Dance diary. May 2023

Jewels. The Australian Ballet

I didn’t post a review of the Australian Ballet’s Sydney season of George Balanchine’s Jewels. Somehow I just wasn’t inspired to do so. The way Balanchine groups corps de ballet dancers in many of his works, and has them join hands and weave in and out of linear patterns, is starting to look a little out of date to me.

During May I read Francis Mason’s book I Remember Balanchine, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for a very long time. It was first published in 1991 (I bought it in 1995) and has the subtitle ‘Recollections of the Ballet Master by Those Who Knew Him’. Contributors include dancers, choreographers, administrative personnel, doctors and others who worked with Balanchine in New York during the 1940s and onwards. For me the most interesting comment about Jewels in this book came from Barbara Horgan, who worked as Balanchine’s personal assistant for over 20 years. She wrote that it was ‘A whole evening of New York classic ballet under one title, a gimmick but a fascinating, genius gimmick.’ Was it the book that made me feel uninspired? I’m not sure. But perhaps it was partly the ‘gimmick’ angle that made me feel the way I did this time, although I read Horgan’s comment after seeing the Australian Ballet production. I should add, however, that I have seen Jewels performed elsewhere and enjoyed it (mostly).

But at the performance I saw in Sydney (matinee 13 May) I did admire immensely Sharni Spencer and Callum Linanne who danced the lead couple in the final section, ‘Diamonds’. Technically they both shone, but they also had great rapport, which crossed into the audience. Watching them was a moving experience. A rehearsal of the pas de deux from ‘Diamonds’ by Spencer and Linnane is below, although it being a rehearsal the rapport I felt in the performance is not so obvious.

Grand Kyiv Ballet of Ukraine

It was interesting to see that the Canberra season of the Grand Kyiv Ballet of Ukraine made the front page of the 22 May print edition of The Canberra Times, and in a spectacular way with an incredible night-time image taken by freelance photographer Gary Ramage. It shows principal dancer Mie Nagasawa, dressed as Kitri in Don Quixote, posed on (and I mean on) Lake Burley Griffin with Black Mountain in the background. Dance doesn’t make it into newspapers very often these days, and it is certainly very rare that anything dance-related appears on a front page.

Front page print edition, *The Canberra Times*, 22 May 2023

I saw the company’s opening Australian performance in Port Macquarie. My review is at this link. The review also appeared, in a slightly different version, in Dance Australia.

Shaun Parker & Company

Shaun Parker & Company is gearing up for a European tour of Parker’s recent production of KING. The company will perform in Cologne, Germany June 16-17; Luxembourg, June 20-21; Wiesbaden, Germany June 27; and Bolzano, Italy July 14. More details here. My review of KING is at this link.

Shaun Parker & Company in a scene from *KING*, 2023. Photo: © Prudence Upton

Frances Rings

An interview by Steve Dow with Frances Rings, artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, is available in the June 2023 issue of Limelight Magazine (if you are a subscriber!). One section stood out for me. Rings was discussing an incident faced recently by one of her sons, which (rightly) upset him. Her response to her son was, in part, ‘It’s all right to be angry, but then you have to push that aside and get on with it, because if you carry that energy, you carry that negativity, it’s just going to manifest and will become toxic…’ .

I have admired Bangarra’s approach to their productions for years now. They have always put their stories before us and have done so powerfully, brilliantly and honestly—think Bennelong, or Macq, or Mathinna, and more. The stories have often been confronting but the presentation has never seemed to me to project the toxicity that Rings mentions may accompany anger. I feel sure that under the directorship of Rings I will continue to admire Bangarra’s strength of purpose as I did when Bangarra was directed by Stephen Page.

Danielle Rowe: News from the United States

Danielle Rowe, former principal dancer with the Australian Baller, and with an exceptional career across the world since leaving Australia, has been appointed artistic director of Oregon Ballet Theatre. Here is the link to the media release from Oregon Ballet Theatre. And read more at this link.

Danielle Rowe. Photo: © Alexander Reneff-Olson. Courtesy of Reneff-Olson Productions

Francesco Ventriglia

I had been wondering when the Sydney Choreographic Centre would be presenting its next show as I had enjoyed the Centre’s previous two productions—GRIMM in 2021 and Galileo in 2022. But when I tried to access the Centre’s website I discovered that the site no longer exists, which led me to search for news about its artistic director, Francesco Ventriglia. It seems that Ventriglia has returned to Italy. He was interviewed about his plans on giornaledelladanza.com by Sara Zuccari. For those who read Italian here is the link.

I interviewed Ventriglia in 2016 (when he was artistic director of Royal New Zealand Ballet) for the now-defunct site DanceTabs. There is a link to that interview here.

Michelle Potter, 31 May 2023

Featured image: Scene from ‘Diamonds’ in Jewels. The Australian Ballet, 2023. Photo: © Rainee Lantry.

KING. Shaun Parker & Company

4 March 2023. Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre, Sydney (in association with Sydney WorldPride Arts)

KING begins with Bulgarian singer/songwriter Ivo Dimchev walking down an aisle of the auditorium and taking his place onstage in front of the still-lowered front curtain. With a keyboard in hand he starts singing in his mesmerising voice, at times as a bass, at others as a counter-tenor. As his song ends, the curtain rises to reveal a combination set—a jungle of green growth and a mini cabaret setting represented by a chandelier. Against this background stands an all-male cast of ten dancers dressed formally in black-tie dinner suits. They are ready to dance.

The early choreography was fast-paced and extremely acrobatic, almost circus-style with overtones of street dancing. It was also quite formalised with group shapes appearing and disappearing and hands and arms forming group patterns, sometimes still and picture perfect, sometimes in motion. It’s transfixing to watch and seems to say, ‘Look, this is how men can be and behave, and how we can connect with each other. We have power’

Scene from *KING* (Ivo Dimchev in the background), 2023. Photo: © Daniel Boud

But slowly individual contacts were made amongst the group, many with obvious sexual overtones. The dancers then removed their coats, ties and shirts and began a different kind of connection with each other. The way that identity and power showed themselves in the opening scenes was slowly changing into a kind of aggression and anger, and perhaps also resentment of a kind. Dimchev continued to sing and provoke the performers.

Scene from *KING*, 2023. Photo: © Prudence Upton

Choreographically there were changes too. The men started to look progressively more animal-like, less than human at times. There were even moments when the Faun from Vaslav Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun flashed across my mind. Toby Derrick and Joel Fenton, as the two main protagonists, held one’s attention. Derrick by this stage was completely nude and Fenton, who was seen as too close to Derrick for the liking of the others, were set upon until both ended up on the floor, motionless and covered with leaves from the jungle. Slowly darkness brought the show to an end.

I was interested in the audience reaction as the work unfolded. In the beginning, as we watched moments that were sometimes playful, sometimes with sexual overtones, often spectacularly physical, and often showing a certain strength in uniformity, there were chuckles of pleasure from the audience as they sat back and watched in a relaxed manner. But as the connections between the dancers began to unravel somewhat, and become more aggressive, there was silence and many of the audience leaned forward in their seats wondering (perhaps anxiously) what was going to happen next. Were they surprised? Were they expecting what occurred or not?

When I spoke to Shaun Parker earlier this year he told me that KING was about ‘a different way of thinking about sexual identity and power and how they are linked.’ KING was not by any means a hagiography of the male sex, that is there was no undue reverence to, or idolising of the male. But then perhaps nor was there any suggestion of denunciation or disapproval of the changes that slowly took place. It seems to me that Parker was presenting us with a possible view of male identity and power rather than implying any positive or negative judgement.

This was an engrossing show from Shaun Parker & Company in terms of its choreography, its performance by all ten dancers, its musical background and input from Dimchev, and its visual elements.

Michelle Potter, 5 March 2023

Featured image: Scene from KING, 2023. Photo: © Prudence Upton

Talking to Shaun Parker

Back in 2017 I had the pleasure of interviewing dancer and choreographer Shaun Parker for the National Library’s oral history program. In that interview Parker talked at length about his childhood in Mildura, his schooling, his interest in science, taking up dancing, his work with Meryl Tankard and the early days of Shaun Parker & Company. I had watched some of his performances with Meryl Tankard’s company in Adelaide and my interest in his career continued when I saw Blue Love in Canberra in 2017. My recent conversation with him, however, focused on KING, a work originally staged in 2019. KING is making its return in February as part of the Sydney WorldPride 2023 before touring to Germany, Luxembourg and Italy in June and July.

The genesis of KING actually goes back to 2015, Parker tells me. With his strong background in science that predates his dance career, he had always wanted to do a work called XY. He envisaged it as a work about gender, behaviour and world politics, all based on macro and micro aspects of chromosomes. When a workshop he set up in 2015 generated a range of ideas about what ‘maleness’ entails, and how that affects us globally, a point of departure for KING was established. At the heart of KING is, Parker says, ‘a different way of thinking about sexual identity and power and how they are linked.’

The current production is set partly in a cocktail bar and partly in a jungle, a double focus that Parker explains as highlighting the difference between rich male-identifying people ‘swanning around in dinner suits with their wine’ and the ‘thousands being slain under the watch of the rich and powerful’.

Dancers from Shaun Parker & Company in *KING*. Photo: © Prudence Upward

KING is a music-dance collaboration between Parker and his dancers and Bulgarian vocalist Ivo Dimchev who composed the entire score. Parker says of Dimchev:

Ivo is the protagonist. He is a phenomenal opera, cabaret, blues, pop singer. There is no one like him. He is very tall and wears velvet and tattoo-ed make-up. He sings from gut-wrenching baritone to soaring, ethereal counter-tenor. He can be both male and female sounding. Throughout the entire piece he is always among the men, provoking them, giving them ideas to play with. We watch in an observational way: what will they do now? They end up dishevelled and naked as we follow the deconstruction of power.

Ivo Demchiv and dancers from Shaun Parker & Company in *KING*. Photo: © Prudence Upton

The role Dimchev plays is one that Parker himself was originally planning to take on. There are aspects of the work that reflect part of Parker’s life experiences, although he stresses that it is not an autobiographical work. Once he discovered Dimchev, however, and once Dimichev had agreed to take on the role, Parker stepped back. He had plenty to do beyond performing in the work. Dimchev, Parker says, is his ‘Bulgarian arts brother.’

As for the dancers, they are a mix of heterosexual, bi-sexual and homosexual artists and they are from several different cultures. As a result, they all have a unique quality to their performance.

The research and construction of the work seems to have been a complex procedure, but Parker says the result is ‘almost the simplest I have ever done.’ Parker commissioned two dramaturges, Veronica Neave and Felicity Nicol, to be part of KING. He worked extensively with them so that each scene would be clear through the choreography. ‘What can we say through the body?’ Parker asks. ‘The possibilities are endless.’ He is adamant, however, that he has to be tough on himself as he creates. He says he works on a section and then takes it to his dramaturges. He asks them to write down what the section means in just three words: he has no interest in being verbose. His intention must come across clearly to the audience. He wants the audience to see ‘a banger’.

Is KING a banger? To decide, you can see it in Sydney from 28 February to 4 March 2023.

Shaun Parker’s oral history interview recorded in 2017 is available for online listening at this link.

Michelle Potter, 8 February 2023

Featured image: Portrait of Shaun Parker. Photo: © Michele Aboud

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

Shaun Parker. The epic journey continues

When I interviewed Shaun Parker in 2017 for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program, his concluding remark was that it had been such a pleasure to be able to talk about ‘the epic journey of past, present and future.’ It was a wonderful way to finish the interview and it gave me the opportunity to write a story, largely about the past and in particular about the origins of Parker’s iconic work Blue Love, for The Canberra Times. Follow this link to read that story.

But Parker has not stood still since that interview. He is currently in Taipei with dancer Libby Montilla. Montilla will be performing Parker’s 20 minute solo work, ReMOTE, at the Kuandu Arts Festival as part of a triple bill program called Vis a Vis. In addition to ReMOTE, the program will feature works by choreographers from Canada and Taiwan.

‘It is wonderful to be performing our work alongside such incredible international artists’, Parker says. ‘And it really helps develop our connections with audiences and festivals across Asia. While we are in Taipei, Libby and I will also be researching new ideas with a Taiwanese bubble artist for a new show. It is going to be a jam-packed time, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.’

Parker has spent a lot of his time outside of Australia touring the works he has made over the 9 years since he founded Shaun Parker & Company in 2010. The company has toured to 19 countries across four continents and shown its work to a quarter of a million people globally. And to help with the development of this global reach, Parker has just recently secured a generous three-year sponsorship from the New York-based Denise and Michael Kellen Foundation. The Foundation, Parker says, has become the company’s ‘Global Partner’ and the sponsorship will help facilitate many programs that Parker believes are anchored in education, social change, and community engagement through the arts. In particular the sponsorship will help Shaun Parker & Company enter the US market.

But in the meantime Parker is working towards a program to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Shaun Parker & Company in 2020. He is planning to return to the stage himself in a revival of Blue Love. After a break from performing he is relishing getting back into training.

‘As a dancer you will always have a desire to dance for an audience again,’ he says. ‘As a choreographer, it is also really important to keep in touch with your body, but also with the energetic relationship between performer and audience.’

In the revival of Blue Love Parker will be performing with his original co-creator and performer, Jo Stone. ‘Jo is an actress who can dance,’ Parker says. ‘And I am a dancer who can act. Sparks fly when we’re on stage together.’

It is a pleasure too to be able to report that Shaun Parker & Company has been nominated as a finalist in the Premier’s NSW Export Awards. The awards ceremony is in Sydney on 16 October.

Michelle Potter, 2 October 2019

Featured image: Portrait of Shaun Parker (supplied)

Read my review of Blue Love from its Canberra performance in 2017 at this link.

Kevin Jackson, Robyn Hendricks and Nathan Brook in a study for Anna Karenina. Photo: © Justin Ridler

Dance diary. September 2019

The Australian Ballet 2020

The Australian Ballet’s 2020 season, announced earlier this month, looks to be the most interesting the company has offered for years. I was thrilled to see that Yuri Possokhov’s Anna Karenina was on the list. Although I haven’t seen this particular work I was lucky enough to see San Francisco Ballet perform Possokhov’s Rite of Spring back in 2013. It was totally mesmerising and I can’t wait to see Anna Karenina.

Another work I have seen elsewhere, which I am also anticipating with pleasure, is Frederick Ashton’s A Month in the Country, which dates back to 1976. Seeing it just a few years ago I wrote, ‘I found myself swept along by a strong performance from Zenaida Yanowsky as Natalia Petrovna and by Ashton’s ability to define characters through movement. The young, the old, different levels of society, everything was there in the choreography’.

The Australian Ballet’s 2020 season includes A Month in the Country as part of a triple bill, Molto, which also comprises Tim Harbour’s Squander and Glory, one of his best works I think, and a revival of Stephen Baynes’ crowd pleasing Molto Vivace. A Month in the Country needs strong acting (as no doubt Anna Karenina does too), so fingers crossed that the company’s coaching is good.

For other good things on the 2020 program, including Graeme Murphy’s delayed Happy Prince and a new work, Logos, from Alice Topp.

In the wings

Two stories that were meant to be posted in September were held up for various reasons. One is a profile of Shaun Parker who is currently in Taiwan performing at the Kuandu Arts festival in Taipei. The other is Jennifer Shennan’s account of a tribute held recently in Wellington to celebrate 40 years of teaching by Christine Gunn at the New Zealand School of Dance. Jennifer’s story is reflective and personal without ignoring the stellar input from Gunn over 40 years.

The issues that delayed these two posts have been sorted and the stories will appear shortly.

Press for September 2019

None! I am reminded of Martin Portus’ comment to me in a recent email ‘Ah! The death of the [print] outlet!’

Michelle Potter, 30 September 2019

Featured image: Kevin Jackson, Robyn Hendricks and Nathan Brook in a study for Anna Karenina. Photo: © Justin Ridler

Dance diary. May 2019

David McAllister to retire

The news for May is headlined by the announcement that David McAllister, artistic director of the Australian Ballet since 2002, will retire at the end of 2020. McAllister has always been generous in situations that are about dance but fall outside performances. He launched, for example, two of my books, A Collector’s Book of Australian Dance and Dame Maggie Scott. A Life in Dance. In this month’s featured image (above) he is seen in the Chunky Move studios in Melbourne launching A Collector’s Book. The banner on the left shows an image that appears in the book, which was taken by Greg Barrett.

I have also enjoyed seeing McAllister at various conferences, including the first BOLD Festival held in Canberra in 2017.

Who will be the next director? The names that have been mentioned in the press so far (I have arranged them alphabetically by family name) include Leanne Benjamin, David Hallberg, Li Cunxin, Graeme Murphy, and Stanton Welch. One or two of them have declared they are not interested (not sure if I necessarily believe that). I have one or two others in my mind but I won’t mention them here! I do hope, however, that whoever survives the selection process and becomes McAllister’s successor will be someone who will be audacious in repertoire choices.

Shaun Parker and Company

In September 2010, dancer (and singer in the counter tenor mode) Shaun Parker registered a name: Shaun Parker and Company. Next year the company that bears that name will celebrate its 10th anniversary with, I believe, a special program.

The company has just recently returned from the Middle East and Austria where Parker’s most recent production, KING, was performed. In the meantime, Parker is now working on a new show for young people, IN THE ZONE, which will premiere in Sydney this coming September. It will feature street dancer Libby Montilla and the technology of AirSticks.

Scene from KING, Shaun Parker and Company, 2019. Photo: © Prudence Upton

Archibald Prize 2019

Among the finalists for the 2019 Archibald Prize, Australia’s well-known portrait prize hosted by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was a portrait entitled Mao’s Last Dancer by Chinese-born artist Jun Chen. Chen, who is currently based in Brisbane, was commissioned last year by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra to paint a portrait of Li Cunxin, artistic director of Queensland Ballet. It was one of twenty portraits commissioned to celebrate the Gallery’s twentieth anniversary. Chen followed up with a second portrait of Li and entered it for the Archibald Prize. While it didn’t take first place it was good to see a portrait of a dancer among the 2019 finalists. See all the finalists here.

*Mao’s Last Dancer*: Jun Chen’s portrait of Li Cunxin

Following new posts

I have had a number of requests recently asking how to join up to receive notification of new posts. Here’s how to do it:

1.Make a comment by going to the ‘Leave a reply’ form, which you will find at the end of every post.
2. Before hitting the ‘Post comment’ field, check the box that says ‘Notify me of new posts by email’. (Make sure you have also filled out your name and email address. A website address is not necessary).
3. After you have submitted the comment you will receive a follow-up email asking you to confirm. It will say ‘Confirm follow’. Once you have clicked on this field you should begin to receive notifications of new posts.

[UPDATE: A new ‘subscribe’ box is now on the home page just under the box that says ‘View Full Tag Cloud’].

Michelle Potter, 31 May 2019

Blue Love. Shaun Parker & Lucia Mastrantone

17 August 2017. Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre

I have to admit to being curious as to what Blue Love would be like. The last time I saw Shaun Parker he was a dancer with Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre and, for a whole variety of reasons, I had not seen the works he had performed in or made after leaving the company and taking on his own, independent career. Well, I have to say I loved what he presented in Blue Love. It was outrageous at times, very clever at others, sometimes hilarious, and always entertaining.

Much of the pre-show media mentioned that it was a multi-media experience, which it was, especially as a result of the three short films that were screened during the evening. Parker had made these films close to 20 years ago and they showed him and his original co-performer, Jo Stone, engaged in various social activities, occasionally of a somewhat dubious nature. But, as interesting as these films were as a look-back at a certain lifestyle from the 1970s, I was more taken with other aspects of the show.

The way in which Parker involved the audience was a bit like a children’s pantomime for grown-ups, beginning as we entered the auditorium and were welcomed as guests at an intimate party in the home of Glenn Flune (Parker) and his wife Rhonda (Lucia Mastrantone). And you wouldn’t believe the people who were there! As people walked in and settled into their seats, Parker kept spotting (imaginary) celebrities—from Cate Blanchett to Pauline Hanson! Warming up to the laughter all this caused, Parker continued throughout the piece to ask questions of and make comments to the audience. Perhaps the most startlingly hilarious was ‘Would you like a grape?’ during a near nude scene between the Flunes. Glenn Flune’s only covering (apart from shoes and socks) was a strategically placed bunch of grapes. He faced the audience displaying his grapes and asked the question.

Shaun Parker and Lucia Mastrantone in 'Blue Love'. Photo: © David James McCarthy — Shaun Parker and Lucia Mastrantone in *Blue Love*, Canberra 2017. Photo: © David James McCarthy

I also loved the dance moves that peppered the piece. In fact the dancing in Blue Love was often quite physically demanding. There were many times when Parker lifted Mastrantone and flung her this way and that—not easy by any means. And both performers just took those moves in their stride. Then there were the costumes, so redolent of the 1970s. Mastrantone wore a blue mini-length dress and boots, Parker a brown suit. Then there were the flowers in the hair, the fox fur wrap, the hairstyles, and so on.

Shaun Parker and Lucia Mastrantone in *Blue Love*, Canberra 2017. Photo: © David James McCarthy

But in the end Blue Love set out to examine human relationships, or those between a man and a woman, in a search for perfect love. There were the cosy bits and the not so cosy, and the unfolding of the ups and downs of the couple led to the finale when the dialogue was composed pretty much entirely of lines from popular songs, mainly from the 1970s with some a little earlier and some a little later. Much laughter here too—laughter that we recognised the sentences, laughter at how smart it all was? And with the final exhortation to love the one you love the Flunes retired to their bedroom.

Blue Love was just a wonderfully entertaining show, behind which there was a clever mind at work focusing the show in a certain direction. I occasionally could hear Meryl Tankard’s voice behind it all, which is not surprising given Parker’s long association with Tankard. This is not to say that Parker does not a have a voice of his own. But there was a wonderful association with what Tankard was able to do—present a larrikin show, wonderfully Australian on the surface but with a more serious subtext. More please.

My preview story for Blue Love is at this link.

Michelle Potter, 20 August 2017

Blue Love. Shaun Parker & Company

Recently I spoke to Shaun Parker about his work Blue Love, which will have a short season at the Canberra Theatre Centre later in August. I was somewhat taken aback (to put it mildly) when I saw the byline for the article that appeared in the print version, and its digital copy, of the The Canberra Times (Panorama) this morning (Saturday 5 August 2017). Apparently someone thought Karen Hardy wrote it. She didn’t. I did. Here is the unchangeable byline I saw this morning.

Here is my text.

Dancer and choreographer Shaun Parker always enjoyed taking dance classes as a young boy in Mildura, Victoria, where he was born. But he went on after he’d finished school to study science at Monash University, and it was there that dance re-entered his life. He discovered a dance society at Monash and found himself dancing every night. Dance, with its wide range of collaborative elements, became an all-consuming passion for him and he enrolled at the Victorian College of the Arts with the aim of eventually pursuing a professional career as a dancer.

Not long after graduating from his tertiary dance training he was selected by Meryl Tankard to join her company, Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre, which was just starting up in Adelaide. He stayed with Tankard for seven years, touring across Australia and around the world with her company.

‘It was a wonderful time with Meryl,’ he says. ‘They were formative years for me and it was such a great experience to learn from her and to be exposed to her knowledge. I was heartbroken when Meryl was removed from her role as artistic director. We were leading the world when she was dismissed. It was brutal and a very traumatic time. All the dancers resigned in protest.’

Parker worked as an independent dancer for the next six years with companies in Australia and overseas, including with leading choreographers and directors such as Kate Champion in Australia, Meredith Monk in New York, and Sasha Waltz in Berlin. But eventually the lure of choreography took over and he began working as a freelance choreographer. It was not long, however, before he realised how difficult it was to work in that way, self-producing, writing grants alone, under-taking all the administrative tasks single-handedly, and so on. It was time, he thought, to set up his own company. It took a year or two of organisation, but Shaun Parker & Company came into being in 2010.

‘I needed someone to help me with the day to day aspects of working independently,’ he explains. ‘Now I have that, and I have a group of dancers that I call on from project to project. I make mainstage dance-theatre works with a humanistic element. And, now that I have a daughter—she’s 11, I have begun making works for families and children. This latter part of my work gives me a lot of joy.’

For Canberra, Parker is restaging Blue Love, a work that began back in 1999 when Parker and fellow performer, Jo Stone, were working in Vienna. They went to a karaoke bar one night and started singing along for fun. Parker says they were ‘daggy pop songs’, but they were all about love and it struck him that sometimes a one-liner from a pop song could be intense and meaningful. It set off a chain of events that culminated with Parker and Stone making three short films, shot in North Bondi. The films were screened around the world—Athens, Berlin, Krakow, London, Melbourne, San Francisco, Verona.

Blue Love, the stage show incorporating the films, premiered in 2005. It examines the idea of perfect love and takes the audience on a multi-media expedition in search of the perfect relationship through the experiences of a couple, Glenn Flune played by Parker and his wife Rhonda performed by Lucia Mastrantone. It is a work that Parker describes as part lecture, part operatic theatre, and part group night, and the films are projected onto the wall of the room that forms the set. They become the home movies of Glenn and Rhonda, which they share with the audience.

But Parker also remarks that Blue Love is a highly physical work and he is only too aware of its demands on his body, especially as he has not performed himself for a while now. So he has been taking ballet classes, doing yoga, doing push-ups, running along the beach, and engaging in other physical activities to get back his former strength. But he says he keeps thinking about what he has to offer audiences who come to see Blue Love now.

‘Bringing Blue Love back after several years allows me to dance for a little longer. It’s wonderful to feel that I haven’t yet been put out to pasture. I think it’s a shame that, after all those years of training, dancers are often cast aside when they are quite young. It’s possible to celebrate maturity. When audiences look at the films we are screening, which were made 18 years ago now, they can see young people. But on stage they see an older couple clearly looking back at a former version of themselves. To me that’s quite poetic.’

Michelle Potter, 5 August 2017

Featured image: Shaun Parker and Lucia Mastrantone in Blue Love. Photo: Simon Wachter