Season’s greetings, 2022

To all those who have logged on to this website throughout 2022, thank you for your interest. I wish you the very best for the holiday season. To me the holiday season means Christmas, and the photographs below are some of my favourite Christmas-related images from years past (with one from this year).

Yuumi Yamada as Clara in The Nutcracker. The Australian Ballet, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Carols by Candlelight, Woden Valley Youth Choir, 2022
Carols by Candlelight, Canberra’s Woden Valley Youth Choir, 2022

Christmas bells, Bali 2018

The church at Chimayo, New Mexico, 2007


Have a safe and happy holiday season, whichever holiday you may be celebrating.

Michelle Potter, 24 December 2022

Featured image: The Santa Claus on the right was a Christmas present from a little boy in one of my ballet classes way back in the 1980s. On a trip to Scandinavia in around 2006 (perhaps a little earlier?), I bought the other two. The little wood cutter in the centre always sits on top of the quintessentially French bûche de Noël (Christmas log), a dessert I often make at Christmas time.

Season’s greetings 2014

The year 2014 has flown by for me, mostly with writing, writing, writing … But now with Dame Maggie Scott out in the bookshops there is time for reflection over the coming holiday break.

I started this site almost six years ago now, after returning from New York and finding that my outlets in Australia for writing about dance had been restricted rather markedly. Starting up a website was a perfect way to keep my critical and analytical faculties active. So, as ever, I thank all those who have visited this website over the course of 2014, especially those who have commented in various ways. It would not be the same without you.

The photos below were taken during one of several visits to the Connecticut estate of a dance aficionado I was lucky enough to meet while in New York. They are not about dance, but remind me that the northern hemisphere festive season offers such a different set of experiences.

Connecticut deer
Season's greetings 2014

Michelle Potter, 22 December 2014

Season's greetings 2013

Season’s greetings 2013

Compliments of the season to all those who have accessed my website, and especially to those who have added so much with their comments. I look forward to your continued patronage in the coming year.

It has been a terrific year so far in Canberra as the city has celebrated its centenary, and I have also been fortunate to have seen some wonderful dance elsewhere in Australia and around the world. But I have no hesitation in naming my two favourite shows for 2013 as Yuri Possokhov’s Rite of Spring for San Francisco Ballet, and what a wonderful company SFB is; and Garry Stewart’s Monument for the Australian Ballet as a Canberra Centenary event. And as for the latter, what a shame it is that other States will not see it in 2014. I fear it will just slip into oblivion, which seems like a shocking waste to me.

As for dancers, I have loved watching the Australian Ballet’s Eloise Fryer in various roles throughout the year, especially as Dumpy in Alexei Ratmansky’s Cinderella. And I never tire of watching Sydney Dance Company’s Chen Wen seen below in Rafael Bonachela’s 2 one another.

Chen Wen in '2 One Another. Photo': Wendell Teodoro
Chen Wen in Rafael Bonachela’s 2 one another, Sydney Dance Company. Photo: © Wendell Teodoro

I have a number of dance activities coming up in 2014, news of which I will keep until my December dance diary. In the meantime may the coming festive season be filled with happiness.

Michelle Potter, 22 December 2013

Season’s greetings & the ‘best of’ 2012

Thank you to those who have logged on to my website over the past year, especially those who  have kept the site alive with their comments. I wish you the compliments of the season and look forward to hearing from you in 2013.

The best of 2012

Lists of the ‘best of’ will always be very personal and will depend on what any individual has been able to see. However, here are my thoughts in a number of categories with links back to my posts on the productions. I welcome, of course, comments and lists from others, which are sure to be different from mine.

Most outstanding new choreography: Graeme Murphy’s The narrative of nothing (despite its title), full of vintage Murphy moves but full of the new as well.

Most outstanding production: Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Terrain with choreography by Frances Rings and outstanding collaborative input from the creative team of Jennifer Irwin, Jacob Nash, Karen Norris and David Page.

Most outstanding performance by a dancer, or dancers: Lana Jones and Kevin Jackson in Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky pas de deux as part of the Australian Ballet’s 50th anniversary gala.

Most disappointing production: The Australian Ballet’s revival of Robert Helpmann’s Display. I’m not sure that anyone in the production/performance really ‘got it’ and it became simply a reminder that dance doesn’t always translate well from generation to generation, era to era.

Surprise of the year: Finucane and Smith’s Glory Box. While some may question whether this show was dance or not, Moira Finucane’s performance in Miss Finucane’s Collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria (Get Wet for Art) was a wonderful, tongue-in-cheek comment on the angst-ridden works of Pina Bausch, and as such on Meryl Tankard’s more larrikin approach to serious issues.

Dancer to watch: Tammi Gissell. I was sorry to miss the Perth-based Ochre Contemporary Dance Company’s inaugural production, Diaphanous, in which Gissell featured, but I was impressed by her work with Liz Lea in Canberra as part of Science Week 2012 at CSIRO and look forward to the development of that show later in Canberra in 2013.

Beyond Australia: Wayne McGregor’s FAR, in which the choreography generated so much to think about, to talk over and to ponder upon.

Most frustrating dance occurrence: The demise of Australia Dancing and the futile efforts to explain that moving it to Trove was a positive step.

Michelle Potter, 16 December 2012

Season’s Greetings 2011

To all those who have visited this site over the past year, and especially to those who have contributed what I have referred to elsewhere as ‘refreshingly honest’ comments, I wish a very happy holiday season.

snowflakes-nutcracker-2
‘Snowflakes’ in the Borovansky Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker, ca. 1957. Photo: Walter Stringer. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia

A Christmas production of Nutcracker was always a much anticipated part of my childhood and recollections of Elaine Haxton’s designs for the old Borovansky production (reused in the early Australian Ballet production) surfaced a few years ago during a December drive through, of all places, the Kit Carson National Forest in New Mexico. I hope you enjoy the juxtaposition of images, despite the obvious differences in lighting and location!

I also recently came across an interview with Elaine Haxton recorded by fellow artist James Gleeson in 1978 and held by the National Gallery of Australia. Her discussion of the work of the designer in the 1950s is worth reading I think.

I look forward to your visits and comments in 2012.

Michelle Potter, 18 December 2011

Featured image: High Road to Taos, Kit Carson Forest, New Mexico, 2007