• After The Rain: A Dancer’s Perspective
    Steven Heathcote and Kirsty Martin. Photography David Kelly
  • After The Rain: A Dancer’s Perspective
    Amber Scott and San Francisco Ballet's Damian Smith. Photography Jeff Busby
  • After The Rain: A Dancer’s Perspective
    Adam Bull and Lana Jones. Photography Jess Bialek

After The Rain: A Dancer’s Perspective

The pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain© is famous for wringing the heart. Rose Mulready asked three dancers for their memories of performing it.

STEVEN HEATHCOTE, FORMER PRINCIPAL ARTIST

You danced this pas de deux as your final performance – was it a good piece to go out on?
I couldn’t have had a more perfect final performance. Arvo Pärt creates music that is quite extraordinary; I’ve always been a fan. I don’t know what it is but there’s something about the kind of cadences that he uses in his music and the structure, it always captivates you.
Chris Wheeldon created this pas de deux for [New York City Ballet’s] Jock Soto’s final performance, so it was kind of fitting. I think, for me, what it encapsulates is the relationship that’s developed between a man and a woman who are dancing, moving, thinking, breathing together. There’s something very special about that connection in ballet and it’s something that I’ve enjoyed so much throughout my career, that special chemistry that’s created with each and every partner. I think the After the Rain© pas de deux, for me, captured all of that beautifully. It doesn’t just capture the essence of dance partnerships, it captures the essence of partnership in ordinary life too, the relationship between two people. It’s so sensitively and beautifully handled in the way that the pas de deux is structured; I think that Chris has just created this little piece of gold. (more…)

22 May 2013

Anatomy of a piano

Anatomy of a piano

 

Ballet and the piano are beautifully, inseparably linked. In professional companies, morning class is accompanied by a pianist, who usually also plays for rehearsals, and the ripple of piano music is the dominant sound of any ballet HQ. We asked our Principal Pianist and Music Librarian Stuart Macklin to walk us around one of our rehearsal pianos.

We use rehearsal and concert pianos supplied by Kawai, our Official Piano Partner. The piano we’re looking at is a Kawai RX3, which is the largest of our rehearsal pianos.

Why a grand piano?
A grand piano has a richer sound than an upright (especially in the bass, as it has longer strings), but the main advantage of playing a grand piano in the studio is that the pianist can see over it, and so has a view of what the dancers are doing. (more…)

21 May 2013

Ballet Men

In our latest mini-doco, our dancers Adam Bull, Christopher Rodgers-Wilson, Cameron Hunter and Cristiano Martino talk about the highs and lows of the profession and show off their beautiful technique.

14 May 2013

Ask Colin: life after ballet
Steven Heathcote in Graeme Murphy's Beyond Twelve, 1994

Ask Colin: life after ballet

Dear Colin,
Ballet takes so much focus and attention – what happens when a career comes to an end and you need to take the next step into something else?
Angus

Dear Angus,
As I have just retired from The Australian Ballet after being with them for 50 years as dancer, teacher, ballet master, and creator of their education department, I am the perfect person to ask! (more…)

6 May 2013

The Four Temperaments: An expert’s eye

Our Ballet Mistress Eve Lawson has danced The Four Temperaments many times, and learnt the ballet from some of the original cast. She trained in the School of American Ballet and is now a repetiteur for the George Balanchine Foundation. So she knows something about The Four Ts! We’re very fortunate to have had her stage the ballet for our Vanguard program. See her in action with the dancers in this video, and see her talk live with our Artistic Director David McAllister and renowned arts critic Deborah Jones about Kylián, Balanchine and the contemporary relevance of classical ballet in McAllister in Conversation, at the Sydney Opera House this Saturday 4 May at 5pm.

Book tickets for Vanguard
Book tickets for McAllister in conversation

2 May 2013

  • Farewell Yosvani
    Yosvani Ramos. Photography Jess Bialek
  • Farewell Yosvani
    Yosvani Ramos. James Braund

Farewell Yosvani

 

On Wednesday, 24 April – the last night of Don Quixote in Sydney – the popular principal artist Yosvani Ramos will take his last bow with the company after wielding his guitar (and barber’s blade!) as the cheeky Basilio.

If you already have your tickets, be sure to give Yos an extra cheer to wish him luck in his new European career! And if you haven’t got tickets … why, what are you waiting for? It will be quite the night!

19 April 2013