My review of Sydney Dance Company’s new program, Frame of Mind, encompassing William Forsythe’s Quintett and Rafael Bonachela’s Frame of Mind, is now available on DanceTabs at this link. This program was ecstatically received on opening night, 9 March 2015 at Sydney Theatre, and deservedly so. It tours to Canberra in April–May and Melbourne in May.
The Forsythe piece, danced to Gavin Bryars’ Jesus’ blood never failed me yet, reminded me of an event that occurred several years ago now, at a time when people used to go into shops to buy their music. My husband went into a then very well-known music store in Canberra (since closed down) to try to buy a copy of the Gavin Bryars’ work. ‘Oh,’ said the gentleman behind the counter, ‘we have been trying to move this CD for some time. Here, have this copy with our compliments.’
Well, Forsythe’s use of the homeless man’s chant in Quintett was absolutely fascinating. The diversity of the emotions expressed in the choreography was a perfect foil for the repetition of the words and by the end, as the score grew louder and the music became a dominant feature, the optimism of the homeless man soared. It was quite stunning.
At the end of this month, members of the dance community will come together in both Melbourne and Wellington, to honour Harry Haythorne who died in November 2014. Today Philippe Charluet, film maker extraordinaire, sent me a link to some footage he had edited. It shows Harry rehearsing for and performing in Tivoli, and it includes that wonderful tap dancing routine. We are so lucky to have Philippe caring so much about our dance heritage.
17 January 2015, Carriageworks, Eveleigh (Sydney). Sydney Festival 2015
My review of the Sydney Festival production of Inside There Falls, a collaboration between London-based artist and musician, Mira Calix, and Sydney Dance Company, has been posted on DanceTabs at this link.
In addition to the photographs published with the article, most of which were kindly supplied by the Sydney Festival, below are some I took during my visit to the installation — and yes, for once photography was allowed! They show the two dancers I saw, Sam Young-Wright and Laura Wood.
Michelle Potter, 19 January 2015
Featured image: Scene from Inside there falls, Sydney Festival 2015. Photo: Michelle Potter
A few months ago I mentioned very briefly a project being developed by film maker Philippe Charluet in conjunction with Sydney Dance Company to preserve the choreography of Graeme Murphy, which he made as artistic director of the company over more than 30 years. Well, the project is now official and has been announced as part of Sydney Dance Company’s 45th anniversary celebrations. Sydney Dance Company says:
‘Sydney Dance Company is excited to announce that work has commenced on the editing and digitising of film and video recordings of some of the major works created by long-standing Artistic Director, Graeme Murphy AO and his Creative Associate, Janet Vernon AM.
The Heritage Collection will include re-mastered films of many full length evening works created by Murphy on the Sydney Dance Company ensemble during his 31 year tenure from 1976 to 2007, in addition to a new documentary resource of Murphy in conversation, interweaving a myriad of interviews filmed over a period of thee decades, with new footage in which he reflects on his body of work’.
What a treasure this will be for us and those who follow us in the future.
Pamela Vincent and the Rambert tour to Australasia
Here is another image from the Pamela Vincent album of photographs from the Ballet Rambert’s tour to Australia and New Zealand 1947–1949. Pamela Vincent was courted in Australia by Douglas Whittaker, principal flute player in the orchestra that accompanied the Rambert company. They married in England.
Ballet Rambert in Australia. Horseriding excursion, 1948. Collection of Pamela Vincent
British Library and Serge Diaghilev
I was interested to find this link to a comment on Serge Diaghilev’s interest, which grew in intensity towards the end of his life, in rare books.
Press for May 2014 [Online links to press articles in The Canberra Times prior to 2015 are no longer available]
‘Fresh flavour but a little flat’. Review of Don Quixote, Imperial Russian Ballet. The Canberra Times, 7 May 2014, ARTS p. 8.
Good news from Canberra dancer Paul Knobloch who will be joining Sydney Dance Company for its upcoming 45th anniversary tour to Western Australia, Queensland and regional New South Wales. The company will be taking their multi award winning work, 2 One Another, on this tour which will take in small and large cities from Perth to Mackay to Dubbo. Earlier this year Bonachela explained his interest in regional touring:
‘The regional touring is something very close to my heart because I come from a very small town myself. I believe that we can change people’s lives through dance. We need to benchmark ourselves against leading companies overseas but we need to be seen across Australia as well’.
Knobloch has been teaching in Canberra just recently at the Canberra Dance Development Centre and it is good to see him returning to his performing career once more. The tour begins in Perth on 18 June and runs through until August finishing up in the New South Wales central western city of Orange.
Paul Knobloch. Photographer not identified
For more about Paul Knobloch’s career see the posts at this link.
I was delighted to find, during my recent research in the Rambert Archives in London, an album, currently on loan to the Archives for copying, assembled by dancer Pamela Whittaker (Vincent) during the Ballet Rambert’s tour to Australia and New Zealand, 1947–1949. What struck me instantly was the fact that this company enjoyed a similarly social time in Australia and New Zealand as did the Ballets Russes companies that preceded Rambert. I hope to pursue this a little further in a later post but in the meantime the featured image (above) is a photo from Pamela Whittaker’s album. Below is another image from that album.
Ballet Rambert on an outing in Australia, 1948. From the personal album of Pamela Whittaker (Vincent)
Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship 2014
The Kristian Fredrikson Scholarship for 2014 has been awarded to West Australian designer Alicia Clements. For more about Alicia’s work see her website, but below is a costume for the character of Nishi from The White Divers of Broome staged by the Black Swan Theatre Company in Perth in 2012.
The long list of nominations for the 2014 Australian Dance Awards was released during April. From a Canberra perspective it is good to see a number of nominations with strong Canberra connections, although I wonder whether any or many of them will make the short lists given the fact that so few people outside Canberra will have seen the productions in the flesh. That concern aside, however, I was especially pleased to see Garry Stewart’s Monument on the list for two awards, an individual award to Stewart for outstanding achievement in choreography and an award to the Australian Ballet for outstanding performance by a company. It was also gratifying to see Life is a Work of Art created by Liz Lea and others for GOLD, the group of mature age performers associated with Canberra Dance Theatre, nominated in the community dance category.
But I noticed that Janet Karin, former director of the National Capital Ballet School, currently kinetic educator at the Australian Ballet School, and also now president of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science, is again on the list for services to dance education. Fingers crossed for this one as her contribution to the Australian dance scene has been remarkable over many years and in many areas and she deserves recognition from her peers.
Island: James Batchelor
I am looking forward to the opening of James Batchelor’s new work, Island, which premieres tonight at the Courtyard Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre. Batchelor was impressive when I interviewed him earlier his month (see online link below) but seeing in production what one has written about in advance is always challenging. But Canberra needs more dance of the sophisticated variety. So fingers crossed!
In January I talked to Rafael Bonachela, largely about his new triple bill program, Interplay, which will open in Sydney in March and then travel to Canberra in April and onwards from there. Interplay features brand new works from Bonachela and Gideon Obarzanek and a return to Australia of Jacopo Godani’s Raw Models.
It is hard to think of anyone who has such enthusiasm and passion for dance, or anyone who loves talking so generously about what he is doing. The story has just been posted on DanceTabs. Here is the link.
INTERPLAY Choreography by Rafael Bonachela, Gideon Obarzanek and Jacopo Godani
SYDNEY: 15 March – 5 April, Sydney Theatre CANBERRA: 10–12 April, Canberra Theatre Centre MELBOURNE: 30 April – 10 May, Southbank Theatre
Details of the dance productions Canberra audiences can expect in 2014 are slowly emerging. In announcing its ‘Collected Works, 2014′, the Canberra Theatre Centre revealed that both Sydney Dance Company and Bangarra Dance Theatre will return to Canberra in 2014, thus maintaining the strong links those two companies have forged with the city over many years. For example, Sydney Dance Company’s first season in Canberra was in 1977.* Scarcely a year has been missed since then.
Sydney Dance will bring its triple bill Interplay, which will consist of new works by Rafael Bonachela and Gideon Obarzanek and a reprise of Raw models by Italian choreographer Jacopo Godani. Raw models was part of a Sydney Dance Company program in 2011 and my thoughts on the show then are at this link. Bangarra will bring a new work by Stephen Page called Patyegarang, which focuses on the friendship between a young indigenous woman, Patyegarang, and colonial identity Lieutenant William Dawes.
The Brisbane-based group Circa will also be in Canberra in 2014 with their new production S. My connections with the National Institute of Circus Arts through the Heath Ledger Project interviewing program have brought home to me the esteem with which this company is held in the industry so I look forward to their 2014 show, which we are told explores a sinuous energy—appropriately, given the title S—and is a physical ode to the human body.
A surprise revelation at the launch of the 2014 season was that West Australian Ballet will visit in October with a production of La Fille mal gardée, but not in the version choreographed by Frederick Ashton that we are used to seeing in Australia. The version being brought by West Australian Ballet is choreographed by Marc Ribaud, currently director of the Royal Swedish Ballet, and is set in 1950s rural France. Costumes are by Lexi De Silva whose previous credits include designs for Tim Harbour’s Halcyon and Sweedeedee. De Silva also worked alongside Hugh Colman as he created the designs for Stephen Baynes’ recent Swan Lake. Sets are being created by Richard Roberts, lighting by John Buswell. Here is the Canberra Theatre’s preview video for the Fille program. It is a photo shoot in essence featuring the leading characters, Lise, Colas and Alain, but gives some idea of what the work might look like.
But before we even get to the new year, the Canberra Theatre has also just announced a Christmas treat for very young dance-goers (and their parents and grandparents) who will have the pleasure of seeing Angelina and friends live onstage in Angelina Ballerina: the Mousical. It opens at the Canberra Theatre on 12 December 2013. What a treat!
Michelle Potter, 28 September 2013
* Although led by Graeme Murphy the company was at that stage still called the Dance Company (NSW). 1977 was Murphy’s first full year as director of the company, which was renamed Sydney Dance Company in 1979.
As the curtain went up on Project Rameau in Canberra, with the Australian Chamber Orchestra seated on a platform at the back of the stage space and the dancers of Sydney Dance Company lined up in front of the platform, I wondered whether this collaboration would in fact work. One or two companies have been critical of the Canberra Theatre space because of its relatively small performing area (compared with some stages in Sydney and Melbourne), and there before my eyes were two companies sharing the stage. Well I need not have worried. Project Rameau was one of those made-in-heaven collaborations and the size of the stage seemed of little consequence and, after all, exceptional artists are always adaptable.
Musically Project Rameau consisted of nineteen selections of music by Jean-Philippe Rameau, two by Antonio Vivaldi and a single piece by Johann Sebastian Bach. Sydney Dance Company’s director, Rafael Bonachela, responded choreographically to this musical selection with a varied series of dances ranging from duets and trios to pieces for larger groups, at times for his entire ensemble of dancers. Occasionally within these group pieces, we saw short, mesmerising solos.
Several pieces stood out. I especially admired the dance made to the presto movement from ‘Summer’’ in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. This trio for one female and two male dancers overflowed with energy as Janessa Dufty was tossed through the air between her two partners. In contrast was a slow, intimate duet for two men danced to a section from Rameau’s Castor and Pollux.
But the true colours of Sydney Dance Company shone in the dances made for the full company. Here Bonachela created a sense of hierarchy and formality looking back to the courtly nature of Baroque dance, with the odd wiggle of the backside thrown in. And the precision of those dancers as they moved together was absolutely stunning. Dance director Amy Hollingsworth take a bow for magnificent skills in the rehearsal room. Moving in unison creates perfection in patterns and that was what we got.
I never tire of watching Chen Wen. I admire the sense of shape and space in his every movement, not to mention his athleticism and his beautifully stretched extensions. The other individual dancer who stood out for me in Project Rameau was Andrew Crawford, dancing with exceptional fluidity. He makes a great partner too for Juliette Barton. But it is with reservation that I single out any one dancer. They are such a wonderful ensemble of movers and it is an absolute joy to watch them.
Ben Cisterne’s lighting added a very contemporary element to the show but also realised ingeniously that sense of perspective that marked Baroque stages.
Project Rameau was nothing short of an enthralling collaboration with a thrilling final sequence to a contra danse from Rameau’s Les Boréades that turned into a choreographed curtain call.
Michelle Potter, 14 September 2013
Read my preview story on Project Rameau published in The Canberra Times, 31 August 2013, at this link. (UPDATE 12/11/2019 link no longer available)
3o August 2013, Studio Theatre, Sydney Opera House
With his latest program, Les Illuminations, Sydney Dance Company’s Rafael Bonachela has given audiences a new look at his spectacular dancers. This is an intimate program, made so by its venue, the Studio at the Sydney Opera House, and by its setting within that venue. The program, which consists of two short pieces both to music by Benjamin Britten, Simple Symphony and Les Illuminations, is danced on a T-shaped catwalk with the audience seated in the round. On the cross bar of the ‘T’ sits a string ensemble of musicians from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. They are joined in the second part by singer Katie Noonan, who sings the soprano role in Les Illuminations. The dancers perform entirely on the long line of the T.
What struck me instantly as Simple Symphony began was that Bonachela was taking advantage of the restricted performance space and was using more high lifts than usual. ‘Boisterous Bourrée’, the opening duet danced by Janessa Dufty and Andrew Crawford, began with a kind of ‘presage’ lift and continued with some gorgeous partnering, including more lifts. These two dancers set up a lovely partnership not only by dancing so well but also through their emotional connection with each other. Touch, glances, head movements, all played a part in making this duet a wonderful opener. The third part, ‘Sentimental Sarabande’ also stood out for its strong and emotionally engaging dancing by Fiona Jopp and Bernhard Knauer. With Toni Maticevski’s close fitting, light coloured costumes, decorated with pale turquoise trimmings, and the often playful moments in the choreography, Simple Symphony reminded me of a pastoral romp.
There was nothing pastoral about the second section of the program, Les Illuminations. This was a darker side of life and featured just four dancers once more—Juliette Barton, Charmene Yap, Thomas Bradley and Cass Mortimer Eipper. The title Les Illuminations relates to a poem written by the Frenchman Arthur Rimbaud and the choreography seemed to me to have many elements that characterise Symbolism, a movement in the arts that was ‘in the air’ at the time when Rimbaud and his lover Paul Verlaine were writing. Ideas were suggested as dancers prowled around their long, narrow space casting telling glances at each other. Nothing seemed obvious. Maticevski’s costumes, this time sleeveless bodysuits in black with the addition of a black feathered headdress worn by Barton and a black face mask worn by Bradley, suggested a kind of decadence to me, again part of the Symbolist mood.
This second part of the program was certainly striking and as ever beautifully danced but I’m just not sure that the ideas that Rimbaud was writing about can be well portrayed through the medium of dance. It did, however, set up an effective contrast with Simple Symphony.
Michelle Potter, 1 September 2013.
NOTE: A dance work to Simple Symphony was first seen in Australia in October 1947 during a tour by Ballet Rambert. That version was choreographed by Walter Gore. Gore’s Simple Symphony was filmed in Brisbane (outdoors, or at least partly outdoors, if I remember correctly from watching the film some years ago) in 1948. Here is the National Film and Sound Archive’s catalogue record. Although of course Bonachela’s Simple Symphony is quite, quite different, it makes a nice tie-in with the Gore production, given Bonachela’s connections with Rambert Dance.
