Dance diary. October 2015

The return of Ochres

Bangarra Dance Theatre has a special program coming up at the end of November—a brief revival of Ochres at Carriageworks in Sydney beginning on 27 November.

Tara Gower in a study for 'Ochres'. Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2015. Photo: © Edward Mulvihill — Tara Gower in study for *Ochres*. Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2015. Photo: © Edward Mulvihill

Ochres was one of Bangarra’s earliest works and is still regarded as a milestone in the company’s history. Co-choreographed by Stephen Page and Bernadette Walong, it was first performed in Sydney in 1994. In 1995 it came to Canberra as part of the National Festival of Australian Theatre, the brainchild of Robyn Archer and for a few years one of the highlights of the theatre scene in Canberra. Anyone who was lucky enough to see Ochres back then in its first years will never, I am sure, forget Djakapurra Munyarryun smearing his body with yellow ochre as the work began.

Looking back through my archive, I discovered a review I had written for Muse, a monthly arts magazine produced in Canberra and initially edited by Helen Musa (Muse—like the Festival—is now, sadly, defunct). Re-reading the review I found I had speculated in 1995 on how Bangarra would develop in future years, especially in regard to the growth of a recognisable Bangarra style and vocabulary. Well that has certainly happened and it will be interesting to look back on Ochres as an early work in which Page and Walong were testing ways of doing just that—setting Bangarra on a journey to discover a contemporary, indigenous dance style.

Further details of the new Ochres at this link.

Hannah O’Neill

One of my favourite French dance sites, Danses avec la plume, recently posted some news about Hannah O’Neill and the up-and-coming competitive examinations for promotion within the Paris Opera Ballet. Female dancers will face the jury on 3 November. O’Neill’s name has been suggested on a number of occasions for promotion into one of two positions as principal dancer. One author suggests O’Neill is an Etoile in the making and the future of the company! (Une promotion d’Hannah O’Neill me plairait beaucoup aussi. C’est une danseuse brillante, une future Étoile, elle est l’avenir de la troupe.)

The word is too that Benjamin Millepied, now directing Paris Opera Ballet, would have liked to have dispensed with this ingrained competitive system of promotion, but the dancers voted that it remain.

See this link for what is currently ‘trending’ regarding the promotions, and follow this this link to see an image of O’Neill (taken by Isabelle Aubert) with Pierre Lacotte after a performance of Lacotte’s production of Paquita. [UPDATE: Link to Paquita image no longer available}

All the things: QL2 Dance

As an annual event on its performance calendar, QL2 Dance produces a short program of dance for its young and less experienced dancers, aged from 8 to 17. This year the program, All the Things, included choreography by Ruth Osborne, Jamie Winbank, Alison Plevey and Joshua Lowe with perhaps the most interesting moments coming from Plevey’s ‘girly’ piece about shopping, ‘Material Matters’, and Joshua Lowe’s male-oriented ‘I Need’ about ‘needing’ technological devices in one’s life. It was an entertaining, if somewhat sexist juxtaposition of ideas in these two pieces, which had been strategically placed side by side in the program.

Scene from 'All the Things'. QL2 Dance, 2015. Photo: Lorna Sim — Scene from *All the Things*. QL2 Dance, 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim

But the great thing about this annual event is the experience it gives these young dancers. James Batchelor (independent), Daniel Riley (Bangarra Dance Theatre) and Sam Young-Wright (Sydney Dance Company) are just three current professionals who had early dance experiences with Quantum Leap.

New book from photographer Lois Greenfield

One of the most pleasurable experiences I had while working in New York between 2006 and 2008 was visiting the studio of dance photographer Lois Greenfield. I was there to buy a collection of her images for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. She is about to launch a new book. See this link for details.

Press for October

‘Lording it in high-tech high jinks.’ Review of Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games. The Canberra Times, 9 October 2015, ‘Times 2’ pp. 6–7. Online version.

‘Sizzling and simply sensational.’ Review of Natalie Weir’s Carmen Sweet for Expressions Dance Company. The Canberra Times, 13 October 2015, ‘Times 2’ p. 6. Online version.

‘Dancing our way next year.’ Preview of dance in Canberra in 2016. The Canberra Times, 26 October 2015, ‘Times 2’ p. 6. Online version.

‘Listless on the Lake.’ Review of Swan Lake by the Russian National Ballet Theatre. The Canberra Times, 31 October 2015, ARTS, p. 20. Online version .

Michelle Potter, 31 October 2015

Dean Cross, Caitlin MacKenzie and Gemma Dawkins in 'Walking and Falling', 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Walking and Falling. QL2 Dance

10 July 2015, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

Ruth Osborne, artistic director of QL2 Dance, has made a wonderfully moving vignette of dance for the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Called Walking and Falling, it features three beautifully costumed dancers, Dean Cross, Gemma Dawkins and Caitlin MacKenzie. All three are former Quantum Leapers who have gone from their student days with Canberra’s youth program to become professional dancers.

The work follows, in just 15 economical minutes, the life of a man who goes to war and returns shaken from the experience, unable to participate in the warmth of his family life as he could before he left. It opens with a charming scene around a table as the man and the two women in his life drink tea and eat scones to the sound of the patriotic wartime song Keep the Home Fires Burning. One of the women discovers a white feather in the pocket of the man’s jacket, but he does go off to war leaving the women to devote themselves to their daily chores. They pause often to think of him.

Caitlin MacKenzie and Gemma Dawkins in 'Walking and falling', 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim — Caitlin MacKenzie and Gemma Dawkins in *Walking and Falling*, 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim

The scene shifts to the battle field and we see the man engaged in combat. Osborne has made smart use of the space available to her and of the simple props that she uses—a table, three chairs and a poster on a side wall. The table from that opening family meal of tea and scones becomes a form of shelter and protection for the man at war and it divides the small foyer area in which the dance unfolds into two separate spaces. There is one particularly poignant moment when the man shelters behind the overturned table to read a letter from home. On the other side of the table one of the women writes a letter and, in a flash, we see two worlds.

Dean Cross in *Walking and Falling*, 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim

The man returns home, physically anyway. But he is emotionally scarred. The work closes as it began around the family table, but there is no longer the joyous engagement between the three. To the sound of And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, a song on the futility of war, we watch as emotional silence engulfs the small group, a group that was once filled with life.

What is so attractive about this work is its simplicity. It achieves its huge emotional impact without any fuss or unnecessary razzamatazz. It moves smoothly from segment to segment and demands our attention from opening minute to its closing scene. All three dancers convey their thoughts and hopes strongly through movement, gesture, and eye contact with each other, or lack of it at the end as they struggle to cope with what has happened. As the work closes, we are left with an aching heart for the man, for the women in his life, and for their indescribable loss.

Walking and Falling is a tiny pearl of a dance commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to accompany its exhibition, All that Fall, which examines sacrifice, life and loss during World War I. The exhibition couldn’t have a more perfect addition than Walking and Falling. Bouquets to Osborne and the dancers.

Michelle Potter, 11 July 2015

Featured image: Dean Cross, Caitlin MacKenzie and Gemma Dawkins in the closing scene of Walking and Falling, 2015. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Postscript:
The Portrait Gallery exhibition contains a collection of items from World War I including posters, personal mementos, and art works of various kinds. One of the most moving items is a work, also commissioned especially for the exhibition, by Canberra-based artist Ellis Hutch. She has created an installation of wax panels and light projections as a contemporary response to an uncompleted World War I memorial. The proposal and design for the original memorial was prepared by Theodora Cowen* and it was meant to honour the men who fell in World War I.

* There seems to be some controversy about the spelling of Theodora Cowen’s last name. Is it Cowen or Cowan? I have gone with the spelling used by the Portrait Gallery.

Me right now. Quantum Leap

09 May 2012, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre

Often the beautifully choreographed ‘curtain calls’ (there is rarely a curtain) in Quantum Leap productions are the most revealing aspect of this youth company’s capabilities. It is then that the dancers relax somewhat and their joy in moving, and their intensity and commitment to the show, is wonderfully clear. Unfortunately with Me Right Now, which centred on ‘the state of being young’, I thought the curtain calls were the best part of the show.

There was a lot of spoken narrative in the first section, ‘You can’t perform a U-turn’, choreographed by Lina Limosani. Too much in my opinion. I’d rather see these young people expressing their ideas with a vocabulary of movement rather than words. And, while I understand the reason for the choreographic structure of the work being pretty much limited to having the dancers move across the stage in a straight line, Prompt to OP, it meant that overall the work lacked variety and subtlety. In fact, it became a little tiresome after a while.

Jade Dewi Tyas-Tungall’s ‘All to-get-her’ suffered a similar fate I think. Its title (remove the hyphens and run the words together) gives a clue to the reason for a choreographic structure that emphasised a certain kind of unity. But the constant crossing of the stage by lines of female dancers gave little visual variety and my interest flagged.

Matt Cornell’s ‘I do I will…’ showed what is a huge strength of the Quantum Leap endeavour—its ability to attract young boys to dance. I am also always impressed by the production values that Ruth Osborne and her team instill into every performance. And I always enjoy the way each section of the show blends seamlessly with the next. But for me Me Right Now lacked the kind of choreography that stops the mind wandering out of the theatre.

Michelle Potter. 13 May 2012

Featured image: Dancers of Quantum Leap in Me Right Now. Photo: © Chris Canham. Courtesy QL2 Dance

Dance diary. October 2011

Texas Ballet Theater

Dancers from Texas ballet Theatre, Dallas TX, 2011

It’s surprising whom one meets walking down a Dallas street on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Two somewhat frilly mice from Nutcracker for example—perhaps not dressed for combat despite the menacing gestures!
Or two young dancers dressed in tutus.

Texas Ballet Theater, currently directed by Ben Stevenson, was promoting its forthcoming Nutcracker season. The appearance of dancers on this occasion was part of the last day of ‘Art in October’, a celebration of the Dallas arts district with its top class museums and theatres.

it’s all good

I was impressed by QL2’s annual performance for younger dancers, this year entitled it’s all good and being an examination through movement of the notions of language and truth. It was not so much the choreography that impressed me: it was fairly basic, perhaps a little of necessity, and somewhat unimaginative in my opinion. But I was impressed by the production values that were in play. The young cast (they ranged in age from 8 to 17) knew a fair bit about stage techniques and behaved largely in a very professional manner. For this their director, Ruth Osborne, deserves praise as does whoever designed the simple, easy to dance in costumes. One or two of the younger of the young performers looked as though they had the potential to go on to a professional career.

Ballets Russes publication

A number of visitors to this site have asked me to post a review of the recent Ballets Russes publication. This review was published last month by The Canberra Times. Here is the link.

Michelle Potter, 31 October 2011

Night. Time. Quantum Leap

‘As dusk falls, everyone chooses their moment. Snuggled in bed or out on the town, the night world is different through every window’—program note for Night. Time.

Quantum Leap’s annual full-scale performance, this year entitled Night.Time, was a step up from previous years. Consisting of five separate sections by five different choreographers—a familiar format—two aspects of the show stood out. First, there seemed to be a greater coherence in the production so that the show seemed like one work with five parts. In large part this was a result of seamless changes from section to section rather than there being clear-cut divisions between the work of individual choreographers—well designed lighting by Guy Harding helped. I hope this kind of coherence will be pursued as a feature of future Quantum Leap productions. Secondly, we saw some adventurous choreography involving partnering on a sometimes quite daring level for the young Quantum Leapers.

For me the stand out section was Jodie Farrugia’s contribution Night. Stir, which centred on the inability to sleep. Farrugia used her background in physical theatre and circus to push the boundaries of ‘youth movement’ with a range of demanding lifts, leaps and turns. She was rewarded (as was the audience) by some strong performances by dancers who clearly relished the challenges she set them.

Following closely for the pick of the night for me was Night.Life, the section choreographed by Adam Wheeler. Like Farrugia, Wheeler had high physical expectations and the dancers responded with some outstanding, fast -paced dancing. Wheeler it seems involved the dancers in developing the theme of his section, which dealt with the activities in which the dancers imagined they might like to engage as part of their night life. No doubt their direct involvement in a highly relevant (to them) part of life added to their adrenalin charged performances. I felt they lost their sense of being onstage at times and seemed to muddle along a little, especially as the section drew to a close, but overall Night. Life was successfully and excitingly achieved. Other sections were choreographed by Marnie Palomares (Night. Light), Anton (Night. Mind) and Ruth Osborne (Night. Scape).

As in previous years extensive use was made of video material as set design. It was well integrated into the production and rarely overpowered the dancing. Adam Ventoura again provided a score, which was suitably ‘youthful’ to match the production. Costumes by Victoria Whorley were effective. A show deserving bouquets on many levels.

Quantum Leap dancers in *Night. Time*. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Michelle Potter, 31 July 2010