The Canberra Times a profile of choreographer Garry Stewart, which unfortunately was published more as another piece about Monument when in fact it also dealt with G and other aspects of Stewart’s work.

Garry Stewart rehearsing 'Monument' 2013. Photo Lynette Wills — Garry Stewart rehearsing *Monument,* 2013. Photo: © Lynette Wills. Courtesy the Australian Ballet

In addition, some of Australia’s best known contemporary dancers took part in the Dublin Dance Festival in May. The Irish Times published a story about the event in which Jordan Beth Vincent and I had some comments, although it is not available online.

Michelle Potter, 31 May 2013

Dance diary. February 2012

Spring Dance

It was good to read that Rafael Bonachela will take on the directorship of Sydney’s Spring Dance program for the next three years. I am sure Bonachela will bring huge enthusiasm not to mention knowledge and understanding of the contemporary dance scene to the job.

Some of my most unusual and rewarding dance experiences in recent years have been at Spring Dance. Philippe Priasso‘s amazing interlude with an earth mover was one. Meryl Tankard’s Oracle another. Here is a link to the Spring Dance tag.

And on the subject of Tankard I have just received publicity for the restaging by Lyon Opera Ballet of Bolero. I wrote about Bolero in an earlier post and also noted then that the Lyon restaging would be part of a triple bill program that also includes works by Kylian and Forsythe. Do we have to go to Lyon these days to see such a program? Perhaps the company from Lyon is worth considering for Spring Dance? Or another Australian dance festival?

SAR Fellowship

My Fellowship at the National Film and Sound Archive to investigate the film and television commissions of Kristian Fredrikson officially came to a conclusion at the end of February. I gave my staff presentation, ‘Kristian Fredrikson: on screen’, towards the end of February, appeared on 666 ABC Canberra to talk to presenter of Saturday Breakfast, Greg Bayliss, about the Archive and my research, and I will be presenting in Melbourne in April as part of the Arts Centre’s Spotlight series.

A number of surprises emerged from being located at the Archive. On the one hand I had liberal access to the collection held there, which consists not only of film and video material but all kinds of other documentation and, on the other, I had access to the expertise and network of connections of the Archive’s curators. I discovered a design commission that had not been mentioned in any of the sources I had investigated so far: Fredrikson designed the operatic backgrounds for a children’s television series screened by SBS in 1985 called The Maestro’s Company. And I was also put in touch with the director of The Magic Telescope, an unrealised film for which Fredrikson created some designs that are totally unlike anything else I have seen from him to date. In addition I watched all the better known productions on which he worked including the delicious Undercover, which led to a number of other discoveries regarding the origins of the dance scenes that make up the finale to that movie. Through another Archive connection I discovered more about The Lovers of Verona, featuring Kathy Gorham and Garth Welch and produced by the ABC in 1965.

I was also able to relive through film and video some of the best known early Sydney Dance Company works. I was reminded time and time again as I watched productions like Poppy, King Roger, Daphnis and Chloe, After Venice and others what an amazing and versatile performer Janet Vernon was. I watched too a performance of Old Friends, New Friends (1984), the precursor to Nearly Beloved. It wasn’t designed by Fredrikson but happened to be on the same tape as After Venice. What a joy it was to see Vernon in that work and to watch as she worked her way through a whole range of different emotions.

Canberra news: Dimity Azoury and Jasmin Durham

Demographically Canberra is small in comparison to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and other major Australian cities. So it is a pleasure to hear that two Canberra-trained dancers, Dimity Azoury and Jasmin Durham, have made a mark just recently.

Azoury, a former pupil of Kim Harvey, has been nominated for the Australian Ballet’s 2012 Telstra Awards. The major award is worth $20,000 and having sat on the judging panel on one occasion (the year Lana Jones was the recipient of the $20,000), I know that the year-long assessment process is gruelling, but nevertheless I believe a formative experience for those involved, including the judges. For more on the Telstra Awards, which include a People’s Choice Award worth $5,000, see the Australian Ballet’s website. [Update April 2019: page no longer available].

Dimity Azoury Photo by James Braund — Dimity Azoury. Photo by James Braund. Courtesy the Australian Ballet

Jasmin Durham, who trained in Canberra with Lisa Clark, has been accepted into the Australian Ballet, and began her professional career in January. I recall watching her several years ago now in a student performance, and a scholarship competition and her talent was absolutely clear. She joins a number of other Canberra-trained dancers in the company including principals Lana Jones and Rachel Rawlins and her corps de ballet companion Dimity Azoury.

Jasmin Durham Photo by James Braund — Jasmin Durham. Photo by James Braund. Courtesy the Australian Ballet

Michelle Potter, 29 February 2012

Dance diary. January 2012

Paul De Masson

paul-de-masson-as-colas-la-fille-mal-gardee — Paul de Masson as Colas, with artists of the Australian Ballet in *La fille mal gardée*, ca. 1976. Photo: Walter Stringer. Courtesy National Library of Australia

It was with deep sadness that I noted the death of Paul De Masson in Melbourne on 12 January 2012. In July last year I recorded an extended oral history interview with Paul for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. It was a real privilege to have him share so many of his thoughts on his dancing life, which crossed continents and crossed paths with so many other renowned artists. Being well aware that his time was limited and thus without fear of any repercussions, Paul was beautifully honest and frank throughout the interview. And his ability to mimic the voices of his colleagues, which he did frequently as we recorded, and his ability to look back and both laugh at himself and be proud of his achievements, make wonderful oral history.

Paul was for a while on the faculty of Hamburg Ballet and held the work of John Neumeier and the dancing of the company in high regard. He thought it was a shame that Australian audiences had not had the opportunity to see much of Neumeier’s choreography and joked that if he were wealthy he would bring the company on tour to Australia. Well, in something of a twist of fate, Hamburg Ballet will visit Brisbane in 2012 bringing two of Neumeier’s best known productions, Nijinsky and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Paul joined Hamburg Ballet around the time Nijinsky was being created.

I will always admire too the honesty with which Paul commented on posts on this website, especially on the Australian Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet season. He was one of a kind.

Heath Ledger Project

In January I recorded an oral history interview with Joseph Chapman for the Heath Ledger Young Artists Oral History Program. Chapman graduated from the Australian Ballet School in 2011 and, following graduation, was offered a contract with the Australian Ballet. He began work with the company in January. Chapman was nominated for the project by one of the foundation partner institutions in the Heath Ledger Project, the Australian Ballet School.

The Heath Ledger Young Artists Oral History Project is administered by the National Film and Sound Archive and is designed to capture the thoughts, hopes and dreams of the next generation of Australian creative artists across a wide spectrum of the arts. It is named for the late Heath Ledger whose death at a relatively young age left us with little record, in an oral history context, of his life as an actor.

I had the pleasure of working with a cameraman on this occasion with interviews for the Heath Ledger Project being filmed rather than being audio only occasions. Chapman’s interview was recorded in one of the studios of the Australian Ballet School and it was a satisfying collaborative experience to make the bare space look inviting and the interview more than simply a ‘talking head’. Much credit goes to the cameraman, Michael Barnett, for a great visual eye and to Chapman for articulate responses to my questions and being what Barnett referred to as ‘a one take wonder’. No need to double back at all!

The Australian Ballet School was asked to nominate two of its 2011 graduating students to participate in the project and, in addition to Chapman, the School nominated Hannah O’Neill currently performing in Paris with the Paris Opera Ballet. Plans are underway for an interview with O’Neill.

hannah-oneill-and-joseph-chapman-the-mercury-hobart1 — © Hannah O’Neill and Joseph Chapman on tour in Hobart, 2011. Photo: Nikki Davis-Jones. Courtesy *The Mercury*, Hobart. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission.

Both O’Neill and Chapman performed leading roles with the Dancers Company on its 2011 regional tour of Ai-Gul Gaisina’s Don Quixote. In Hobart during that tour they were photographed together for The Mercury.

Michelle Potter, 30 January 2012