It was absolutely stunning. Words can’t express how much I loved their performance. – Beckstar44
Absolute perfection! Beautiful, beautiful world class LOVED IT! – balletdoll
I have never seen the ballet before. I am a grown man, and I cried; it was so beautiful. - 411264
It’s Week Seven on So You Think You Can Dance and the nervous contestants stand side stage with wide eyes and clenched teeth. Two dancers will be sent home. The studio is heaving with pressure until, moments before the results are revealed, the tension is broken by the soaring strings and haunting clarinets of Bizet’s iconic score.
The Australian Ballet’s Robert Curran and Leanne Stojmenov enter the stage to perform the breathtaking pas de deux from Divergence. Robert effortlessly weaves Leanne around his body, through his legs, over his shoulders, before lifting her fully above his head. The same audience members who had been waving homemade signs and screaming uncontrollably for their favourite SYTYCD contestants were now cheering just as enthusiastically for Robert and Leanne mid-jeté.
Colin Peasley, The Australian Ballet’s Education Manager and in-house raconteur, answers all your ballet questions.
“How long does it take for a dancer to get up on pointe?”
Caitlin, 9
Dear Caitlin,
When I first joined The Australian Ballet in 1962, it was considered normal for female dancers to have misshapen feet from pointe work – luckily this is no longer the case. We now know that if a student is correctly prepared for dancing on pointe then foot problems will be rare.
Correct preparation is the key consideration. A student will have been taking at least two ballet classes a week and will have gained strength in her calf and ankle, her abdomen and lower back and she will have learnt to plié and relevé correctly while maintaining turn-out. Most importantly, she will have learned to hold her body so that the weight is lifted off the feet with straight knees and perfect balance.
This moment arrives at different times for each student, not only because of the amount of training they have had but also because of their physical type including their bone age. For this reason it is imperative that a student consult their teacher before buying their first pair of pointe shoes. At The Australian Ballet School no student is given pointe work until age 12 and then only with 15 minutes of exercises at the end of each class.
So, Caitlin you have a few years yet before you discover the joys of dancing on pointe. In the meantime, remember that dance does not injure feet, misuse does.
Colin
You can email your ballet questions to Colin at hello@behindballet.com
When Zandra Rhodes stitched scissoring seams onto her dresses in 1967, she unknowingly kicked off the deconstructionist fashion movement that would dominate the 90s. Thirty years later Versace proved that Liz Hurley’s dress could be fastened by nothing but a handful of safety pins, and Jean-Paul Gaultier put a pair of cones on Madonna.
There were countless exposed zips, damaged edges and shamelessly sewn-on-the-outside patches. Industrial synthetics became everyday wear and PVC catsuits roamed nightclubs. Design houses Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto and John Galliano were among those flirting with anti-fashion, presenting self-consciously subversive collections for over a decade.Read the rest of this entry »
When The Australian Ballet commissions a new work, like Graeme Murphy’s Firebird, it can be hard to get a sense of what the ballet will look like until opening night, despite tantalising glimpses of the scenery as it’s ushered in and out of studios, and surreptitious peeks at the costumes.
Sometimes, we’ll engage a photographer to document the creation of a new work as it unfolds in the studio so we can publish rehearsal photos in souvenir programmes or our website in the place of traditional production shots. These images offer a fascinating insight into the choreographic process and capture a side of dance and dance-making that you just don’t see on stage.
These beautiful photos of Graeme Murphy and the cast of Firebird were shot by Jessica Bialek at the Ballet’s Melbourne studios three weeks before the work premiered in Adelaide.
Behind Ballet is the blog of The Australian
Ballet. Looking at dance through the prism of
fashion, music, art and literature, we unravel
the stories behind our productions and mine
ballet’s juicy past to find the new in the old and
the old in the new.
