Dance diary. March 2021

  • Promotions at Queensland Ballet

Neneka Yoshida and Patricio Revé were both promoted during the Queensland Ballet’s 60th Anniversary Gala held in March 2021, Yoshida to principal, Revé to senior soloist. Both have been dancing superbly over the past few years. Yoshida took my breath away as Kitri in the Don Quixote pas de deux at the Gala and Revé I remember in particular for his performance as Romeo in the 2019 production of Romeo and Juliet, although of course he also danced superbly during the Gala.

Neneka Yoshida as Kitri in Don Quixote pas de deux. Queensland Ballet 2021. Photo: © David Kelly

Congratulations to them both and I look forward to watching them continue their careers with Queensland Ballet.

  • Fjord review, issue 3, 2020

Some years ago I wrote an article about Fjord Review, the first issue. At that stage it was based in Melbourne (or so I thought anyway), although now it comes from Canada. Its scope is international and its production values are quite beautiful. I was surprised to find (by accident) that its most recent print issue contained a review of my book Kristian Fredrikson. Designer. See further information about this unexpected find at the end of this post.

The print version of issue #3 also had some articles of interest about dance in Australia. ‘Dance break’ is a short conversation with Imogen Chapman, current soloist with the Australian Ballet; ‘Creative Research with Pam Tanowitz’ is a conversation with the New York-based choreographer whose latest work will premiere shortly in Sydney as part of David Hallberg’s season, New York Dialects; and ‘A.B.T. Rising’ discusses four recent dance films including David, ‘an ode to David Hallberg’.

As to the review of the first issue mentioned above, some of the comments received following that post are more than interesting!

  • Coming soon in Canberra. The Point

Liz Lea is about to premiere her new work, The Point, at Belco Arts Centre, Canberra. It will open on 29 April, International Dance Day.

Nicholas Jachno and Resika Sivakumaran in a study for The Point, 2021. Photo: © Lorna Sim

The Point. performed by a company of twelve dancers from across Australia and India, pursues Lea’s interest in connections across dance cultures, an appropriate theme for any International Dance Day event. It also looks at interconnections in design and music and takes inspiration from the designs of Walter Burley and Marion Mahoney Griffin, designers of the city of Canberra. A further source of inspiration is the notion of Bindu—the point of creation in Hindu mythology.

  • David McAllister and the Finnish National Ballet

Early in 2021, the Finnish National Ballet was due to premiere a new production of Swan Lake by David McAllister with designs by Gabriela Tylesova. The premiere was postponed until a later date. Read about it at this DanceTabs link.

And on the subject of McAllister, the National Portrait Gallery has a new photograph of McAllister and his partner Wesley Enoch on display in its current exhibition, Australian Love Stories. Looks like McAllister has his foot in an Esky in this particular shot! I am curious.

Peter Brew-Bevan, Wesley Enoch and David McAllister 2020. Courtesy of the artist. © Peter Brew-Bevan
  • Kristian Fredrikson. Designer. More reviews and comments

Madelyn Coupe, ‘Light and dark of the human heart.’ Fjord Review, issue 3, 2020. pp. 43-45.
Unfortunately this review is not available online. Read it, however, via this link (without the final image, which is of Dame Joan Sutherland in Lucrezia Borgia).

I will be giving a talk on Fredrikson for the Johnston Collection in Melbourne in June. Details at this link.

Michelle Potter, 31 March 2021

Featured image: Patricio Revé in Études. Queensland Ballet, 2021. Photo: © David Kelly

60th Anniversary Gala. Queensland Ballet

5 March 2021. Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane

The opening night of Queensland Ballet’s 60th Anniversary Gala began with film footage examining, briefly, aspects of the contributions made to the company by the five artistic directors who have led the company to date: Charles Lisner, founding director (1959-1974); Harry Haythorne (1975-1978); Harold Collins (1978-1997); François Klaus (1998-2012); and current director Li Cunxin (2013-present).

The brief film was followed by a grand défilé choreographed by Paul Boyd and featuring dancers of Queensland Ballet and its associated school, Queensland Ballet Academy. Boyd’s choreography showcased the dancers skilfully and beautifully and the défilé began with a truly charming introduction. While carrying out small, on the spot promenade movements, two pairs of very young dancers, one pair positioned at each side of the downstage area, introduced the first of the older dancers. Each of those four young people showed remarkable stage presence and suggested that Queensland Ballet Academy has its focus not just on technique but on how to maximise one’s presence onstage.

Closing moments of the grand défilé. Queensland Ballet 2021. Photo: © David Kelly

The following program was a varied one and to my eyes, while all seven works had a reason for being part of the celebration, some stood out a little more than others.

Charles Lisner’s charming Chopin pas de deux, which opened the main section of the Gala, was well performed by Yanela Piñera and Joe Chapman. Piñera danced with her usual style and panache and the two dancers were able to connect with each other beautifully. Chapman carried off the quite difficult lifts with strength and aplomb. It was great to see him back in Australia after his stint dancing in Canada, although there were times when his ‘in between’ movements were less smooth than I would have wished. One step needs to lead to another without it being noticeably ‘in between’, and this didn’t always happen with Chapman.

Yanela Pieñra-and-Joe Chapman- n Chopin pas de deux. Queensland Ballet 2021. Photo:© David-Kelly
Yanela Piñera and Joe Chapman in Chopin pas de deux. Queensland Ballet 2021. Photo: © David Kelly

Mia Heathcote and Victor Estévez gave a dramatic rendition of François Klaus’ Cloudland pas de deux. Heathcote continues to impress as a dramatic dancer. Jacqui Carroll’s Tavern Scene from her 1982 work Carmina Burana was also filled with drama and passion. The three solos, danced by Vito Bernasconi, Liam Geck, and Rian Thompson, were spectacular in the power and passion that emanated from the dancing. My particular bouquet went to Bernasconi—he attacked the choreography like a man possessed.

The absolute standout item was the Don Quixote pas de deux danced brilliantly by Neneka Yoshida and Camilo Ramos. These two dancers are so suited to each other in height and in their similar, outstanding technical abilities. Yoshida’s technique was faultless and, in particular, her balances throughout and her fouettés in the coda were astonishing. Similarly Ramos stunned with his turns and his elevation and jumps. But there was something else happening. I have never seen Kitri and Basilio engage with each other the way Yoshida and Ramos did. The way they looked at each other, Yoshida’s glances to Ramos in particular, seemed to indicate a burgeoning relationship, a knowingness. It was very exciting to watch.

Neneka Yoshida and Camilo Ramos in Don Quixote pas de deux. Queensland Ballet 2021. Photo: © David Kelly

Other items on the program were a pas de deux from Harold Collins’ Lady of the Camellias, the finale to Act II of Klaus’ The Little Mermaid, and the full-length (and it was SO long) Études by Harald Lander. With the exception of Carmina Burana, which not surprisingly was danced to recorded music, the dancers performed to music played by Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra, Camerata, with Nigel Gaynor conducting. I continue to admire the way Gaynor conducts for dance. The music is always a part of the whole, never seeking to dominate.

The strength of the program not only revolved around some great dancing in particular works, but also on the words of Li Cunxin in an opening speech from the stage and in the section of the opening footage in which he appeared. Li was himself a brilliant dancer (I can still see him in certain roles), but he is also an unsurpassed speaker. He is committed, he is persuasive, he is caring about the art form of dance, his thanks to those involved have an honesty to them, and he is determined to keep moving ahead. Li builds on what has gone before but in his hands Queensland Ballet has moved ahead in leaps and bounds.

Michelle Potter, 6 March 2021

Featured image: Neneka Yoshida and Camilo Ramos in Don Quixote pas de deux. Queensland Ballet 2021. Photo: © David Kelly

Cy-gents. Queensland Ballet, 2020

60 dancers: 60 stories. Queensland Ballet. Week 4

Art must prevail

Very belatedly, here are my thoughts on the fourth and final week of Queensland Ballet’s month of fundraising.

What a treat was the hilarious Cy-gents. And what a wonderful name! The Dance of the Little Swans from Swan Lake Act II has long been used, most often by men dressed in tutus and showing hairy legs, as a caricature of ballet. But QB’s Cy-gents was something else. Dressed in male practice attire, with the addition of a couple of baseball caps worn backwards (sideways perhaps is better), Liam Geck, Ari Thompson, Luke Dimattina and Kohei Iwamato danced to an arrangement by Janette Mulligan of the Petipa choreography for those Little Swans.

Each dancer performed in a different setting but editing of the four individual performances meant that sometimes we saw different arrangements on screen—each of the four dancing separately across the screen, four shots of one dancer, or some variation of that. Choreographically it was close enough to what we know and love but far enough away that it looked (mostly) as if it were made for male dancers. And the ending! I’ve never seen a Swan Lake cygnet fall into the ‘lake’ before. A very special three minutes or so.

I was taken too by Laura Tosar’s Nostalgia, which she said was danced in ‘the living room of her youth’. What an amazing house that was. It had to have been a set-up? But whatever, it was fascinating.

Laura Tosar in Nostalgia. Queensland Ballet, 2020

Queensland Ballet’s initiative in setting up this project, and the input from the dancers, music team and other support staff throughout June was absolutely brilliant. I only managed to mention around one sixth of what was on offer, but every video clip had a special quality. The company deserves every dollar it attracted.

Michelle Potter, 13 July 2020

Featured image: Cy-gents. Queensland Ballet, 2020

60 dancers: 60 stories. Queensland Ballet. Week 3

Art must prevail

The standout performance for me in the third week of Queensland Ballet’s fundraising project was A Day at the Theatre. Choreographed and performed by Company Artists Alyssa Kelty and D’Arcy Brazier, it was a jazzy danced tour around QPAC from the stage door to the stage itself and around the parkland areas outside the QPAC buildings. I especially loved the way Kelty and Brazier paused next to a poster in the tunnel/walkway just past the stage door, which showed a quote from actor/writer Tim Minchin: ‘Define yourself by what you love.’ And the equally jazzy music the dancers used was an original piece composed and performed by Brett Sturdy from QB’s great music team.

But I also loved Awakening Passion choreographed by Jette Parker Young Artist Lachlan Mair who just recently joined Queensland Ballet from the Australian Ballet School. Mair says his contribution ‘explores [his] journey of discovery for [his] love for this art form’. He has managed to encapsulate so much within his short piece, which takes us from tentative steps at the barre to a a final reverence. I look forward to following Mair’s ongoing journey. His ability to extend and use every part of his body as he moves promises much.

Lachlan Mair in a moment from Awakening Passion

And as I post this, Queensland Ballet has just passed its goal of raising $1,000,000 to keep its artists and staff employed and to ‘keep the magic alive’. Exceptional!

Michelle Potter, 28 June 2020

Featured image: Alyssa Kelty and D’Arcy Brazier in a moment from A Day at the Theatre

Chiara Gonzalez in 'Self Portrait'. Queensland Ballet's '60 dancers: 60 stories', 2020.

60 dancers: 60 stories. Queensland Ballet. Week 2

Art must prevail

In the second week of offerings in Queensland Ballet’s 60 dancers: 60 stories, what is there not to like about ‘Self Portrait’ by Chiara Gonzalez—seen above in the featured image? As for the floor cloth by the time she had finished dancing—well, eat your heart out Jackson Pollock! And I loved that her take on the theme of love—her deep love for art, including its creation—was somewhat different from most of the other approaches.

But then there’s Victor Estévez in the male solo from Act I of Swan Lake, including a brief appearance by Mia Heathcote as Odette. Only in Australia could there be a Hills Hoist in the setting! Even the escape to the park, so there was space to execute a series of grands jetés, had a very Australian bandstand in view. Oh, and Estévez danced beautifully of course.

Victor Estévez in the male solo from Swan Lake Act I. Queensland Ballet’s 60 dancers: 60 stories, 2020.

As with week 1, I loved the changing backgrounds: the sea, the sky, the lakes, the parks, the backyards, the interiors and so forth. Neneka Yoshida almost made me cry when I read her note about looking up at the sky, and I loved the reflections in Lina Kim’s beautiful dance through the landscape in her ‘Come with’. But then I couldn’t help laughing at the fun that Patricio Revé, Oscar Delbao and Charlie Slater were having in ‘Comrades’. Some great unison dancing there as well.

Neneka Yoshida in ‘After Glow of a Nocturne’. Queensland Ballet’s 60 dancers: 60 stories, 2020.

Musically too the series is a treat with such beautiful playing by the members of Queensland Ballet’s music team who have not only played accompaniments but even, in some cases, offered their own original creations for use in the project.

Again my comments are very personal and I have mentioned just a few from week 2. Take a look. It’s worth it. 60 dancers: 60 stories

Michelle Potter, 16 June 2020

Featured image: Chiara Gonzalez in ‘Self Portrait’. Queensland Ballet’s 60 dancers: 60 stories, 2020.

Neneka Yoshida in 'After Glow of a Nocturne'. Queensland Ballet's 60 dancers: 60 stories, 2020.
Libby-Rose Niederer in a moment from her 'Arohanui'

60 dancers: 60 stories. Queensland Ballet. Week 1

Art must prevail

In something of a pioneering move, Queensland Ballet has set up a project called 60 dancers: 60 stories to manage the COVID-19 situation. It is in part a fund raising move and a field requesting donations is present at various stages—and why not? The arts have been badly hit in more ways than one and 60 dancers: 60 stories is Queensland Ballet’s pledge to its dancers and other personnel to keep working as hard as possible to keep everyone employed for as long as possible—’to keep the magic alive’.

But the project also has a strong creative underpinning. In the company’s 60th year, Queensland Ballet has asked its 60 dancers to choreograph and film a short dance work (most are between 2 and 3 minutes) to screen to audiences. Each day in the month of June, two of these creations are being released via the company’s website. Week one has just finished and the variety, in terms of choreography, approach to the theme of love, filming techniques, use of music, pretty much everything, has been astonishing. ‘Art must prevail’ is part of the introductory text. And so it must, and does with this project.

I have truly enjoyed watching every one of the 14 works screened in the first week, although one work really stood out for me—Libby-Rose Niederer’s Arohanui. Niederer is a New Zealander by birth and initial training and joined Queensland Ballet in 2017 as a Jette Parker Young Artist. She is currently a Company Artist. In her introductory text to Arohanui she writes:

Aroha is Maori for ‘love’ and Arohanui loosely translates to ‘big love’ meaning beyond that for a person or community. This word describes how I feel towards nature, especially the wild beauty of my homeland Aotearoa. It reminds me to live life in gratefulness and with amazement for the natural world which brings me love and joy.

Arohanui takes place outdoors (as you might expect from Niederehr’s comments)—in a beautiful fern-filled forest, which you can see in the featured image to this post; on an isolated beach; in the entrance/exit to a large rock-cave; and amazingly on a stony stretch between land and water. Niederer’s performance is magic from the moment we see her unfold her leg to the side while using the trunk of a tree as a barre. Her body just flows along with the Puccini music she has chosen and every step is filled with joy and beauty.

I also enjoyed the camera work in Prelude danced by Lucy Green and Sam Packer to music composed and played by Peter Wilson. There were some lovely camera angles and fade-in/fade-out moments.

Lucy Green and Sam Packer in a moment from Prelude

Then there was a sophisticated piece, Caricias, from Yanela Piñera and Camilo Ramos and a rather jaunty work, En-counter, from Kohei Iwamoto and Isabella Swietlicki. But these are simply my preferences and I take nothing away from the artists of Queensland Ballet who have given so much.

If you log in to the website to watch, don’t miss the quite fascinating item I love to turn, which is inspired by Li Cunxin’s pirouette coaching classes. It begins with a dancer showing a very carefully prepared and executed single pirouette. Then follows a variety of turns, multiple turns, from several dancers finishing with Li demonstrating his ‘Unvingtuple’. But don’t switch off before you have read the concluding credits.

A moment from I love to turn

I’m looking forward to next week’s surprises. The link to ‘60 dancers: 60 stories’ is here.

Michelle Potter, 7 June 2020

Featured image: Libby-Rose Niederer in a moment from Arohanui

Libby-Rose Niederer in a moment from her 'Arohanui'
Jack Lister in 'We who are left'. Queensland ballet, 2016. Photo: David Kelly

Anzac Day 2020 in Australia. Who’s dancing?

Today, 25 April 2020, I watched Royal New Zealand Ballet’s streaming of Andrew Simmons’ Dear Horizon and Neil Ieremia’s Passchendaele, two works that reflected on the Anzac spirit. In these days of ‘digital stages’, ‘digital seasons’ and the like, I wondered why nothing similar had happened in Australia. Or did something escape my attention?

I have to admit to wondering what could have been streamed in Australia. For a start, in 2016 Queensland Ballet programmed an exceptional triple bill of three works under the title Lest we forget. Two were by non Australian choreographers and neither of them was exactly right for the occasion. But one was Natalie Weir’s We who are left. It would have been perfect. As my review of We who are left was published on the London-based site, Dancetabs, I am reproducing the text here for those who may not have seen the Dancetabs review.

Natalie Weir’s Lest we forget. Queensland Ballet, July 2016 (review first published on Dancetabs, 31 July 2016)

It was, I believe, Agnes de Mille who exhorted choreographers to aim to make an impact in the first 30 seconds of their works if they wanted to harness the interest of an audience. Choreographer Natalie Weir did exactly that in Queensland Ballet’s triple bill program, Lest We Forget, a program honouring the ANZAC soldiers of World War I. Weir’s work, We who are left, begins in darkness. One by one five male dancers are revealed, standing in individual pools of light. As we watch each man is joined by a woman and we can almost hear the women shouting ‘Don’t leave me’, ‘Stay’, ‘I love you’ as they throw themselves into the arms of their partners, cling to them, and reluctantly tear themselves away as their partners ready themselves to leave for the war zone. Instant emotional involvement is the only possible reaction. The five couples then lead us on a journey of parting, fighting, death, survival, longing, and memories of what was and what might have been.

Choreographically the work is outstanding throughout. After the strongly emotional opening scene, the men engage in their war activities. At first their movements have a quality of military precision to them. But as this section proceeds they throw themselves around the performing space in athletic leaps as they become more and more bound up in the process of war. Then, dramatically, an upstage screen lifts and four of the five men walk slowly backwards into the grey recesses that are revealed. The screen descends and just a single soldier, ‘The man who lived’ danced by Jack Lister, remains onstage. A lyrical pas de deux between Lina Kim and Camilo Ramos follows. It is a duet recalling memories of past times and is filled with Weir’s signature pas de deux style in which bodies tip, dive, twist and wrap around each other.

Perhaps the choreographic highlight, however, comes at the moment when Clare Morehen, ‘She who was left’, stands onstage with a pair of soldier’s boots in front of her. She dances around them, sometimes with sharp pique-style movements that suggest agony, sometimes with extended legs and stretched arms that suggest a range of other emotions. Then, surprisingly, she is joined by her man, Shane Wuerthner. They dance together but separately. Morehen stretches out to him but they never touch. They kiss but their lips never meet. He lies on the floor and she steps over him crisscrossing her way along the body. They are astonishing moments and present a totally different take on memory from what we saw from Kim and Ramos. Later, the other four women enter with pairs of boots and poignantly place them on the floor. But nothing can equal the dream-like moments we spend with Morehen and Wuerthner.

Clare Morehen in Natalie Weir's We who are left. Queensland Ballet, 2016. Photo: © David Kelly
Clare Morehen in Natalie Weir’s We who are left. Queensland Ballet, 2016. Photo: © David Kelly

The work is danced to selections from Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem Opus 66 and Weir has chosen largely from those sections of the score that include the spoken word in the form of poetry by Wilfred Owen. The score pounds relentlessly and adds a separate level of drama to the overall work. David Walters lighting design is spectacular throughout beginning with that striking downlighting in the opening moments, through to brooding lighting washing across the stage as the men find themselves in the act of war, and on to further pools of light highlighting the women as they survey the empty boots of those who did not return. Costumes by Noelene Hill are perfectly of the period and neutral in their colours.

We who are left has an innate simplicity—five couples, five sets of boots, basically a grey colour scheme. That’s about it on an obvious level. Yet it is masterful in its ability to communicate general thoughts about the effects of war, while at the same time conveying a sense of individuality. It is like a dagger in the heart with its theatricality, its choreographic sensibility, and its dramatic power. It is nothing less than a knockout.

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Then there’s Stephen Baynes’ 1914 made for the Australian Ballet way back in 1998. One of my ongoing gripes is that 1914 has never been revived. I am told by some that it ‘had problems’, but I thought it was an exceptional work. In 1998 I was writing for Dance Australia and my review appeared there. Here is what I wrote of this work.

Stephen Baynes’ 1914. The Australian Ballet, April 1998 (review first published in Dance Australia, June/July 1998)

Stephen Baynes’ new work, 1914, opened with many expectations riding on it. It was Baynes’ first evening-length work, his first narrative ballet and the first time he had taken a novel, David Malouf’s Fly away Peter, as specific inspiration. But most of all, it was a major Australian work: the Australian Ballet’s first ever full-length work with choreography, score and design all commissioned from Australian artists.

As a collaboration, 1914 achieves much. On the most obvious level, the ballet (and the book) follows a simple narrative centring on the lives of three Australians, Jim Saddler, Imogen Harcourt and Ashley Crowther. Jim and Ashley enlist and go to France to fight in the Great War and the lives of the three are torn apart and changed forever. But the collaborative team of Baynes, Graeme Koehne (composer), Andrew Carter (set and lighting designer) and Anna French (costume designer), have added to the simple story something of the poetic and impressionistic qualities of Fly away Peter. Through the contributions of this creative team the story becomes a journey from light to dark and, finally, back to light again with Imogen, who is left alone in the final moments of the ballet to resolve her—and our—feelings of loss and grief.

In his choreographic definition of the characters, Baynes’ greatest success is with Jim, whose movements are both unaffected and expansive. Especially in the first solo, with its emphasis on clean lines and movements that highlight an open chest and outstretched arms, Jim emerges as laconic but free-spirited. On opening night Steven Heathcote interpreted this choreography with a total lack of pretension. Damien Welch and Joshua Consandine performed the role of Jim later in the season but, while they both danced with style, neither had the combination of maturity and un-selfconsciousness that made Heathcote’s interpretation so satisfying.

Imogen is probably the most difficult role in the ballet. She must be the down-to-earth photographer whose relationship with Jim is based purely on a shared interest in birds; the dream figure who appears to Jim in France; and the solitary woman whose emotions must carry the ballet to a close. Her final solo requires a strong sense of balance and is full of steps that seem to twist and turn in on themselves, as she works to come to grips with Jim’s death. On opening night Lisa Bolte was clearly in control technically and brought a deep honesty to the role. In other casts Miranda Coney and Vick Attard both contributed individualistic interpretations and Attard, especially, was emotionally convincing in the final solo. But both Attard and Coney sometimes seemed to move with a kind of lightness and affectation that is at odds with the character of Imogen.

Study for 1914. Lisa Bolte as Imogen.

The English-educated Ashley is defined largely through other people—his cultivated friends who visit Jim who works for him and the soldiers he commands. Neither Adrian Burnett, Matthew Trent nor David McAllister seemed able to transform him into anything other than a distant and insubstantial figure. Marc Cassidy, on the other hand, brought life to one of the Australian soldiers in France brilliantly—a larrikin gambler and smoker who was clearly based on Malouf’s character, Clancy.

As an Australian work, 1914 is profoundly moving. Without being facile, there is a simplicity in the choreography that reflects the qualities of openness and directness, perhaps even naivety. There are times too when the sense of Australian sound, light and colour is overwhelmingly beautiful. Carter is the star of the creative team here—his abstractions of the landscape into a few trees, a couple of sand dunes and a patch of sky is awesome.

As a theatrical work, 1914 makes demands on a ballet audience. Probably the most affecting moment in the work has no dancing. When the scene changes from France to Australia following Jim’s death for the resolution of the ballet, all the audience has, for what seems like quite a long time, are changes of lighting, visual imagery and musical theme. But those moments are intensely enriching. Baynes and his team have made a quietly impressive work that asks the audience to see that emotions can be evoked through stillness, sound and visual imagery as well as movement.

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What will we see on Anzac Day 2021?

Michelle Potter, 25 April 2020

Featured image: Jack Lister in We who are left. Queensland Ballet, 2016. Photo: © David Kelly

Jack Lister in 'We who are left'. Queensland ballet, 2016. Photo: David Kelly
Andrew Killian and Dimity Azoury in 'Aurum'. The Australian Ballet, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Dance diary. January 2020

Alice Topp’s Aurum

Aurum, choreographed by Alice Topp, a resident choreographer with the Australian Ballet, was first seen in Melbourne in 2018. It was followed by a 2019 season in Sydney, a scene from which is the featured image for this post. Also in 2019 it had a showing in New York at the Joyce Theater. In fact the Joyce was in part responsible for the creation of Aurum. Aurum was enabled with the support of a Rudolf Nureyev Prize for New Dance, awarded by the Joyce. Major funding came from the Rudolf Nureyev Dance Foundation. Aurum went on to win a Helpmann Award in 2019.

Now Topp will stage her work for Royal New Zealand Ballet as part of that company’s Venus Rising program opening in May 2020. She has recently been rehearsing the work in RNZB studios in Wellington.

Madeleine Graham and Allister Madin in rehearsal for Alice Topp's 'Aurum'. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2020. Photo: © Jeremy Brick
Madeleine Graham and Allister Madin in rehearsal for Alice Topp’s Aurum. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2020. Photo: © Jeremy Brick

I can still feel the excitement of seeing Aurum for the first time in 2018 when it was part of the Australian Ballet’s Verve program. My review from that season is at this link.

Dance Australia critics’ survey

Below are my choices in the annual Dance Australia critics’ survey. See the February/March 2020 issue of Dance Australia for the choices made by other critics across Australia. The survey is always interesting reading.

  • Highlight of the year
    West Side Story’s return to Australian stages looking as fabulous as it did back in the 1960s. A true dance musical in which choreographer Jerome Robbins tells the story brilliantly through dance and gesture.
  • Most significant dance event
    Sydney Dance Company’s 50th anniversary. Those who have led, and are leading the company—Suzanne Musitz, Jaap Flier, Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon, and currently Rafael Bonachela—have given Australian audiences a varied contemporary repertoire with exposure to the work of some remarkable Australian choreographers and composers, as well as the work of some of the best contemporary artists from overseas.
  • Most interesting Australian independent group or artist
    Canberra’s Australian Dance Party, which has started to develop a strong presence and unique style and has given Canberra a much needed local, professional company. The 2019 production From the vault showed the company’s strong collaborative aesthetic with an exceptional live soundscape and lighting to add to the work’s appeal.
  • Most interesting Australian group or artist
    Bangarra Dance Theatre. Over thirty years the company has gone from strength to strength and can only be admired for the way in which Stephen Page and his associates tell Indigenous stories with such pride and passion.
Beau Dean Riley Smith (centre) as Bennelong, Bangarra Dance Theatre 2017. Photo: Vishal Pandey
Beau Dean Riley Smith (centre) as Bennelong in Bennelong, Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2017. Photo: © Vishal Pandey
  • Most outstanding choreography
    Melanie Lane’s thrilling but somewhat eccentric WOOF as restaged by Sydney Dance Company. It was relentless in its exploration of group behaviour and reminded me a little of a modern day Rite of Spring
Scene from Melanie Lane's 'WOOF'. Sydney Dance Company, 2019. Photo: © Pedro Greig
Scene from Melanie Lane’s WOOF. Sydney Dance Company, 2019. Photo: © Pedro Greig
  • Best new work
    Dangerous Liaisons by Liam Scarlett for Queensland Ballet. Scarlett has an innate ability to compress detail without losing the basic elements of the narrative and to capture mood and character through movement. It was beautifully performed by Queensland Ballet and demonstrated excellence in its collaborative elements.
  • Most outstanding dancer(s)
    Kohei Iwamato from Queensland Ballet especially for his dancing in Dangerous Liaisons as Azolan, valet to the Vicomte de Valmont. His dancing was light, fluid, and technically exact and he made every nuance of Scarlett’s choreography clearly visible

    Tyrel Dulvarie in Bangarra’s revival of Unaipon in which he danced the role of David Unaipon. His presence on stage was imposing throughout and his technical ability shone, especially in the section where he danced as Tolkami (the West Wind).
  • Dancer(s) to watch
    Ryan Stone, dancer with Alison Plevey’s Canberra-based Australian Dance Party (ADP). His performance in ADP’s From the vault was exceptional for its fluidity and use of space and gained him a Dance Award from the Canberra Critics’ Circle.

    Yuumi Yamada of the Australian Ballet whose dancing in Stephen Baynes Constant Variants and as the Daughter in Stanton Welch’s Sylvia showed her as an enticing dancer with much to offer as she develops further.
  • Boos!
    The Australian Government’s apparent disinterest in the arts and in the country’s collecting institutions. The removal of funding for Ausdance National, for example, resulted in the cancellation of the Australian Dance Awards, while the efficiency dividend placed on collecting institutions, which has been in place for years now, means that items that tell of our dance history lie unprocessed and uncatalogued, and hence are unusable by the public for years.
  • Standing ovation
    I’m standing up and cheering for the incredible variety of dance that goes on beyond our major ballet and contemporary companies. Youth dance, community dance, dance for well-being, dance for older people, and more. It is indicative of the power that dance has to develop creativity, health and welfare, and a whole range of social issues.
Scene from Eye to Eye in On course. QL2 Dance, 2019. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski/Art Atelier

New oral history recordings

In January I had the pleasure of recording two new oral history interviews for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. The first was with Chrissa Keramidas, former dancer with the Australian Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and Sydney Dance Company. Keramidas recently returned as a guest artist in the Australian Ballet’s recent revival of Nutcracker. The story of Clara. The second was with Emeritus Professor Susan Street, AO, dance educator over many years including with Queensland University of Technology and the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts.

News from James Batchelor

James Batchelor’s Redshift, originally commissioned by Chunky Move in 2017, will have another showing in Paris in February as part of the Artdanthé Festival. Redshift is another work emerging from Batchelor’s research following his taking part in an expedition to Heard and McDonald Islands in the sub-Antarctic in 2016. Artdanthé takes place at the Théâtre de Vanves and Batchelor’s works have been shown there on previous occasions.

Study for Redshift. Photo: © Morgan Hickinbotham

Batchelor is also about to start work on a new piece, Cosmic Ballroom, which will premiere in December 2020 at another international festival, December Dance, in Bruges, Belgium. Below are some of Batchelor’s thoughts about this new work.

Set in a 19th Century Ballroom in Belgium, Cosmic Ballroom will playfully reimagine social dances and the aesthetic relationship they have to the space and time they exist within. We will work with movement as a plastic and expressive language that is formed through social encounters: the passing of thoughts, feelings and uncertainties from body to body. It will ponder the public and private and the personal and interpersonal as tonal zones that radiate and contaminate. How might movement be like a virus in this context? How might space-times be playfully spilling across and infecting one another from the baroque ballroom to the post-industrial club space?

Batchelor will collaborate with an team of Australian, Italian and UK artists on this work.

Liam Scarlett

Not such good news

Michelle Potter, 31 January 2020

Featured image: Andrew Killian and Dimity Azoury in Aurum. The Australian Ballet, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Andrew Killian and Dimity Azoury in 'Aurum'. The Australian Ballet, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud
Lucy Green as Cecile and Alexander Idaszak as Valmont in 'Dangerous Liaisons'. Queensland Ballet, 2019. Photo David Kelly

Dance diary. December 2019

  • The best of …

At this time of the year ‘the best of …’ is a common feature of many print and online sources. My thoughts on the dance highlights of the year will appear in the February/March issue of Dance Australia. But I can’t help commenting here on one or two particular highlights. For me, Liam Scarlett’s Dangerous Liaisons, created for Queensland Ballet, stands at the top of my list of best production for 2019.

What impresses me about Scarlett’s work in general is his ability to compress complex stories into clear narratives that never lose the major thread of the storyline, but are never so complicated that we get lost. This was especially noticeable in Dangerous Liaisons. It was a work in which quite a lot of subplots were evident, and in which there were many characters involved in many clandestine activities. Scarlett managed, however, to leave us in no doubt as to what was happening. He also seems to have a real knack of collaborating with the other creatives who have input into his work. Again, this was evident in Dangerous Liaisons, which had a great arrangement of music, stunning costumes and evocative lighting. Read (or reread) the review at this link.

My Dance Australia contribution also mentioned Yuumi Yamada but I had not seen her perform as Clara in Peter Wright’s Nutcracker until after my Dance Australia deadline had passed. So I need to document here that I thought she was a standout as Clara, as well as in other works throughout 2019.

Yuumi Yamada_and dancers of the Australian Ballet in 'The Nutcracker', 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud
Yuumi Yamada and dancers of the Australian Ballet in The Nutcracker, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud
  • The Kristian Fredrikson project

As a very special end to 2019 (for me anyway), I signed a contract with Melbourne Books who will begin editing of my book on the life and career of Kristian Fredrikson in February with publication scheduled, at this stage, for August. Things Fredrikson have been occupying my life since 2011 and the book has been researched across Australia; in Wellington, New Zealand; in the United States, in New York and Houston; in London; and in La Mirande en Ardèche in the French Alps, where choreographer Gray Veredon lives. Below is one of the many striking images that will appear in the book.

Study for Captain Hook in Russell Kerr's 'Peter Pan', 1999. © 1998 Kristian Fredrikson
Study for Captain Hook in Russell Kerr’s Peter Pan. Royal New Zealand Ballet 1999. © 1998 Kristian Fredrikson. This version of Peter Pan was also staged by West Australian Ballet in 2013. There have been various revivals
  • John O’Brien (1933–2019)

After posting my obituary for Barry Kitcher last month, I was contacted by a reader who brought to my attention another death in the dance world—that of former Rambert dancer and much admired teacher, the Australian-born John O’Brien. Much of O’Brien’s life was spent in England and I never saw him dance, but here is a link to an obituary written for The Stage. Apart from his many performing and teaching accomplishments, O’Brien founded the bookshop, which I knew as Dance Books, in Cecil Court in central London. How many hours did I spend ferreting around in its second hand department! And how sad that it had to close. But now I know that it was founded by O’Brien.

  • Happy New year 2020

All best wishes to all those who read my posts, and especially to those who contribute in one way or another. It also continues to thrill me that we in Australia (and elsewhere) benefit from dance news from New Zealand with some great posts from Jennifer Shennan. So my particular thanks to her for her contributions and the manner in which they expand our understanding of dance and its context.

And here’s to a great year of dance in 2020.

Michelle Potter, 31 December 2019

Featured image: Lucy Green as Cécile and Alexander Idaszak as Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons. Queensland Ballet, 2019. Photo: © David Kelly

Lucy Green as Cecile and Alexander Idaszak as Valmont in 'Dangerous Liaisons'. Queensland Ballet, 2019. Photo David Kelly
Ryan Stone in Australia Dance Party's 'From the Vault', 2019. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Dance diary. November 2019

  • Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards (Dance)

The Canberra Critics’ Circle Awards for 2019 were announced on 19 November at the Canberra Museum and Gallery. Four dance awards were given, as follows:

Australian Dance Party for the company’s production of From the Vault, choreographed and directed by Alison Plevey in collaboration with dancers, Olivia Fyfe, Stephen Gow, Eliza Sanders, Alana Stenning, and Ryan Stone. With live music and sound by Alex Voorhoeve and Andy McMillan, along with evocative lighting by Mark Dyson, costumes designed by Imogen Keen, and dramaturgy by Karla Conway, From the Vault was an outstanding collaborative endeavour. Brilliantly conceived and executed, it was the [Canberra] dance highlight of the year.

Zara Bartley and Daniel Convery of Bravissimo Productions for their initiative in attracting outstanding national and international dancers to Canberra for a gala production, World Stars of Ballet. The enterprise demonstrated courage and resourcefulness, along with a determination to put Canberra forward as a venue for world-class ballet productions.

Ryan Stone for his committed performance in Australian Dance Party’s From the Vault. His outstanding dancing, with its freedom and fluidity within the set choreography, displayed a remarkable mastery of how the body moves through and in space, which is at the heart of all dancing.

Nathan Rutup for his high-energy choreography for the musical Heathers directed by Kelly Roberts and Grant Pegg for Dramatic Productions. Rutup’s dance numbers were so polished and in-tune with the material that it is difficult to imagine these songs done any other way.

  • Shaun Parker & Company

Shaun Parker & Company has recently announced its program for 2020, the company’s 10th anniversary year. Some of the works for the season focus on Parker’s interest in social issues affecting young people. They include The Yard with its anti-bullying message, which will be restaged and will tour areas across Sydney and regional New South Wales beginning on 9 March 2020.

Also during 2020 the company will present In the Zone, which had its premiere earlier this year, and which will be performed at the York Theatre, Seymour Centre, Sydney, from 16–19 September 2020. Developed in collaboration with musician Alon Ilsar, who co-designed the AirSticks that are pivotal to the work, In The Zone combines hip-hop dance with gaming technology to showcase the importance of stepping away from our screens and experiencing the real world. In The Zone will feature Western Sydney hip-hop dancer Libby Montilla.

Study for Bubble, Shaun Parker & Company, 2019.

The company will also develop three new works in 2020 including one with the working title of Bubble. It is a collaboration with Taiwanese bubble performance artist, Mr Su Chung Tai, and will explore such issues as global warming.

More about Shaun Parker & Company is on the company’s website at this link.

  • Site news

As the end of the year approaches I am always interested in which post has received the most views over the year. Although we are not quite at the end of the year yet, I checked the January–November stats to find that the review of Liam Scarlett’s Dangerous Liaisons, as danced by Queensland Ballet, topped the list by a very big margin. Deservedly so. It was a brilliant production and performance. It was so far ahead of everything else in terms of statistics that I can’t imagine it will be knocked out of first place once December stats are added. In case you missed the post here is the link.

Laura Hidalgo and Alexander Idaszak in Dangerous Liaisons. Queensland Ballet, 2019. Photo: © David Kelly
  • Press for November 2019

‘A pleasingly old-school Cinderella.’ Review of Queensland Ballet’s Cinderella on tour to Canberra. The Canberra Times, 7 November 2019, p. 16. My expanded review is at this link.

Michelle Potter, 30 November 2019

Please consider supporting my Australian Cultural Fund project to help Melbourne Books publish Kristian Fredrikson. Designer in a high quality format. Donations are tax deductible. See this link to the project, which closes on 31 December 2019.

Featured image: Ryan Stone in Australia Dance Party’s From the Vault, 2019. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Ryan Stone in Australia Dance Party's 'From the Vault', 2019. Photo: © Lorna Sim