Season’s greetings and the ‘best of’ 2023

To all those who have accessed this website over 2023, especially those who have made comments on various posts, thank you for your interest. I look forward to your continued involvement in 2024. May the coming year be filled with great dance and may peace descend upon the world.

Below are my ‘top five’ productions for the year arranged chronologically according to the date (month only) of the performance I saw. I have this year chosen to select brand new works rather than restagings. This means I have left out a few amazing productions including A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Strictly Gershwin, both from Queensland Ballet, and both of which were just stunning. It is always difficult to choose just five works but I feel it is sometimes a good thing to have to adhere to some kind of restriction, so it’s new works only this year.

What remains (Melbourne. Bodytorque digital—a series from the Australian Ballet, February)

Tim Harbour’s What remains was an exceptional tribute to dancer Kevin Jackson on his retirement as a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet. In just a few minutes of film it showed Jackson’s exceptional technique and Harbour’s inventive choreography, while taking every advantage of an ‘off stage’ setting and a score from George Bokaris.

Shortcuts to familiar places. (Canberra. James Batchelor and Collaborators, April)

James Batchelor’s Shortcuts was an examination of how dance is transmitted from generation to generation—a beautifully conceived and outstandingly presented look at the theoretical idea of ‘embodied transmission’.

Paragon. (Sydney. The Australian Ballet, May)

Alice Topp’s Paragon was a tribute to the dancers of the Australian Ballet, past and present, with great input from design and sound collaborators, and with exceptional, visually stunning choreography from Topp. It was an experience, too, to see some of the Australian Ballet’s dancers from past decades return to the stage and to be reminded of their contribution to the art form.

My brilliant career. (Brisbane. Queensland Ballet, June)

Cathy Marston’s examination of Miles Franklin’s novel, My brilliant career, was a masterly production in which every character was clearly drawn choreographically. Marston created a range of movements that gave an exceptional understanding of the nature of each person in the story. My brilliant career was part of a triple bill from Queensland Ballet.

Bespoke. (Brisbane. Queensland Ballet, July)

Bespoke was a remarkable triple bill, the sixth in a series named Bespoke, showing the way artistic director, Li Cunxin, curates an evening of dance. With works from Remi Wortmeyer, Paul Boyd and Natalie Weir, the audience saw an amazing array of ideas and dance styles and approaches from humour to a serious examination of the process of life.

Michelle Potter, 26 December 2023

Bespoke, 2023. Queensland Ballet

27 July 2023. Talbot Theatre, Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane

It would be hard to find a performance more thrilling, more emotionally driven, more technically fascinating than the sixth production from Queensland Ballet under the banner Bespoke. Made up of works from Remi Wörtmeyer, Paul Boyd and Natalie Weir, this program was rightly advertised as ‘compelling, challenging and always thought provoking’.

The evening began with Wörtmeyer’s Miroirs (Mirrors in French) danced by 10 dancers to piano music of the same name by Maurice Ravel. It was played onstage on this occasion by Daniel Le. Choreographically, Miroirs was an interesting combination of classical vocabulary and more contemporary style movement. The classical sections were nicely structured in a spatial sense with dancers creating a range of unexpected groupings. On the whole it was a relatively fast-paced work and often surprising in the strong imagery that emerged from partnering.

Scene from Miroirs. Queensland Ballet, 2023. Photo: © David Kelly

The more contemporary movement was often quite grounded and for me these sections didn’t work so well, or at least didn’t blend easily with the more classically-based sections. The work ended with a pas de deux danced by Mia Heathcote and Victor Estévez. It was a quiet ending compared with the speed and action of the first and much longer section and, despite excellent dancing from Heathcote and Estévez, the ending felt somewhat out of place.

Wörtmeyer was responsible for the attractive costumes and set design. His set consisted of nicely arranged strings of light and reminded me of a deconstructed chandelier. His costumes were simple, close-fitting tights and tops but were made elegant with the addition of small, silver decorative elements at the waist and elsewhere on the costumes.

Second on the program was Tartan choreographed by Paul Boyd to an assorted collection of sound, from a rendition of Donald where’s your trousers? to music from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards! The work tells the story of an elderly Scottish gentleman, played by former Queensland Ballet dancer Graeme Collins, who relives his past and imagines the people he grew up with return to his house and interact once more with him.

Graeme Collins (centre) in Tartan. Queensland Ballet, 2023. Photo: © David Kelly

Tartan was choreographed in spectacular fashion to combine traditional Scottish steps with ballet and contemporary movement. I especially loved the way Boyd often combined, or intertwined, two varieties of fifth position of the arms, one strictly classical, one with fingers held in a Scottish manner. But here was much more than that, including the bends of the body in a reverence with torso stretched forward and spine parallel to the floor; pointe work for the girls on occasions; lots of pliés in second position; the fast, definitive moves of the feet close to the ankles; and so on. Then there were the surprising moments when the dancers appeared (like ghosts?) from under and inside a box-like table to the hilarious scene, led by Josh Fagan, accompanying Donald where’s your trousers?

Jette Parker Young Artists (centre Josh Fagan) in ‘Donald Where’s your trousers’ from Tartan. Queensland Ballet, 2023. Photo: © David Kelly

The dancers, all from Queensland Ballet’s Jette Parker Young Artist Program, performed with huge commitment and skill. Apart from their actual technique I loved the way they projected their presence out to the audience. It was an absolute joy to watch them and, If their performance is anything to go by, the future of Queensland Ballet is assured.

Natalie Weir’s Four last songs closed the program and, for me at least, it was the highlight. I have long admired Weir’s choreography, on the one hand for the emotive qualities with which her works are always imbued—We who are left made for Queensland Ballet in 2016 (restaged 2022) instantly springs to mind—but also for the way in which she has always used partnering to display choreographic possibilities. Both those qualities were apparent to an exceptional degree in Four last songs.

Weir’s Four last songs used the composition of the same name by Richard Strauss to tell a story about life and death with a strong sense of a life that is lived to the full before, inevitably, death arrives. The work was led by Lucy Green and Patricio Revé and I admired the way Weir had set choreography in the early stages that was joyful—Green’s little skipping-like movements shorty after her first entrance for example—but which gave way to something slower as age progressed. The work concluded with strong movement that was actually beautifully uplifting as the inevitability of the end of life was accepted.

The work of Green and Revé was mirrored by four couples representing, on the surface, four seasons, but those seasons also reflected four stages of life. The dancing of the four couples showed Weir’s long standing interest in partnering and ranged from beautifully swirling lifts to slower, less extravagant but still quite spectacular ones as life progressed. As for the four men, Weir tells us in her notes that they represent ‘one man, a thread of humanity’. There was one stage when the four men held sway with a magnificent series of entrances and exits interspersed with spectacular jumps. It was extraordinary dancing from all the dancers.

I have often wondered how Weir manages to imbue her work with the emotion that we always feel when watching it. It is of course partly the dancers’ ability and the coaching they receive to act out the scenario. But it is also Weir’s choreographic ability to create movement that tells the story. Those little early skipping movements from Green, for example. Then there were those beautiful swirling lifts that told so much about life, including the lifts performed by Callum Mackie and Lina Kim who performed as Autumn or a late stage of life in which more sleep was apparent. Kim’s body was often held parallel to the ground as if her body was still sleeping while being lifted. And more. Four last songs was a stunning work from Weir.

Bespoke 2023 was a triumph.

Michelle Potter, 29 July 2023

Featured image: Lucy Green and Patricio Revé in Four last songs. Photo: © David Kelly

Promotional image for QL2's Belong, 2018. Photo: Lorna Sim

Dance diary. October 2018

  • Belong. QL2’s Chaos Project for 2018

Every year Canberra’s young dancers audition for the Chaos Project staged by QL2. The umbrella name suggests the chaotic situation with which the project begins—in 2018 there were 45 young dancers, boys and girls, aged from eight upwards. But of course by the time the show hits the stage the chaos is gone and, despite the age and experience of the dancers, we the audience are always treated to a wonderful evening of youth dance. The 2018 project, called Belong, had sections choreographed by Olivia Fyfe, Jodie Farrugia and Luke Fryer with Ruth Osborne adding (with her usual flair) an opening and closing section. The topic for exploration—‘belonging’—generated some interesting choreographic responses including the addiction (and disconnection from others) to smart phones and social media; supporting others in a variety of ways; bullying; and other similar matters affecting young people. Dance for the times!

  • Liz Lea and RED

Liz Lea will present her truly exceptional work RED in Liverpool, England, in November as part of the LEAP Festival. It will have a one-off performance on 7 November at 6pm at the Warehouse Studio Theatre, Hope University Creative Campus. RED premiered in Canberra earlier this year. Follow this link for my review of the premiere performance.

Liz Lea in a study for RED, 2018
Liz Lea in a study for RED, 2018

  • Sydney Dance Company in 2019

Sydney Dance Company has announced its season program for 2019, which will celebrate what is the company’s 50th anniversary. Season choreography will be by Rafael Bonachela, Gabrielle Nankivell, Melanie Lane and Gideon Obarzanek. Full details at this link.

While each of the three programs that will take place over 2019 promises something unusual, it will definitely be fascinating to see what Obarzanek does with a work called Us 50 in which, in the spirit of the anniversary, he will use 50 dancers drawn from former and current company dancers, along with members of the community.

Former and current dancers from Sydney Dance Company: (left to right) Kip Gamblin, Linda Ridgeway, Rafael Bonachela, Sheree Zellner (da Costa), Lea Francis and Bradley Chatfield. Photo: © Pedro Greig

  • Oral history: Ariette Taylor

My most recent oral history interview for the National Library was with Ariette Taylor, whose contribution to the work of Australian Dance Theatre during the directorship of Jonathan Taylor has probably not been fully explored to date. In addition to a discussion of her work in Adelaide, the interview includes Taylor’s background as a dancer in Holland and with Ballet Rambert, and her work as a theatre director after the Taylor family moved from Adelaide to Melbourne.

  • Remi Wortmeyer

As part of my research for the interview with Ariette Taylor I was searching for information about Mascha ter Weeme, who directed Ballet der Lage Landen, which Taylor joined in Amsterdam in 1957. I accidentally came across some news about Remi Wortmeyer, former dancer with the Australian Ballet and now principal with the Dutch National Ballet. This is old news (from 2016) but I had not come across it before so am posting it here in case any of my readers have also not heard it.

Wortmeyer was, in 2016, the recipient of the beautifully named Mr Expressivity Award at the international ballet festival, Dance Open, in St Petersburg. The trophy, I understand, replicates the lower leg of Anna Pavlova!

Wortmeyer’s website is at this link and the images above are from this site.

  • Jacob’s Pillow (again)

The latest post from Jacob’s Pillow is a series of video clips with the links between the clips centring on black costuming. There is a clip of David Hallberg dancing Nacho Duato’s solo Kaburias, which makes me think back to that wonderful piece, Por vos muero, which was at one stage in the repertoire of the Australian Ballet but not seen for a number of years now. For my New Zealand readers there is a short clip of an early piece by Black Grace, Minoi, seen at the Pillow in 2004. Then there is a mesmerising clip from Un ballo, a work choreographed by Françoise Adret,with perhaps a nod to Duato, for Lyon Opera Ballet. Lots more. Check out the Pillow’s dance interactive site .

  • Meryl Tankard’s Two Feet

I have long regretted that Meryl Tankard’s solo show Two Feet has never been revived. Well news just in from the Adelaide Festival 2019 is that Tankard is reviving the work for next year’s festival. It will feature the remarkable Natalia Osipova. I imagine tickets will fly out the door!

  • Press for October 2018

‘Bravissimo bringing ballet gala to town.’ Preview of World Superstars of Ballet Gala, Bravissimo Productions. The Canberra Times, 1 October 2018, p. 20. Online version

‘Uneven but often impressive show.’ Review of Happiness is …, Canberra Dance Theatre. The Canberra Times, 16 October 2018, p. 20. Online version

Michelle Potter, 31 October 2018

Featured image: Promotional image for QL2’s Belong, 2018. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Promotional image for QL2's Belong, 2018. Photo: Lorna Sim

Dance diary. September 2015

  • Remi Wortmeyer

News from a colleague in Amsterdam is that Remi Wortmeyer, formerly with the Australian Ballet and now a principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet, is making a mark in that company’s Hans van Manen program. For more news about Wortmeyer’s activities here is a link to his website.

Remi Wortmeyer in 'Joel', 2014. Photo © Jack Devant
Remi Wortmeyer in Joel, 2014. Photo: © Jack Devant
  • New Helpmann book

A new book about Robert Helpmann is currently in preparation in London and will be published in 2016 by Dance Books. With the title The Many Faces of Robert Helpmann, it is edited by Richard Cave and Anna Meadmore. The book is being published as a companion volume to Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist (Dance Books, 2012) and will include, in addition to a series of essays on various aspects of Helpmann’s career, a DVD of filmed material. I am working on a chapter on Elektra, Helpmann’s ballet that premiered at Covent Garden in 1963 and that was restaged by the Australian Ballet in 1966.

Elektra, the Australian Ballet 1966. Photo Australian News and Information Bureau
Scene from Elektra, the Australian Ballet 1966. Kathleen Geldard as Elektra. Photo: Australian News and Information Bureau. National Archives of Australia
  • William Forsythe and Dance Australia

I was delighted, on opening the October/November issue of Dance Australia, to see an article I wrote for the issue of February/March 1994 republished (with some new photographs) as part of an ‘Anniversary Collection’ celebrating 35 years of Dance Australia. That article, which was based on an interview I conducted with William Forsythe in Frankfurt while on a holiday in Europe in late 1993, was one of the earliest pieces I wrote for Dance Australia.

The experience of interviewing on that occasion is, however, still etched on my mind. It was funny—I had trouble getting past the very determined doorman at the stage door until I produced a letter and said in my very best school German Ich habe eine Brief (sic—I got the gender wrong); informative—Forsythe has an incredible intellect; and moving—Forsythe is also very personable and was so willing to engage with me, even at midnight when the interview took place. Before the interview, I was lucky enough to see the show that was playing that night, which was Forsythe’s Artefact.

But congratulations to Dance Australia for having survived for 35 years and having produced so many great stories, reviews and other dance-related pieces. May it continue.

  • Press for September

‘GOLDs head overseas.’ Preview of tour to the United Kingdom and Europe by Canberra’s GOLD company. The Canberra Times, 12 September 2015, ARTS p. 22. Online version.

‘Plenty to enjoy in diverse mix.’ Review of Circus Oz in ‘But wait…there’s more.’ The Canberra Times, 25 September 2015, p. ARTS 7. Online version.

Michelle Potter, 30 September 2015

Body Torque 2.2. The Australian Ballet

27-30 May 2009, Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay

Two works saved the Australian Ballet’s 2009 Body Torque season from drifting totally out of the memory the minute the curtain came down. They were Reed Luplau’s Bleecker and Remi Wortmeyer’s Fade Not. Both Luplau and Wortmeyer made very different works in every sense imaginable, but both were able to grab the audience’s attention from the opening moment and hold it throughout. Wortmeyer’s Fade Out was very short—probably no longer than three minutes; Luplau’s was a little longer. But both choreographers stood apart from the others in that neither tried to say too much in the amount of time they had given themselves. Both had thought through a basic premise and moved forward with a strongly focused approach.

Bleecker, named after a well known street in Greenwich Village, New York, showed the influence of Luplau’s work with Sydney Dance Company in its recent post-Murphy iteration, especially in terms of vocabulary. The dancers moved in a physically extreme manner, well away from the balanced, centred, refined look we are accustomed to seeing at the Australian Ballet. And what a gutsy performance from Dana Stephensen, the one female in the cast of four. Luplau’s choreography poured out of her body, making dance look like the kinaesthetic art that it is. She was more than ably accompanied by Andrew Killian, Rudy Hawkes and Andrew Wright.

Luplau says in his choreographic statement that Bleecker is ‘a journey of self discovery’, and he reflects that there is ‘a certain captivating moment you experience as you explore one of the world’s greatest cities’. Well Bleecker was a captivating moment in Luplau’s journey as a choreographer. We can only hope that the journey will be an ongoing one.

Wortmeyer’s Fade Not began with the piercing and unexpected sound of a human voice and the piece was a courageous experiment at linking dancer and singer, movement and voice. Wortmeyer used a librettist, Malcolm Rock, whose written words telling of a dying mother’s wish to see her newborn child flourish in life were sung onstage by Naomi Johns. Wortmeyer choreographed Johns into the work without it seeming unnatural or contrived and, while his choreography for the leading (and only) dancer—an able Gina Brescianini—was classically based and without any real sense of invention, the work generated an innate sense of clarity and harmony.

Three other works completed the program: Damien Welch’s Chemical Trigger, notable for the fact that Welch composed the music as well as the choreography, Robert Curran’s Veiled in Flesh, and Kevin Jackson’s Enter Closer.

Body Torque has been a feature of the Australian Ballet’s annual season for a number of years now and is the most recent development in a long line of similar Australian Ballet workshop activities dating back to the earliest days of the company under Peggy van Praagh. Choreographic workshops need strong direction however and only Bleecker and Fade Out looked as though they had been subjected to any sort of rigorous discussion with peers and elders before being put on the stage.

Michelle Potter, 1 June 2009