Queensland Ballet in 2026

It is always interesting to see the impact a change in artistic directorship has on the repertoire of a dance company. Newly appointed director of Queensland Ballet, Spanish-born Ivan Gil-Ortega, has announced a program for 2026 in which Queensland Ballet will perform works from a range of overseas-based choreographers, reflecting Gil-Ortega’s strong European background and dance heritage.

Christian Spuck from Germany, for example, will open the season with a staging of his Messa da Requiem, a collaboration on this occasion with Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Brisbane Chorale and Canticum Chamber Choir. Messa da Requiem will take place in the newly completed Glasshouse Theatre at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, which I saw just recently as it was nearing completion. It looks spectacular (from the outside anyway).

Scene from *Messa da Requiem*, Dutch National Opera and Ballet

Further on in the year, Serbian-born choreographer Leo Mujić, who is currently working with the Croation National Theatre and who has created works for companies across Europe, including Dutch National Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet, will stage the Australian premiere of his production of Hamlet. Then Derek Deane from England, whose production of Strictly Gershwin was a huge hit on the two occasions (in 2016 and 2023) when it was performed by Queensland Ballet, will present a new version of Nutcracker. The works of other choreographers from overseas are also being shown during the 2026 season.

A moment from Leo Mujić’s *Hamlet*. Artists of Croatian National Ballet, Zagreb. Photo: © Darja Stravs Tisu

But there will be work from Australian choreographers as well, notably from Garry Stewart who directed Australian Dance Theatre in Adelaide for more than 20 years. Stewart’s latest work, Elastic Hearts, will be part of the 2026 season. Set to music by Sia, Stewart describes Elastic Hearts as ‘a creative response to the music of Sia Furler, the celebrated Australian artist, originally from Adelaide and now based in LA.’ It will be a thrill to see Stewart’s highly physical choreography onstage once more.*

For more on the 2026 program, including work for the Academy of Queensland Ballet, follow this link.

Michelle Potter, 16 October 2025

*Elastic Hearts will have a very brief showing on the Gold Coast in November, its world premiere showing, before being part of the 2026 season.

Featured image: Study for Garry Stewart’s Elastic Hearts.

Ballet and books in Brisbane

Dangerous Liaisons. Queensland Ballet
4 October 2025 (evening). Talbot Theatre, Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane

I was not invited to review Liam Scarlett’s Dangerous Liaisons in its 2025 revival by Queensland Ballet so I felt no reason to stay when I disliked what I was watching. I left at interval. It was just the third time in about 35 years of reviewing dance performances across Australia and around the world that I have left a dance performance before it was over. Why on this occasion?

The work Dangerous Liaisons is based on the 1782 novel Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. But on the whole this 2025 presentation reminded me of a musical comedy item with an emphasis on sexual activities. The movements and gestures indicating sexual desire were obvious and a highly dominant feature throughout (the first act at least).

Fine re the sexual emphasis. That’s part of the story! But who were all those characters? With one or two exceptions it was not at all clear, as the complex narrative unfolded, who individual dancers were representing. Understanding the action and the multitude of characters taking the stand, as it were, was made more difficult by the lack of any form of easily available written material. We all know that explanations and descriptions of works these days are available online via a QR code, but in the olden days of Queensland Ballet a sheet of paper with brief but vital information of cast and storyline was always available. Even a full printed program was also there for those who wanted one. And how frustrating it is when the person sitting next to you turns on a mobile phone to check something out in the middle of the performance.

I have to mention that there was some excellent dancing being presented, including some group scenes even if it wasn’t clear what was being celebrated or criticised. In particular Georgia Swan was outstanding as the leading female character, the wealthy widow, the Marquise de Merteuil. There was also a male dancer who did not have a major role but whose performance attracted my attention. His technique was excellent but it was his onstage presence, including the manner in which he connected with the audience, that was thrilling to watch. But who was he? I can’t recall having seen him before but I had no way of knowing immediately who he is as there were no photographs of the dancers that were easily available. I should add here that, as I was waiting for a taxi to take me back to my hotel, several people came to the desk in the foyer—it was interval—asking for a printed item of information. They were advised to go and open the QR code!

Georgia Swan in Liam Scarlett’s *Dangerous Liaisons*. Queensland Ballet, 2025. Photo: © David Kelly

It was also, I believe, a really bad move by Queensland Ballet to use recorded music. Someone surely must realise that resident conductor Nigel Gaynor has always had a major input into performances he conducts. He works with what is happening onstage, including how the dancers are performing, in a way that no recording can do (even though the recording used in the 2025 presentation was a recording conducted by Gaynor, it’s just not the same). To make matters worse Gaynor is leaving his post as conductor at the end of 2025. Although I am not entirely clear about the reasons for the move, it apparently has something to do with the financial situation in which Queensland Ballet finds itself. (Happy to be corrected here if I am totally wrong re the reason).

I attended Dangerous Liaisons as a member of the general public. My ticket cost $127. Read my review of the 2019 production of Dangerous Liaisons, to which I was invited and which I thought was exceptional. Here is the link.

See below for a list of publications in which my dance writing and reviews have been published (in addition to the material I have posted on this website since I set it up in 2009).*

The books

But all was not lost. While in Brisbane I visited that amazing second hand book shop, Archives Fine Books in Charlotte Street in the city’s CBD. I have never really been in a second hand bookshop that has such a wealth of items on every imaginable subject. I ended up buying four dance books, three of which were previously unknown to me, and one of which was a book about an exhibition that had a major impact on our understanding of the activities of Serge Diaghilev. The books are:

Buckle, Richard. In Search of Diaghilev (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1955)
Collins, Richard. Behind the Bolshoi Curtain (London: William Kimber, 1974)
Dodd, Craig. The Performing World of the Dancer (London: Breslich & Foss, 1981)
La Fosse, Robert (with Andrew Mark Wentink). Nothing to Hide (New York: Donald I. Fine Inc., 1987)

I started my reading with Behind the Bolshoi Curtain and was instantly taken by the personal manner in which Englishman Richard Collins, who spent four years working in Moscow with various sections of the Bolshoi school and company, interacted with his Russian colleagues and vice-versa. There were some issues that were a little concerning (if interesting in a particular way) but it was a ‘can’t put down’ book in the way it showed a side of ballet and dancers that we don’t usually read about in other Bolshoi-focused publications. I am looking forward to moving on to Richard Buckle’s work on his 1950s exhibition on Diaghilev’s contribution to our understanding of the Ballets Russes.

Michelle Potter, 6 October 2025

Featured image: Cover of Richard Collins’ Behind the Bolshoi Curtain.

*Here is a list of the magazines, newspapers and journals in which my reviews have appeared:

The Australian, Australian Art Review, Australian Book Review, Ballet News, Brolga, The Bulletin, Canberra CityNews, The Canberra Times, Choreography and Dance, Current News from the Library for the Performing Arts, Dance Australia, Dance Chronicle, Dance Forum, Dance Research, DanceTabs (formerly ballet.co.uk), The Dancing Times, Jahresmitteilungen von Tanzplan Deutschland, Journal of the Australian Society of Archivists, Limelight, Muse, Museum National, The National Library of Australia Magazine, National Library of Australia News, The Sydney Morning Herald and Voices.

There are other lists of books I have written as well as lists of chapters in books and theatre programs in which my writing has appeared. In addition, there are hundreds of posts on this website, which this year has, according to Google Analytics, already received 105,000 visits from Australia and across the world. I’m just not sure why Queensland Ballet no longer regards me as a critic worthy of an invitation to review.

Triple Bill: Lister/Weir/Horsman. Queensland Ballet

27 June 2025. The Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane

Queensland Ballet’s Triple Bill left me with mixed feelings. The opening work was Jack Lister’s Gemini, which in program notes is described as ‘A subterranean gathering harnessing both the earthly and the divine. A new world where myth and matter amass.’ To me it was an effort to bring to the fore the procedure of Gesamtkunstwerk where all the various elements that make up a show are given a strong presence and inform each other in some way. Musically we heard Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 as a reimagined score by Louis Frere-Harvey. Lighting was interesting, although not hugely to my liking as it constantly cut out the movement created by the dancers. But music and lighting certainly had a strong presence.

A moment from Jack Lister’s *Gemini*. Queensland Ballet 2025. Photo: © David Kelly

But for me the choreography was an unimpressive addition to the whole. For some of the time there was no movement, just bodies standing in various groupings. When there was movement it was quite abrupt and geometric in look. At times it looked animalistic and at others it reminded me of a kind of calisthenics. It was all something of a disappointment.

The absolute standout was the second work on the program, Natalie Weir’s 4Seasons, a creation that was filled with fluid movement and curving shapes. There were some truly beautiful pas de deux sections—as we have come to expect from Weir. Some were quite acrobatic but always balletically acrobatic and I loved watching for how the male dancers held the females as they proceeded through the pas de deux. There were some spectacular solos too, especially from Ivan Surodeev as Summer and Joshua Ostermann as Winter (pictured below right).

Scenes from Natalie Weir’s *4Seasons*. Queensland Ballet 2025. Photos: © David Kelly

It was also fulfilling to watch Weir’s use of the performing space throughout 4Seasons. Often a line of dancers across the space, or stretched vertically through the space, would break up with movements that flowed along those lines and seemingly reflected on interconnections between those engaged in a journey through life.

4Seasons was danced to Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, with some sections recomposed by Max Richter. Its costumes were designed by Bruce McKinven and lighting came from Matthew Marshall.

The evening closed with Greg Horsman’s A Rhapsody in Motion. This is the third time I have watched Horsman’s Rhapsody and every time I have seen something new. On this occasion I was taken aback (pleasantly) by parts of the opening section in which Horsman explores a dancer’s engagement with the barre, that object with which every ballet dancer’s class begins and which Horsman sees ‘a seemingly simple tool that represents years of discipline and dedication’. I loved those moments when the dancers found an occasion to use the barre in ways that don’t usually happen. (I don’t remember a class where I was held upside down at the barre!)

Using the barre in unusual ways in Greg Horsman’s *A Rhapsody in Motion*. Photo: © David Kelly

I also enjoyed immensely the movement from barre to eventual performance complete with changed costumes (Zoe Griffiths) and with some exciting dancing from across the cast. A Rhapsody in Motion is a fast-paced production that opens new areas of interest at each viewing.

Queensland Ballet continues to go from strength to strength with displays of remarkable dancing.

Michelle Potter, 28 June 2025

Featured image: Libby-Rose Niederer in a moment from Greg Horsman’s Rhapsody in Motion. Queensland Ballet, 2025. Photo: © David Kelly

Dance diary. May 2025

Illume. Bangarra Dance Theatre

The May edition of Qantas Magazine carried a two page spread on visual artist Darrell Sibosado, who is the designer for the forthcoming Bangarra production, Illume. The article, written by Kate Hennessy, had the title ‘This First Nations visual artist is shining new light on ancient ceremonial carvings’. From reading the article, I discovered that Darrell Sibosado comes from the Dampier Peninsula in Western Australia and that his family is one of carvers, who, across time, have created designs on pearl shells to be used in particular ceremonies. In the article Sibosado says that, historically, the work of his family is ‘about capturing the iridescence, shine and many layers of the pearl’. It will be interesting to see how this background translates into his designs for Illume, in which Bangarra suggests we will ‘step out of the shadows and into the phenomena of light—the central life force of our planet’.

illumine, with choreography from Frances Rings, opens in Sydney on 4 June 2025 before travelling elsewhere. See the Bangarra website for further details of the creators and of the performance schedule.

Bonsai Ballerina

Jennifer Price was a dancer in Chicago but, after retiring, became transfixed by the art of Bonsai and took up the study of the creative procedure behind that art form. She was recently in Canberra for the 2025 AABC National Bonsai Convention, which celebrated (amongst other things) the 50th anniversary of the Canberra Bonsai Society. The convention closed with an exhibition (free to the public) and the images below are two of the items that were on display in that exhibition.

Two examples of Bonsai from the Canberra Bonsai Exhibition, 2025. Photos: © Michelle Potter

I know very little about Price’s dance background, and probably less about the art of Bonsai, but from the often stunning examples on show in the exhibition I was not surprised that a former dancer was moved to look deeper into the art form. I was attracted of course by the name that the media gave to Price—’Bonsai Ballerina’!

Stanton Welch on a new Raymonda

I have been thinking recently about Queensland Ballet’s repertoire of ‘reimagined’ narratives for well known ballets—Greg Horsman’s La Bayadère and Coppélia for example. So I was interested to discover that Stanton Welch, Australian artistic director of Houston Ballet since 2003, has just created a new version of Raymonda. It opened on 29 May and the YouTube link below features Welch talking about creating this work.

Chandrabhanu turns 75

Back in 1998 I recorded an oral history interview for the National Library of Australia with dancer Dr Chandrabhanu, whose particular interests were, and still are in Bharata Natyam, Odissi and contemporary dance. That interview is available for research purposes but any public use of it requires written permission. A summary of the contents of the interview can, however, be seen at this link.

Chandrabhanu, ca. 1998. Photo: © Jim Hooper/National Library of Australia

Well Dr Chandrabhanu is turning 75 this year and his latest production, Bharata Natyam Reprise, will celebrate that personal milestone with a revival in Melbourne in early June of classical and contemporary compositions of the Bharatam Dance Company. See this link for further details.

Press for May 2025

– ‘Multi-media novelty item that was sometimes over the top.’ Review of A Book of Hours, Rubiks Collective. CBR City News, 4 May 2025. Online at this link.

Michelle Potter, 31 May 2025

Featured image: Media image for Illume, Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2025. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Dance diary. April 2025

April is the middle month of Autumn in the southern hemisphere. Spectacular colours abound in nature as dance for 2025 continues, despite a disheartening approach to funding for the art form.

The difficult financial situation that Queensland Ballet is facing, for example, is more than disheartening, although the exact changes that are being made to the company are yet to be fully revealed. To date, Brett Clark, Chair of QB Board, is reported as saying (amongst other remarks on the situation): Over the years, we have worked hard to leverage our base grants from State and Federal Governments and have unapologetically advocated loudly for parity of Federal funding to bring us in line with our peers in New South Wales and Victoria. To date we have been unsuccessful.

In 2025, to ensure our ongoing sustainability, we have made the difficult decision to re-vision our organisation across our Artistic and Business teams which will see us farewell some of our artists and arts workers.

It is also thoroughly frustrating that in the lead-up to the federal election in Australia on 3 May no political party appears to have made any mention of the arts.

New books

Elizabeth Dalman’s book, Nature moves, was launched in Canberra on 27 April 2025 with a short opening performance from Vivienne Rogis and Peng Hsaio-yin. The performance was followed by a launch speech from Cathy Adamek, executive director of Ausdance ACT.

The performance was danced on a lawn that fronts a particular shopping area in Canberra, and under a large and very old tree—appropriate of course given that Dalman’s book examines dance and nature. When the dance came to an end, the audience simply crossed the road for the launch function, which was held in, and sponsored by, the local bookshop, The Book Cow.

Vivienne Rogis (standing) and Peng Hsaio-yin dancing at the launch of *Nature Moves*, Canberra 2025. Photo: © Michelle Potter

Under the heading ‘Press for April 2025’ (see below) is my short article, which was published in CityNews on 28 April 2025, and which expands a little on how the launch unfolded.

Nature Moves is available from The Book Cow, via this link.

I also discovered, quite accidentally, news about the latest publication by Jill Rivers, whose generosity to reviewers I remember clearly from a period, some years ago now, when she was media director for the Australian Ballet. Her current publication, The Genius of Nijinsky, is an interesting read as Rivers had spent much time speaking to the present-day family of Vaslav Nijinsky. Her presence with, and thoughts about, those family members in a range of situations, sometimes quite personal, are embedded within the story.

The Genius of Nijinsky can be bought via a link to the site Art-full Living.

David Hallberg at Jacob’s Pillow, 2012

The latest playlist from Jacob’s Pillow has a short clip of David Hallberg, currently artistic director of the Australian Ballet, performing Nacho Duato’s Kaburias. Watch at this link.

A still showing David Hallberg in a moment from *Kaburias*, Jacob’s Pillow 2012

Just a year or two prior to the performance at Jacob’s Pillow, I had the pleasure of seeing Hallberg perform solo in New York in the series Kings of the Dance. Read my review here.

International Dance Day 2025

International Dance Day, 29 April, is always celebrated with a message from a major figure in the dance world. This year, 2025, the message came from Mikhail Baryshnikov whose comment read:

It’s often said that dance can express the unspeakable. Joy, grief, and despair become visible; embodied expressions of our shared fragility. In this, dance can awaken empathy, inspire kindness, and spark a desire to heal rather than harm.

Especially now—as hundreds of thousands endure war, navigate political upheaval, and rise in protest against injustice—honest reflection is vital. It’s a heavy burden to place on the body, on dance, on art. Yet art is still the best way to give form to the unspoken, and we can begin by asking ourselves: Where is my truth? How do I honor myself and my community? Whom do I answer to?

Latvian-born, Baryshnikov defected from the USSR in 1974. He has performed in Australia on various occasions, including in 1975 when he appeared with Ballet Victoria.

Mikhail Baryshnikov as Albrecht. *Giselle*, Act Ii. Ballet Victoria, 1975. Photo: © Walter Stringer/National Library of Australia

Press for April 2025

Dalman’s book looks at the creation of dance in nature

Michelle Potter, 30 April 2025

Featured image: Autumn colours in Canberra, April 2025. Photo: © Michelle Potter

Romeo and Juliet. Queensland Ballet (2025)

21 March 2025. Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane

Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet is a long ballet—almost three hours (if we include the two intervals between acts). But it is such a strong work by MacMillan, and so magnificently performed by Queensland Ballet in this 2025 presentation, that those three hours just flew by.

The relationship between Romeo (Patricio Revé) and Juliet (Chiara Gonzalez), critical to the success of the work, was carefully developed throughout, whether at their first meeting, or during the now-famous balcony scene, or when engaging in a clandestine marriage, or right at the end when Juliet wakes in the family crypt and discovers that Romeo is dead on the floor beside her bed.

Much of their dancing took the form of pas de deux, a typical MacMillan approach, and MacMillan’s choreographic approach to every pas de deux was thrilling to watch. In particular I loved the detailed movement of the feet and the fluidity of the lifts that often had the bodies leaning in unusual ways.

The moments shared by the three friends, Romeo, Mercutio (Kohei Iwamato) and Benvolio (Joshua Ostermann), was also a highlight, whether joyous moments of friendship: or dramatic occasions involving sword fights; or attempts by Mercutio and Benvolio to keep Romeo’s behaviour safe and sensible. The three harlots, Georgia Swan, Laura Tosar and Vanessa Morelli also danced brilliantly as they engaged with the three friends, as well as with others in the market place. And Vito Bernasconi gave a powerful performance as Tybalt, cousin of Juliet. Such was his acting, as well as his technical performance, that I was involved enough to dislike him (as a character) for getting in the way of the relationship developing between Romeo and Juliet.

I missed a little the powerful input from the Capulet family that usually characterises the ball scene, although it was a pleasure to see Lisa Pavane making a return to the stage as Lady Capulet. But the ball scene lacked, I thought, the drama that I recall from a variety of other performances I have seen, including the 2019 production by Queensland Ballet. But I always enjoy the historical references that the dancing at the ball involves, especially the slight backwards tilt of the bodies as the dances proceed.

My one regret is that the design of the work from Paul Andrews seemed heavy and somewhat cumbersome. The scenes in the market place, a setting that figures prominently through the early part of the work, did not look as though the activities were actually happening in a market place but simply in front of a residence. The building that made up the background was very Italian-looking with its columned passage ways and its long flight of steps leading to the upper areas of the building. But it was darkly coloured and somehow gloomy, and the restricted space it created for dancing, and even the capacity for characters to move around in the upper passageways, was not conducive to interesting activity.

It is, however, pretty much impossible not to be carried along by this MacMillan masterpiece, especially when Queensland Ballet continues to dance so well, and when Nigel Gaynor continues to conduct the Queensland Symphony Orchestra so magnificently.

Michelle Potter, 23 March 2025

Postscript: An interesting discussion of the MacMillan Romeo and Juliet can be found in Jan Parry’s biography of MacMillan, Different Drummer (London: Faber and Faber, 2009) pp. 274 ff. Also interesting to watch via the ROH streaming platform (it needs a subscription) is Romeo and Juliet. The Royal Ballet in Rehearsal. It contains Royal Ballet rehearsal footage and a conversation with Deborah MacMillan, Donald MacLeary, Laura Morera and others regarding aspects of the ballet. It is especially interesting as Laura Morera has been the principal coach for the Queensland Ballet presentation.

Featured image: (l-r) Kohei Iwamoto as Mercutio, Patricio Revé as Romeo, and Joshua Ostermann as Benvolio (with Janette Mulligan as the Nurse). Queensland Ballet, 2025. Photo: © David Kelly

Dance diary. February 2025

New initiative from Sydney Dance Company

Ever on the move in the development of dance, Sydney Dance Company just recently announced a new initiative—a teacher training program ‘dedicated to the art and practice of dance education’. Led by Linda Gamblin, Head of Training at Sydney Dance Company, the course will begin in July 2025.

This is an exciting initiative from Sydney Dance Company. Teaching is an art in my opinion and dance teachers need specialised teacher training in addition to having danced themselves. Follow this link for a detailed look at what the course will encompass.

Miracle in the Gorbals

In February I was drawn yet again to the Lifeline Book Fair, which has now become a huge Canberra event, and which these days is held more than once a year. My most interesting purchase was a somewhat battered copy of a book by Arnold Haskell that gave a detailed analysis of Robert Helpmann’s early work Miracle in the Gorbals. I saw this work in London in 2014 when it was produced for Birmingham Royal Ballet by Gillian Lynne, who performed in the original 1944 cast as one of the inhabitants of the Gorbals. My review of the Birmingham production is at this link.

The book was published in Edinburgh in 1946, just two years after the premiere of the ballet. It was a more than interesting read, especially the section entitled ‘5. Interpretation’, which I wish I had read prior to seeing the work when I did. But it is hard to know what actually was Haskell’s opinion of the work. Haskell spoke of Helpmann as being ‘a man of the theatre’, which he believed (I think?) was the reason Miracle in the Gorbals was successful. But in ‘Epilogue: A Warning’ Haskell wrote:

Ballet must return to the way of Fokine, who rescued it from decay. His works are not merely beautiful in themselves, they are object lessons in choreography and no one so far has proved himself to have so thorough an understanding of the medium.

Ballet does not need ideas to survive, it needs beauty of line and movement. If ideas can be incorporated at no loss, then well and good. Ballet is not a treatise on current affairs. BALLET MUST APPEAL TO THE EYE. [Haskell’s capitalisation]

All in all a very interesting purchase.

Li Cunxin honoured

Former artistic director of Queensland Ballet, Li Cunxin AO, has been presented with the Prix de Lausanne 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. The award recognises his exceptional career from overcoming adversity early in life, to his rise as a celebrated dancer before leading Queensland Ballet to global success.

The Prix de Lausanne has, since 2017, presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to a dancer or choreographer who has made an outstanding contribution to the ballet world. The recent award to Li is such a well deserved recognition of his contribution to dance! Other notable recipients include Wayne McGregor and Alessandra Ferri.

Portrait of Li Cunxin, 2023. Photo: © David Kelly

Alice Topp and Houston Ballet

Houston Ballet, directed by Stanton Welch since 2003, has recently announced its 2025-2026 season. Among the works to be presented will be a world premiere from Australian choreographer Alice Topp as part of a triple bill called An Evening with the Stars. The triple bill opens in late May 2026. Neither Topp’s work nor its accompanying music has been named as yet but Topp’s choreographic career clearly continues to grow internationally. Read more about her work and career to date at this link.

An oral history I recorded with Topp for the National Library of Australia in November 2024 is now available online at this link.

News from Mirramu Creative Arts Centre

Vivienne Rogis, co-founder with Elizabeth Cameron Dalman of Mirramu Creative Arts Centre, has recently returned to Canberra from Melbourne, to rejoin Dalman at Mirramu as assistant director. The Mirramu website records:

Viv Rogis is a pilates and movement practitioner with 30 years experience. She believes in the power of movement as medicine for the body and mind. She is interested in movement as art, as fun, as medicine, as community.

Her practice incudes performance, choreography, teaching, curating, researching, & writing about dance. Most recently she has been focused on pilates to help people reach their movement goals including pain reduction, prehab and rehab, as well as strength and capacity building for athletes and dancers.

Vivienne Rogis in *All my trials*, Mirramu Dance Company, 2015. Photo: © Barbie Robinson

Rogis performed in Canberra on many occasions before moving to Melbourne. Read about some of those performances at this link.

Coming up …

I am looking forward to seeing Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet as staged by Queensland Ballet, which opens towards the end of March. Watch this brief clip in which ballet master Matthew Lawrence talks about staging the production. It is especially interesting to hear him discuss making the production ‘three dimensional’.

Michelle Potter, 28 February 2025

Featured image: Linda Gamblin, Head of Training, Sydney Dance Company, 2025. Photo: © Wendell Teodoro.

Dance diary. January 2025

Queensland Ballet. The news is out

Queensland Ballet has announced that its new director, following the retirement of Li Cunxin and the sudden departure of Leanne Benjamin, will be Spanish-born Ivan Gil-Ortega who will take on the role in February this year. Gil-Ortega is a celebrated ballet professional with over 25 years in the field. He has held roles with companies and creatives around the world, and has worked as a principal dancer, assistant director, artistic consultant, freelance rehearsal director, stager, and coach. The media release noted Queensland Ballet’s enthusiasm for the appointment. In part the media release says:

We are thrilled to welcome Ivan to the Queensland Ballet family following a stellar career on stage, in studio and working alongside some of ballet’s leading lights. Throughout the recruitment process, Ivan articulated his vision very clearly with a particular focus on our dancers of today and our dancers of tomorrow, through the work of our Academy.

He is also brimming with ideas around nurturing home-grown talent here in Australia as well as exploring world-stage collaborations and exchanges which will see him leaning into his international peers and networks. Ivan and his family are very much looking forward to calling Queensland home and we cannot wait to see them here very soon, Brett Clark AM, Board Chair said.

Gil-Ortega has worked with Queensland Ballet previously when he assisted Derek Deane on the production of Deane’s much admired Strictly Gershwin. Follow this link to a fuller biography of Gil-Ortega provided by Queensland Ballet.

Portraits of Ivan Gil-Ortega. Photos: © Karine Grace

News from Paul Knobloch

For the past several years Paul Knobloch has been the Australian Ballet’s Ballet Repetiteur. Things appear to be changing, however. A recent media release announced that in February Knobloch will be returning to Canberra, where he was born and educated and where he had his initial dance training. He will be working with Jackie Hallahan’s Dance Development Centre (DDC) on a series of events to celebrate the school’s 40th anniversary. The media release states, ‘As DDC gears up to celebrate its monumental 40th anniversary, Knobloch’s involvement promises to elevate the festivities and inspire the next generation of dancers.’

Paul Knobloch. Photographer not identified

I can’t help wondering, however, whether or not Knobloch will return to the Australian Ballet? Here is a link to the media release.

Dancing and Fatboy Slim

During January I was sent a Youtube link to some dancing being performed (back in the 1990s) to Fatboy Slim’s song Praise you. I have to admit that I had never heard of Fatboy Slim—not really part of my general interests I’m afraid especially not during the 1990s when I was rather busy with various other matters (mainly watching children growing into adults, writing a PhD thesis, and working in a range of casual jobs).

Here is the footage, which I found to be an interesting variety of community dance. It reminded me a little of an unexpected performance at a wedding of one of my sons (back around the same date as the footage). Quite out of the blue (I thought anyway) the guests assembled and danced in a similar fashion. It was somewhat different from the traditional celebratory wedding waltz!

Oral histories

I had the immense pleasure in January of recording an oral history for the National Library of Australia with Megan Connelly, currently director of the Australian Ballet School. As part of the NLA’s COVID responses project, Connelly talked about managing the pandemic at the Australia Ballet and the Australian Ballet School before talking at length about her extraordinary dance career to date.

This interview was the 169th oral history I have recorded for various organisations (mostly the National Library). Here is a link to the updated list of those interviews (arranged alphabetically).

Reading in December

My December reading included Barbara Newman’s Striking a Balance. Dancers Talk about Dancing. My edition was published way back in 1992, although the talks were recorded mostly in 1979 and published in the original edition in 1982. I was especially interested in the format since over the past several decades I have recorded oral history interviews with dancers, choreographers and artistic directors. Two of Newman’s essays stood out for me—those with Moira Shearer and Bruce Marks. What made them especially interesting to me was the extensive comments they made about how they approached particular roles. Shearer spoke at length about how she perceived the character of Giselle and where she fitted into the overall storyline of Giselle. Bruce Marks spoke in a similar fashion about Siegfried in Swan Lake. Others also reminisced about particular roles they had taken on but Shearer and Marks seemed, to me at least, to be especially analytical in their thoughts.

Vale Carolyn Brown (1927 –2025)

I was deeply saddened to hear that American dancer Carolyn Brown had died in January at the age of 97. Brown had a truly remarkable career with Merce Cunningham Dance Company over many years. But I remember her in particular because she helped me with my doctoral thesis, which concerned the designs made for the Cunningham company by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns during the 1960s and 1970s. We met for the discussion in New York in a cafe close to Lincoln Center Plaza. Brown was incredibly generous and honest in her recollections of the years of Rauschenberg and Johns.

Never forgotten for many reasons. Try this link for an obituary from The New York Times.

Carolyn Brown: Born 26 September 1927; died 7 January 2025

Press for January 2025

– ‘Critics Survey. Michelle Potter’. Dance Australia, January/February/March 2025, pp. 32-33.

Michelle Potter, 31 January 2025

Season’s Greetings and some highlights (and other issues) from 2024

Just recently a friend sent me some images she had taken in Adelaide while visiting the exhibition ‘Garden Cycle’ in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. The exhibition consisted of works by American glass artist Dale Chihuly. ‘Is this the kind of thing you saw in Seattle?’ she asked. The question sent me back to my collection of shots taken on a visit to Seattle in 2013 when Chihuly’s work was on display, indoors and outdoors, in the Seattle Space Center.

This was an excuse to use one of my Seattle shots for the header image for this post. Chihuly’s amazing work has to be the best of many aspects of artistic endeavour.

Best production: Coco Chanel. The LIfe of a Fashion Icon. Queensland Ballet

In 2024 audiences were treated to some spectacular new dance—the Australian Ballet’s productions of Oscar and Carmen spring immediately to mind. And I was thrilled by Silence and Rapture, the Sydney Dance Company’s exhilarating collaboration with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. And many more great shows!. But it was definitely Queensland Ballet’s production of Coco Chanel. The Life of a Fashion Icon, from choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, that takes first place for me. I was really pleased too to see that my review of this show for Limelight made the top ten reads of reviews for 2024. It came in as 10th even though it had been available to read for just six or so weeks.

Coco Chanel was beautifully choreographed, fabulously danced and totally absorbing from beginning to end.

Neneka Yoshida as Coco, Patricio Revé as Boy Capel and Darcy Brazier as Etienne Balsan. Photo: © David Kelly

Keep an eye out for …

I am looking forward to seeing how Alice Lee Holland manages her role as artistic director of Canberra’s youth organisation, QL2 Dance, following on from many years of direction by Ruth Osborne.

I am also looking forward to seeing who becomes artistic director of Queensland Ballet after the sudden departure of Leanne Benjamin. It was a thrill to hear that Liam Scarlett’s Dangerous Liaisons, a sensational QB production going back to 2019, is on QB’s 2025 calendar. A good sign that the strength that Li Cunxin brought to the company may continue perhaps?

Obituaries

2024 was a sad year in many respects. The following dancers, choreographers, writers and historians, who have had an influence on my writing and viewing, died during the year. They worked across Australia and elsewhere and I felt as though I was constantly writing obituaries.

Joan Acocella
Edith Campbell
Arlene Croce
Joy Dalgliesh
Roz Hervey
Rowena Jackson
Eileen Kramer
Hilary Trotter
Frank van Straten

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Have a great holiday season, and to all those who have logged on to this site over the past 12 months, my heartfelt thanks.

And more by Chihuly from Seattle.

Michelle Potter, 22 December 2024

Featured image: Dale Chihuly, Section of ‘Persian Ceiling’. Seattle 2013.

The Lady of the Camellias. Shanghai Ballet

5 December 2024. Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane

I have had the good fortune over the years of seeing two spectacular productions with choreography by Derek Deane—Strictly Gershwin in two presentations from Queensland Ballet, one in 2016 and the second in 2023; and an English National Ballet production of Deane’s Swan Lake in 2011. Both left me staggered and wanting more. I wish I could say the same about The Lady of the Camellias danced by Shanghai Ballet and presented in a Brisbane exclusive by Queensland Ballet.

On a positive note, the design of both costumes and sets from Adam Nee was exceptional—a real visual treat. There was one scene in Act I that took place in a theatre and the curtained backcloth was just stunning and made this particular aspect of the narrative not only obvious but breathtaking. Then there were the several backcloths showing slightly abstract floral designs (camellias?), which also attracted one’s attention. In addition, the dancing was outstanding from all the Shanghai dancers. It was a thrill to watch their lyricism, especially in the beautiful use of the arms and upper body, the elevation of both men and women, and the perfection in the execution of the choreography. Unfortunately, however, even though the physicality was there, I didn’t always feel a strong emotional involvement between the dancers in what is a very emotional story.

With one or two exceptions, in particular a lovely pas de deux between the two main characters, Marguerite and Armand, while on holidays beachside, I found Deane’s choreography on this occasion somewhat unimaginative—it reminded me of the 1950s or 60s. Such a shame given that we have been used to seeing some quite outstanding contemporary ballet here recently from choreographers such as Christopher Wheeldon with Oscar for the Australian Ballet and, for Queensland Ballet, Coco Chanel, from Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. And this is not to mention recent work from Alice Topp, Loughlan Prior and others.

Wu Husheng as Armand Duval and Qi Bingxue as Marguerite Gautier in *The Lady of the Camellias*, Shanghai Ballet, 2024.

Then there is the storytelling aspect of The Lady of the Camellias. The Deane production looked at the society in which the story unfolded as well as the connections between the main characters. But there were times when it was not easy to tell who was who and what exactly the relationships between the various characters were as more and more people filled the stage. Perhaps, in order to be swept away by the Deane production, we are (or I am) too used to Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand, with the story stripped back to its basic elements, which thus more easily exposes a deep emotional content.

For me The Lady of the Camellias was something of a disappointment.

Michelle Potter, 7 December 2024

Featured image: Dancers of Shanghai Ballet in a scene from The Lady of the Camellias, 2024