Dance diary. May 2024

Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship

Given the publication of my book, Kristian Fredrikson. Designer by Melbourne Books in 2020, I am always interested in the winners of the biennial award of the Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship. My book would never have been published without the generous donations I received via the Australian Cultural Fund, and from royalties owing to Fredrikson during the year I was struggling to assist financially with the book’s publication. The committee that administers the scholarship was hugely supportive throughout all aspects of the book’s production.

The 2024 winner of the Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship is Charles Davis who graduated from NIDA in 2014, and who has also studied architectural design at Monash University. He has designed for Sydney Theatre Company, West Australian Opera, Opera Queensland, Pinchgut Opera and other theatrical groups. As far as his input into dance productions goes, Davis was set designer for the Australian Ballet’s recent production of Stephanie Lake’s Circle Electric. Incidentally, another recipient of an earlier Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship, Paula Levis, designed the costumes for that same production.

Frank van Straten (1936–2024)

This is a somewhat belated comment on the death of Frank van Straten, who died in Melbourne in April 2024. Van Straten was an amazing historian of the theatre across a range of genres and was the first archivist at Melbourne’s Performing Arts Museum (now the Australian Performing Arts Collection). I remember him particularly for his hugely valuable contribution to Graeme Murphy’s Tivoli, a joint production between the Australian Ballet and Sydney Dance Company, which premiered in 2001 to commemorate Australia’s Centenary of Federation. Van Straten acted as historical consultant for the work, which honoured and celebrated the Tivoli circuit and the remarkable nature of its repertoire. His input helped make Tivoli an exceptional ‘dance musical’.

Cover image for *Tivoli* national tour 2001

Van Straten’s knowledge of theatrical history in Australia was vast and I recall a post on this website in which, in a comment, he helped with identifying a particular Sydney-based teacher working in the 1930s named Richard White. His books on Australian performing arts history, too, have often given me information that I had struggled to find elsewhere. He was a truly generous person.

I can’t call this comment an obituary, but for what I would call an obituary see the article in Stage Whispers. Listen, too, to van Straten discuss the nature of Tivoli performances as recorded by Philippe Charluet on film at this link. Oral historian Bill Stephens has also recorded an interview with van Straten for the National Library of Australia’s oral history program. It currently requires written permission for access, but that may change in the near future following van Straten’s death. Here is the current catalogue link.

Backstage notes

Jennifer Shennan drew my attention to a recent article in The Guardian called Wings, Wigs and Wonder. It takes the reader backstage during a performance by Birmingham Royal Ballet and is called a ‘photo essay’. It has some interesting backstage images included within the text, which was written by Katie Edwards. Read at this link.

Recent Reading

In my dance diary for April 2024 I wrote about Deborah Jowitt’s recent publication Errand into the Maze. The Life and Works of Martha Graham, which to my mind was not always the easiest of reads, despite Jowitt’s extensive research and very strong dance background. As fate would have it, however, while mulling over Jowitt’s publication I came across an interesting article by Marina Harss, whose work I much admire, called On Point: Martha Graham’s Perfect Partnership with Isamu Noguchi. It’s available (at least for the moment) at this link.

Currently I am reading another of the books I bought at the recent Canberra Lifeline Book Fair—Isadora. A sensational life by Peter Kurth (Paperback edition, 2003). In an early page entitled ‘Press for Isadora‘, one comment is, ‘There is never a dull moment in Peter Kurth’s action-packed biography…’. True! Much of what is mentioned does not appear in other books about Isadora, or not nearly to the same extent. Nevertheless, with its different focus it provides another perspective on her life, perhaps with the word ‘sensational’, which appears in the book’s subtitle, emerging as characterising that different focus. Dance is probably not the major focus!

Press for May 2024

‘Dancers perform strong farewell to Ruth Osborne.’ City News (Canberra), 17 May 2024. Online at this link

Michelle Potter, 31 May 2024

Featured image: Cameron Holmes and Maxim Zenin in Circle Electric. The Australian Ballet, 2024. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Études/Circle Electric. The Australian Ballet

15 May 2024 (matinee). Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House

Études and Circle Electric—it is hard to imagine two more different ballets (or perhaps dance works is a better expression than ballets). But they were the two works that shared the Australian Ballet’s Sydney program in May.

Danish-born Harald Lander choreographed Études in 1948 for the Royal Danish Ballet. It is essentially a non-narrative work (an unusual departure for the Danish company at that time) and is based on the structure of a ballet class. It begins with exercises at the barre and moves on to centre work building up to various, often complex, aspects of a class. There are many moments when we can see the relationship between class work and the art of ballet as it appears onstage. This happens as the choreography develops patterns and groupings of dancers, and also in references to other well-known productions, including the Danish classic, August Bournonville’s La Sylphide.

Circle Electric, on the other hand, is a newly commissioned work from recently appointed resident choreographer for the Australian Ballet, Stephanie Lake. The official synopsis says that the work ‘starts as a microscopic investigation of the intricate and the intimate, ultimately expanding to encompass a telescopic view of humanity.’

Circle Electric opened the program and for a moment it looked promising as two lines of dancers, positioned close together and wearing startling costumes (designer Paula Levis), held their arms to the front with fingers dramatically stretched out, then lifted the arms skywards, heads looking up expectantly.

A moment from the opening scene of *Circle Electric*. The Australian Ballet 2024. Photo: © Daniel Boud

But suddenly the dancers leaned forwards/downwards and engaged in a weird set of shivers, shakes and odd poses. They reminded me of animals in a zoo to tell the truth. Then they stretched upwards again, and dropped down again. This would not have been so bad had there only been one or two iterations of the up/down construction. But it went on and on and on. It was, admittedly, broken up between repeats with duets from other dancers (costumed quite differently) coming out from the wings but then rushing back before the up/down bit began again. Why repeat so many times? It was just frustrating to see it over and over and over again.

The frustrations continued as the work progressed. The many sections that followed seemed not to relate to each other and, when we got past the ‘intricate and intimate’ bit, crowds of dancers came together as a group of some kind and shouted across the stage to each other. Then they turned on the audience and shouted at us. Why?

Scene from Stephanie Lake’s Circle Electric. The Australian Ballet 2024. Photo Daniel Boud — A moment from *Circle Electric*. The Australian Ballet 2024. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Then there was the length of the piece. After a 1:30pm start, interval came at about 2:45pm. That’s 70+ minutes of what seemed like disconnected material. It was just too long and much repeated material could easily have been removed. A 30 minute piece perhaps?

The best part of Circle Electric was the outstanding dancing. The bodies of the highly trained dancers of the Australian Ballet can adapt pretty much to any style and they did adapt beautifully to Lake’s individualistic contemporary style.

After Circle Electric, Études was blessed relief. It has an engrossing beginning with its choreography reflecting exercises at the barre made to look so theatrically engaging with shaded lighting and moments when only feet, or some other sections of the body, are lit up. What follows is equally engrossing as it leads us through more examples of ballet technique put side by side with reflections on what makes it to the stage. It is a technically demanding work and there were times when a few wobbles occurred. But basically it was a thrill to watch. All I want to say is, ‘What a relief!’.

I find it hard to understand how David Hallberg would appoint a resident choreographer whose creative impulses can deliver something like Circle Electric, even more so when looking back at the choreographers who have held the position of resident choreographer over the past decades (going way back to Maina Gielgud’s tenure as director). Dance must move ahead for sure, but 70 minutes of dance that seems composed of sections and sections of movement that appear not to have any overall coherence just doesn’t cut it for me (especially when I paid $215 for my ticket).

Michelle Potter, 17 May 2024

Featured image: Artists of the Australian Ballet in an early moment from Etudes, 2024. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Dance diary. December 2023

Li Cunxin’s farewell

Li Cunxin’s farewell as artistic director of Queensland Ballet was celebrated in a gala show over three performances on 12 and 13 December. Below is a tribute to Li from a range of people who worked with him, along with some terrific photos and footage from the decade of his directorship, and earlier. So worth a look!

See more about Li and his incredible input into the growth of Queensland Ballet at this link.

Leanne Benjamin and that outback photograph by Jason Bell

Early in her autobiography, Built for ballet, Leanne Benjamin talks about the circumstances surrounding the creation of the photo taken of her in outback Australia, which I have used on this website on occasions and which (not surprisingly) always generates comments of one kind or another.

Leanne Benjamin who describes this image with the words ‘flying across the outback in my red chiffon.’ Photo: © Jason Bell, 2006

Benjamin was in Australia in December 2006 as a participant in Advance 100 Leading Global Australians Summit, which she says brought together ‘a diverse group of 100 of the best international minds in business, science, education, research and the arts’. A photo shoot with English photographer Jason Bell and his team, unrelated to Advance 100, followed. It was specifically for a Royal Ballet series called A World Stage in which artists were shown in images, and sometimes on brief film footage, reflecting their country of origin. Benjamin calls it ‘an advertising campaign … which emphasised the international character of the Royal Ballet, and the Opera House where it has its home.’ Her costume, which she describes as ‘a Chanel lipstick-red dress with a skirt that would flash out behind me as I moved, and catch the breeze if we were lucky enough to get one in forty-degree heat’, was made in London by the costume department of the Royal Opera House.

‘Jason’s idea,’ Benjamin writes, ‘was to go for the centre of the continent, where even the colour of the earth tells you that you are in Australia. We’d hoped to shoot in front of Uluru, the country’s most famous landmark, but we couldn’t get permission to film there. The previous day, the team had been to the iconic domed rocks of Kata Tjuta and I’d had a terrific time, going through my paces on a flat floor, surrounded by looming boulders. It was as if someone had built a perfect set for a shoot.

The next day—the day we actually got the photograph Jason had been dreaming of—the terrain was much rougher, and the weather more overcast. To my surprise, the team had organised for a local ‘truckie’ to drive an authentic Australian road train slowly back and forth behind the shoot for a few hours. ….. This was not a stunt photograph, it was me, launching myself into the sky, in touch with the red, red earth of my beloved country.’

Who can forget that image?

Quotes above are from Benjamin’s book Built for ballet. An autobiography (Melbourne: Melbourne Books, 2021) pp. 21–22.

Oral history interview with James Batchelor

My final National Library oral history interview for 2023 was with James Batchelor, Canberra-born performer and choreographer who works between Australia and Europe. Amongst the many topics addressed during the interview was a discussion of his choreographic process, including in relation to two of his most recent works—Event and Short cuts to familiar places—and some information about his trip to the sub-Antarctic, including how it came about and the developments that followed the trip. The interview, once processed, will be available for all to hear.

James Batchelor performing in the Mulangarri Grasslands, Canberra, 2021. Photo: © Andrew Sikorski

Stephanie Lake. New resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet

Alice Topp’s term as resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet finished at the end of 2023 and the newly appointed holder of the position is Stephanie Lake. Lake will present her first work for the Australian Ballet, Circle Electric, in Sydney in May 2024 and in Melbourne in October 2024. Circle Electric will share the program with Harald Lander’s Études, which explores the intricacies of the classical ballet technique. The potential is certainly there for audiences to experience two vastly different approaches to dance.

Two of Lake’s recent works (for companies other than her own Stephanie Lake Company), are reviewed on this website at these links: Auto Cannibal (2019) and Biography (2022)

Promotions at the Australian Ballet

There were a number of promotions announced as the Australian Ballet’s 2023 season came to an end. Seen below in a scene from Don Quixote are newly appointed principals Jill Ogai and Marcus Morelli.

Jill Ogai and Marcus Morelli as Kitri and Basilio in *Don Quixote*. The Australian Ballet, 2023. Photos: © Christopher Rodgers-Wilson

In addition, Yuumi Yamada is now a senior artist, Maxim Zenin, Aya Watanabe, Katherine Sonnekus, Misha Barkidjija and Cameron Holmes have been newly appointed as soloists, and Montana Rubin, Evie Ferris, Saranja Crowe, Sara Andrion, Hugo Dumapit, Adam Elmes, Larissa Kiyoto-Ward, and Lilla Harvey have been promoted to the rank of coryphée.

Yuumi Yamada has constantly impressed me over recent years and her promotion is definitely worth celebrating, but congratulations to all who were promoted. I look forward to watching their progress in 2024.

Some statistics for 2023

In 2023 this website received 48,959 visits, that is just over 4,000 per month. The top five 2023 posts in terms of number of visits were, in order, ”Talking to Martin James … about teaching’, ‘Swan Lake. The Australian Ballet (2023)’, ‘Strictly Gershwin, Queensland Ballet’, ‘Alice Topp’s Paragon’, and ‘David McAllister. An exciting retirement opportunity’. Of posts relating specifically to dance in New Zealand the top five posts accessed, again in order, were ‘(m)Orpheus. New Zealand Opera and Black Grace’, ‘Lightscapes. Royal New Zealand Ballet’, ‘Myth and Ritual. Orchestra Wellington with Ballet Collective Aotearoa’, ‘Platinum Royal New Zealand Ballet’ and ‘Ballet Noir. Mary-Jane O’Reilly and Company’. Top tags accessed, some used largely it seems for research purposes, were Mary McKendry, The Australian Ballet, Vadim Muntagirov, Graduation Ball, and Bodenwieser Ballet

Unfortunately Google Analytics, from which my data is obtained, has changed its format and the ability to access the number of visits from particular cities is limited to just one week prior to the period of each visit! But of overseas cities, London and New York appear every week.

Michelle Potter, 31 December 2023

Li Cunxin, 2023. Farewell image from Queensland Ballet. Photographer not identified.

Bespoke, 2022. Queensland Ballet

30 July 2022. Talbot Theatre, Thomas Dixon Centre, Brisbane

Bespoke for 2022 comprised Tethered by Petros Treklis, Biography by Stephanie Lake and A Rhapsody in Time by Greg Horsman. All three had lighting by Cameron Goerg and costumes by Zoe Griffiths. Choreographically it was a highly diverse program and continues Queensland Ballet’s annual, and admirable, program of promoting new choreography.

Treklis’ work, danced to a score by James Brown, left me somewhat cold I have to say. Treklis says in program notes that his work explores ‘the idea of the unknown and our other selves’. For me it focused on darkness with a bit of light thrown in for good measure. The cast of fifteen was mostly dressed in dark grey garb, a kind of boiler suit but with (I think) some kind of monster-style head covering—it was hard to see in the darkness just exactly what comprised the costume. Those dressed this way were programmed as Shadows. Then there were two figures, a Man and a Woman, who at times interacted with the main group of Shadows. They were dressed in costumes that were light coloured, and much less all-encompassing. Choreographically the Shadows had mostly group poses and movements to perform whereas the Man and the Woman had more freedom. But I’m not sure what was the outcome of the relationship between the light and the dark. The work was danced strongly by Queensland Ballet’s Jette Parker Young Artists who deserve credit for making Tethered watchable.

Scene from *Tethered*, Queensland Ballet, 2022. Photo: © David Kelly

Stephanie Lake’s Biography sat at the other end of the spectrum really. Danced to a mixture of music from J. S. Bach to Robin Fox, it was lighter and brighter, sometimes even amusing. Lake describes it as ‘the subterranean forces that shape out lives’ and choreographically the work provided us with some fascinating structures—some were strongly and geometrically grouped, others less so. The dancers showed off the different ‘forces’ with more than a spark of individuality. I have to say though that it reminded me rather too much of Alexander Ekman’s work. Cacti comes immediately to mind. But still it was entertaining in an especially quirky way..

Scene from *Biography*, Queensland Ballet, 2022. Photo: © David Kelly

The absolute standout work was the closing item, Greg Horsman’s A Rhapsody in Motion danced to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43. It began with a reference (perhaps) to Harald Landers’ Etudes with the dancers performing various movements at the barre—or a series of barres (they were quite short in length) spread out across the stage. But it was just a passing reference as Horsman used the barres as a prop for the dancers who moved them, slid under them and used them in a variety of ways. Once the barres were taken away, leaving an empty performing space, we saw some beautifully complex, vibrant and diversely structured classical choreography, stunningly performed (as ever) by the artists of Queensland Ballet.

Dancers of Queensland Ballet in the opening scene from *A Rhapsody in Motion*. Queensland Ballet, 2022. Photo: ©David Kelly

While it is hard to single out any one dancer, I was completely bowled over by the exceptional performance at the matinee I attended from Laura Tosar, who was recently promoted to soloist and was partnered on this occasion by David Power. Tosar has such a beautifully fluid body and technically could scarcely be faulted. But what was just brilliant was the way she was able to express her pleasure at performing. Yes, there was a smile on her face, but it was not a forced smile, just an expression of emotion and pleasure at being onstage, and that expression coursed through her whole body. I am so looking forward to seeing her perform again.

Laura Tosar and Patricio Reve in a pas de deux from *A Rhapsody in Motion*. Queensland Ballet, 2022. Photo: ©David Kelly

This triple bill was a mixed bag and it is always a thrill to watch Queensland Ballet take on the challenges that Bespoke offers. A program of works from Treklis, Lake and Horsman provides a panoply of challenges

Michelle Potter, 7 August 2022

Featured image: Dancers of Queensland Ballet in Greg Horsman’s A Rhapsody in Motion, Queensland Ballet 2022. Photo: © David Kelly

Annie Greig (1953–2021)

Annie Greig, who has died just a few days short of her 68th birthday, was born and grew up in Launceston and took her first dance lessons there from Nelly Dova. But, as a young teenager, Greig gave up those ballet classes when her interest in school sports and physical education activities began to occupy her time. When she handed in her ballet shoes to Dova, as a symbol of her changed interests, Dova said to her ‘You will come back.’ While Greig did not go back to ballet, she did fulfil Dova’s prediction. Other forms of dance, and a whole variety of related activities, did become the major focus of her life.

After finishing school Greig undertook a course in Physical Education at the College of Advanced Education in Hobart. As part of that course she had a secondment with Adelaide’s Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), then under the direction of Elizabeth Dalman. It was working with Dalman that sparked her interest in contemporary dance and Greig regarded Dalman as the most significant influence on her career during the 1970s. While on secondment with ADT she also took mime classes at Flinders University with Zora Semberova and was influenced by the approaches of Eleo Pomare and Jennifer Barrie who were working with Dalman at the time.

Greig began teaching after completing her course in Hobart and then, following a recreational trip trip to Europe in 1977, she received a Fulbright scholarship in 1979. The Fulbright enabled her to undertake a Master’s degree in dance and dance education at New York University. It was in New York that she developed her interest in film and video production and won awards in that area in the early 1980s at the American Dance Film and Video Festival. As well as gaining her Master’s degree, in New York she worked for a year with choreographer Alwin Nikolais, especially on cataloguing the records of the Alwin Nikolais Company and of the creative career of Nikolais and Murray Louis. Nikolais she regarded as another major influence on the direction her life took. He was, Greig said, ‘such a holistic artist, creating his own sound scores, costumes, lighting designs as well as his ingenious choreographic works.’

Greig returned to Australia in the early 1980s and, after a brief stay in Tasmania, worked freelance in Sydney, taking on a range of teaching positions as well as undertaking advocacy and volunteer work for Ausdance NSW. But in 1986 she was offered a position as co-ordinator at the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA). There she developed the organisation’s touring program and oversaw the accreditation of NAISDA’s curriculum. She returned to Tasmania in 1991 where Jenny Kinder, then artistic director of Tasdance, offered her the position of general manager and, later, liaison officer with the company.

Greig was appointed artistic director of Tasdance in 1997, a position she held until she retired in 2015. Her contribution was recognised by the Tasmanian Parliament when Andrea Dawkins, a Greens parliamentarian in the House of Assembly, moved that the House recognise and acknowledge that Greig had ‘developed Tasdance into a vital force in Tasmania’s cultural landscape and into the national arts arena,’ and that under her guidance ‘Tasdance had forged a reputation for quality mainstage performances, as well as innovative community and educational programs.’ During her tenure as artistic director of Tasdance, Greig also undertook an AsiaLink Residency in 2001, which resulted in opportunities for Tasdance to perform in Asia, including in Korea and India. Under Greig’s direction Tasdance performed over 70 works, of which at least half were choreographed by young, emerging artists. Greig’s last production was Affinity, which focused on Tasmanian born or oriented creators including Graeme Murphy, Stephanie Lake and Peter Sculthorpe.

When speaking in 2017 to Liz Lea, director of Canberra’s BOLD Festival where Greig was an invited participant, Greig described herself as a ‘facilitator’. ‘Making things happen is what floats my boat,’ she said. ‘I am always excited by thinking up a new project and then setting up the people connections, the artistic ingredients and other possibilities.’ Her multi-faceted career is a clear indication of the extent to which she investigated many of those ‘new possibilities’. Her last project looked back, in a way, to her work with Alwin Nikolais in New York in the 1980s. Greig was working to document information on the whereabouts of material in various formats relating to the career of Graeme Murphy, and was adding to those records.

Among the many honours and accolades Greig received throughout her lifetime were a Centenary Medal in 2003 and an Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance in 2014. She was also listed on the Honour Roll for Women in Tasmania in 2010 and made an honorary life member of Ausdance having served as President of Ausdance NSW and Vice-President of Ausdance National.

Towards the end of her life Greig sent out a newsletter to her friends and colleagues. It was entitled Exit stage left. What a wonderful life. That newsletter also carried photos of Greig in the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne with one showing Greig and her partner, Jen Brown, toasting that life with champagne and oysters. Vale Annie Greig. A wonderful life indeed.

Annie Christine Greig: Born Launceston, 15 November 1953; died 2 November 2021

Michelle Potter, 3 November 2021

Featured image: Portrait of Annie Greig, c. 2014. Photographer not identified

Australian Dance Awards 2018 and 2019

The recipients of Australian Dance Awards for 2018 and 2019 were announced on 8 December. The announcement was streamed by Ausdance National in order to manage the various restrictions on travel, gatherings of people and the like as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. But it was relaxing at least to be able to watch from the comfort of one’s lounge room, or at a small ‘watch party’.

The two recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award were Jill Sykes (2019) and Janet Karin (2020). As is the usual practice, the Lifetime Achievement Awards were announced prior to the other awards and this information has been on the Ausdance National website since late November.

Both awardees have had astonishing careers for well over the forty years that is a requirement for nominations in this category, and their love for and commitment to dance is exceptional. Read the citations that accompany their award at the following links: Jill Sykes ; Janet Karin.

Below is the list of awardees in other categories with just one or two personal comments, some photographs, and links to my reviews, where available:

Services to Dance
Valerie Lawson (2018)
Philippe Charluet (2019)

The work of filmmaker Philippe Charluet crosses many boundaries from documentaries to the addition of film sequences in dance works (remember, for example, his black and white footage in Nutcracker. The Story of Clara). He has worked with many Australian companies including Sydney Dance Company, Meryl Tankard Company, and the Australian Ballet and his contribution to Australia’s dance heritage is inestimable. His website, Stella Motion Pictures, is at this link. Below is a trailer for his documentary on Meryl Tankard.

Services to Dance Education
Karen Malek (2018)
Sue Fox (2019)

Outstanding Achievement in Community Dance
Tracks Dance for In Your Blood (2018)
Fine Lines for The Right (2019)

Outstanding Achievement in Youth Dance
FLING Physical Theatre for Body & Environment (2018)
QL2 Dance for Filling the Space (2019)

Filling the Space was a triple bill program comprising Proscenium by James Batchelor, Naturally Man-Made by Ruth Osborne, and The Shape of Empty Space by Eliza Sanders. It was performed by QL2’s Quantum Leap group, the senior group at QL2.

Quantum Leap dancers in Ruth Osborne's 'Naturally Mad Made'. Filling the Space, 2019. Photo: © Lorna Sim — Quantum Leap dancers in Ruth Osborne’s ‘Naturally Man-Made’. *Filling the Space*, 2019. Photo: © Lorna Sim

Outstanding Achievement in Choreography
Narelle Benjamin and Paul White for Cella (2018)
Garry Stewart for South with Australian Dance Theatre (2019)

Outstanding Performance by a Company
Australian Dance Theatre for The Beginning of Nature (2018)
Bangarra Dance Theatre for 30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand (2019)

Dancers of Australian Dance Theatre in 'The Beginning of Nature', 2018. Photo: © David James McCarthy — Dancers of Australian Dance Theatre in Garry Stewart’s *The Beginning of Nature*, 2018. Photo: © David James McCarthy

Outstanding Achievement in Independent Dance
Vicki van Hout for plenty serious TALK TALK (2018)
Laura Boynes for Wonder Woman (2019)

Outstanding Performance by a Female Dancer
Narelle Benjamin for Cella (2018)
Marlo Benjamin in Stephanie Lake’s Skeleton Tree (2019)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer
Kimball Wong for The Beginning of Nature (2018)
Tyrel Dulvarie in Bangarra Dance Theatre’s 30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand (2019)

Scene from 'Unaipon'. Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud — Tyrel Dulvarie as Tolkami (the West Wind) in Frances Rings’ *Unaipon* from *30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand*, Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Dance, Musicals or Physical Theatre
The Farm for Tide (2018)
Strut Dance for SUNSET (2019)

Outstanding Achievement in Dance on Film or New Media
RIPE Dance for In a Different Space (2018)
Samaya Wives for Oten (2019)

Congratulations to the awardees and to those who were short listed as well. Some of the short listed items that I especially admired included the work of West Australian Ballet, especially the production of and dancing in Giselle and La Sylphide; Liz Lea’s RED; the performance by Anca Frankenhaeuser in MIST; and Alice Topp’s Aurum. Some results were very close.

Michelle Potter, 8 December 2020

Featured image: Rika Hamaguchi and Tyrel Dulvarie in a section from ‘to make fire’. 30 Years of Sixty Five Thousand, Bangarra Dance Theatre, 2019. Photo: © Daniel Boud

Auto Cannibal 茁长的掠食Photo: ©️ WANG Xiao-jing

Matrix. Expressions Dance Company & Beijing Dance/LDTX

7 November 2019. The Q, Queanbeyan

Matrix comprised two works, Auto Cannibal by Stephanie Lake, and Encircling Voyage by MA Bo. The program was created in Beijing over a five week period when twenty dancers, six from the Brisbane-based Expressions Dance Company and fourteen from the Beijing-based Beijing Dance/LDTX came together to work and collaborate. The Queanbeyan performance was just the second Australian show with the program having had its Australian premiere in a single performance in Cairns earlier in November. It continues on to Brisbane and then to Hong Kong.

Perhaps the first thing to say is that the twenty dancers, from two vastly different cultures, blended together beautifully. There was no attempt to separate the Australian performers from their Chinese colleagues and all twenty absorbed two quite different choreographic approaches with apparent ease. No one was singled out by name on the printed program (in fact the dancers names were never given). It nevertheless was a surprising and enriching evening.

Lake’s Auto Cannibal opened the program and first up I wondered what on earth ‘auto cannibal’ meant. Well, in program notes Lake wrote, ‘When creating new work I’m conscious of the regurgitation of past choreographic ideas. I’m sometimes afraid that I’m repeating myself or cannibalising my own work.’ So the title is very much a personal notion and had little effect on how I saw the work. Perhaps it was even an unnecessary distraction?

That aside, I was moved by Auto Cannibal, mostly as a fascinating piece of abstract choreography. It was at times quite regimented. There were, for example, moments of marching-style movement as dancers crossed the stage, as well as powerful moments of unison movement. At times, however, some dancers broke away from the group and set up mini groups of their own giving a satisfying change of pace. Some solos and duets looked spectacular as a result of the way Lake wraps bodies around each or brings them together in groups that arouse curiosity.

Scene from *Auto Canniba*l 茁长的掠食Photo: ©️ YIN Peng

This was a sophisticated choreographic work and costumes by XING Yameng, lighting by Joy CHEN and a sound score by Robin Fox all added to its success.

MA Bo’s Encircling voyage, which completed the program, had a clear, if general rather than specific focus. Through her choreography MA examined the young and the old in society and the processes they go through during the cycle of life. A distinctive feature of MA’s work was her use of several long, low benches with a surface that at times became mirror-like under the lighting, again by Joy CHEN. Sometimes these benches were used for seating, at other times they were turned on their side and acted as pillar-like objects, while towards the end of the work they were pushed together to form a table on which a death seemed to take place (at least that’s how I read it). Ash filled the air at the end of the work.

Scene from *Encircling Voyage* 归来的承诺 Photo: ©️ WANG Xiao-jing

MA’s choreography contained a variety of moves from startling and complex solos and duets in which arms and legs were pushed into extreme positions, to shuffling, bent-over movements that appeared to signal the aged community. We even saw a bit of crawling that took us back to babyhood. Similarly the soundscape, which contained music by David Darling and sound effects by MAO Liang, ranged from baby cries to what might be considered more musical sounds.

Apart from the costume nudity towards the end of the death scene, all the dancers wore the same long dress designed by WANG Yan. While it was quite pleasing to the eye when the dancers were upright, and looked especially good when the dancers grouped together and shuffled across the stage. But it was not nearly so attractive when the dancers were throwing themselves into extreme positions when it never seemed to come back to rest and tended to show off the dancers’ underwear for rather too long a time.

This was an engaging evening of contemporary dance. Perhaps its most arresting feature was the nature of the collaboration in which two cultures blended so well together. Bouquets to the dancers for achieving such immersion.

Michelle Potter, 9 November 2019

Scene from 'Sigan', New Zealand Dance Company, 2019. Photo: © John McDermott

Kiss the sky. New Zealand Dance Company

1 May 2019. Opera House, Wellington
Reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

New Zealand Dance Company’s Kiss the Sky is a highly energised and energising program of three works that appealed to an enthusiastic audience. Production values are always strong with this company, and the six dancers are all smart, sharp, sophisticated and cleanly co-ordinated movers who share singular commitment. While the three separate works have visual and aesthetic contrasts, each uses a similar casting, shape of choreographic structure, percussive accompaniment, and movement vocabulary that, taken together, also resonate as a triptych.

The opening work, Sigan, by Korean choreographer, KIM Jae Duk, has a cast of four dancers—Chrissy Kokiri, Katie Rudd, Carl Tolentino and Xin Ji. The contrasting qualities of thrust and parry, speed and stillness, light and shade of several Asian martial arts are evoked. When all four dancers are moving together, even if in canon, we have the fascinating chance to see individual differences within ‘sameness’. It is Xin Ji’s combination of strength and softness, not sequentially but simultaneously in different parts of his body, a felt not a taught quality, that always steals my eye.

The Fibonacci, by Victoria Columbus, is a premiere work dedicated to the memory of Sue Paterson, who was New Zealand’s leading dance and arts manager for decades, and is still and always will be deeply missed by many. This choreography, based on patterns in the Fibonacci series of numbers, would have thrilled Sue by the translation of mathematics to the stage. It starts with a contemplative illumination but soon becomes a river of intriguing movement. Lighting ideas (Jo Kilgour) and costume design (Elizabeth Whiting) are intrinsic to the work and contribute beautifully to the choreographic vision.

*The Fibonacci* New Zealand Dance Company, 2019. Photo © Claire Gordon

Stephanie Lake, whose own dance company is based in Melbourne, was invited to set If Never was Now on NZDC. It is a high-octane work with a similar mix of solo, duo and group dances in some eye-catching episodes. ‘Snow’ falls, scatters and is scattered across the stage, adding to the enigma within the choreography.

Scene from *If never was now*, New Zealand Dance Company, 2019. Photo: © John McDermott

In a contemporary dance program such as this, there is by choreographers’ choice no directly delivered reference to human experience or emotion, no conflict or drama to resolve, no consolation in lyricism, no primacy given to story, no levity in comedy (other than a brief duet of frenzied flirtation between two unidentified insect-like animals in the final work). Instead we see individuals’ staccato head movements, isolated gestures of limbs detached from lines or follow-through into the torso, a minimum of elevation, relatively little physical contact between dancers, an indirect relationship with the audience, a parallel rather than juxtaposed music accompaniment. All of this combines to suggest a grounded timelessness rather than the specifics of individual lives here and now. There is much high speed and there is sculptured stillness, but little of measured adagio in between. This creates effective references to a mix of robotic and mechanical moves in contrast with people’s states of being. It invites us to view our human condition and experiences against that perspective. Sequences of abstract movement vocabulary, danced at sometimes breathtaking speed, provide mesmerising visuals that we can take at face value of the physics and mathematics of life, or as metaphor if we choose.

Jennifer Shennan, 2 May 2019