Valerie Lawson on an important series, by WildBear Entertainment, excavating Australian Ballet's past and what's happening now for the company, with all the complications of Covid-19.
Tag - Graeme Murphy
Although Valerie Lawson's context is wide-ranging, she brings individuals into focus with personal details, shining a spotlight onto their roles in Australian dance history. Lavishly illustrated with photographs from Australian archives, her book gives vivid life to long-gone personalities.
★★★✰✰ Within this potpourri of Graeme Murphy’s works, the highlight was "Grand", a charming and poignant tribute he created in 2005 for his mother, a pianist, who died the previous year.
★★★★✰ "...the emotional impact of this uniquely Australian Nutcracker remains as powerful as ever."
★★★✰✰ Australian Ballet (AB) must surely be the only significant ballet company in the world with two Swan Lakes in their active repertoire. Strangely, the one we've seen before in Britain we have just been seeing again...
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
★★★★★ This R&J gives the audience so much to admire, so much to be immersed in, and so much to delight in and even laugh over.
Onwards and Upwards we say to the great Juliet Burnett – who writes wonderful blogs for DanceTabs. Media Release from The Australian Ballet The Australian Ballet farewells Senior Artist Juliet Burnett After 12 wonderful years with The Australian Ballet, Senior Artist Juliet Burnett has announced that she will leave the company on Friday 12 June, following her performance in the lead role of...
After the long famine, Ashton’s ballets made a welcome return this week with the company’s triple bill under the umbrella title, The Dream.
Rafael Bonachela has just started his sixth year as artistic director of Sydney Dance Company... This year is the company’s 45th anniversary and Bonachela is, as ever, full of plans, excited about them all and brimming over with enthusiasm...
I’ll take this Swan Lake over a traditional version, any day of the week.
2 One Another is a totally unapologetic work - powerful and unself-conscious in the way it turns up the volume in design, physicality and sound.
It was a program that harkened back to the big international Galas of previous years, as well as a nice reference to the company’s first years, when artists including Sonia Arova, Erik Bruhn, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev guest-starred.
As the 50th anniversary season draws to a close, it is clear that things have come full circle. The company began with a Swan Lake in 1962; it celebrates this major milestone with another.
At the time of its premiere in 1964 The Display shocked its audiences. Highly sexualized, violent and thoroughly modern, the ballet divided audiences and critics. But, seen in the context of Helpman’s life, the choices within the work begin to make sense.
Onegin has been part of the Australian Ballet repertoire since 1976, first introduced at the behest of Anne Woolliams, who worked with Cranko at the Stuttgart Ballet. Woolliams replaced Sir Robert Helpmann as artistic director of the Australian Ballet in 1976, a move that angered Helpmann...
How can a company make good impression with just a few performances of one or two programs? The pieces have to be representative, interesting, and show the company in a the best possible light. It’s not easy, as the recent Lincoln Center performances of Australian Ballet have shown.