28 May 2009
By Kate Scott
filed under Bodytorque
Bodytorque opened in Sydney last night, with five dancers premiering five very different choreographic works. This year’s theme was 2.2, an allusion to the many partnerships at the heart of dance. It manifested in different ways – choreographers collaborating with composers to hatch new scores; a moving duet between a dancer and an opera singer – but as the dancers entwined and broke apart one idea seemed to recur: that relationships are rarely as straightforward as the romantic pas de deux of classical ballet. Sydney Theatre was the perfect setting for this revelation, the intimate space rendering every small detail – a tentative caress, a stolen kiss, a loaded gesture – all the more intimate, and the big moves all the more thrilling.
Photography by Branco Gaica
28 May 2009
By Isabel Dunstan
filed under Paris Match
At just 24 years of age choreographer Stanton Welch created Divergence – the work that launched his career. Premiering in 1994, it was one of the most difficult and progressive ballets of the decade. Its creation was no easy feat for Stanton, nor for his dancers. In 2009, The Australian Ballet brings Divergence back to the stage as part of the double bill Paris Match. Stanton, now Artistic Director at the Houston Ballet, found time to reflect on presenting his groundbreaking work to unsuspecting audiences 15 years ago.
What kinds of feelings did Bizet’s score stir in you when you first heard it?
It was a piece my mother (Marilyn Jones) gave to me. It was even on a tape – that’s how long ago it was! So I had my tape and my Walkman and took it with me when I was touring with the company. I just fell in love with it. I always wanted to do a classical ballet, but I wanted to show classical ballet’s diversity. I felt with each movement came a very different style and that gave me different flavours. Read the rest of this entry »
27 May 2009
By admin
filed under From the studio
Principal Artist Kirsty Martin has performed countless leading roles, ranging from the titular Hollywood starlet of Raymonda, to the iconic Odette in Swan Lake. She walks down memory lane to cherry-pick a handful of her favourite ballets.
Giselle
Giselle is definitely one of my favourite ballets. It’s romantic and pure – a role I imagine every ballerina wants to experience. It’s very fulfilling because it’s technically demanding and there is so much to explore artistically. I love this ballet; a simply beautiful classic! Read the rest of this entry »
22 May 2009
By Colin Peasley
filed under Ask Colin
Dear Colin,
How old is too old to start learning ballet (not for professional purposes, but just for exercise and/or fun)? So many of the articles online and in dance magazines only deal with younger dancers. And as an adult dancer, can I ever hope to be able to go en pointe?
Jen Stosser
Dear Jen,
When I first started learning classical ballet I was 20 years old and I joined an adult learners’ class in Sydney. I instantly fell in love with dance. The other people in the class ranged from 16 years of age to the early forties and were enthusiastic and great fun. None of us thought that we would ever become professional dancers and most of us didn’t, but we did become good audience members and most importantly we learnt to appreciate and enjoy the art form. So, Jen, do not wait any longer take yourself off to one of the many dance studios specialising in adult classes. Believe me, you will never regret it. The possibility of you being able to dance en pointe will rely on the number of classes you do, the structure of your feet and your physical strength. Only your teacher will be able to advise you when you can slip on your first pair of pointe shoes. It is worth the wait!
Best wishes.
Colin
Photography by Justin Smith
19 May 2009
By Martyn Pedler
filed under Film
The Red Shoes was the top-grossing British film released in America for almost four decades, earning a vocal cheerleader in Martin Scorsese. In fact, the legendary auteur is so taken with the film that he collects its memorabilia. It’s easy to see why.
Hungry young composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring), and up-and-coming ballerina Vicky Page (Moira Shearer, of the Royal Ballet) attract the attention of heartless impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook). Lermontov is determined that “life is so unimportant” compared to true art. Based in part on Sergei Diaghilev, Walbrook plays Lermontov with formidable cool, all smirks and glares. Will Vicky choose love, or art?
While the backstage melodrama is rendered in otherworldly technicolour, it’s nothing compared to the film’s ballet centrepiece: a ballet based on Hans Christian Anderson’s macabre tale of The Red Shoes, in which a girl is magically forced to dance until her death. Choreographed by Robert Helpmann and Leonide Massine – who both also act in the film – the ballet begins viewed almost as a live performance, but we slowly move closer to the action until we’re inside Vicky’s mind. As the intensity builds, her reality is transformed with striking, expressionistic effects.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes combines the decidedly theatrical with the jaw-droppingly cinematic, creating a tragedy that – 60 years later – still feels somehow new.
14 May 2009
By Isabel Dunstan
filed under Costume, Fashion, Paris Match
After ten years of mending, recycling and general making-do, post-WWII women weren’t expecting Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look. Borrowing from the decadence of ballet, Dior brazenly updated the female silhouette and reintroduced luxury to a deprived population. The hand-span waistlines and bouffant Romantic-length skirts paid homage to boned bodices of the Renaissance courts and Barbara Karinska’s powder-puff tutus. Dior insisted on appliqué, beading and embroidery, luxuries that had only been seen on ballet stages for over a decade.
When Dior presented his New Look to traders around Europe and America he faced savage criticism. Fabrics were scarce and economists frowned upon home consumption. The Board of Trade forbade Alison Settle, then editor of British Vogue, to mention Dior in her pages. It was feared that Dior’s New Look would encourage impossible demands, indulgence and social revolution. Looking back on this time Dior said: “War had passed out of sight, and there were no other wars on the horizon. What did the weight of my sumptuous materials, my heavy velvets and brocades matter? When hearts were light, mere fabrics could not weigh the body down.” Dior breathed the glamour of ballet into his New Look collection and brought decadence to the people.
Image: Kirsty Martin in Stephen Baynes’ Raymonda. Costumes by Anna French. Photography Justin Smith
Paris Match, a double bill of tutu delights, plays in in Melbourne from 24 June until 4 July.
12 May 2009
By Lorelei Vashti
filed under Film, Music
One of the most incredible and unlikely stories to ever come out of the pop music world dates back to 1975, when big-business record label EMI gave 16 year-old Kate Bush a record deal as well as the unheard-of permission to spend the first three years of her contract on ‘artistic development’. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with the time: she wanted to learn how to dance.
She started attending open classes at The Dance Centre in Covent Garden, London, under the tutelage of Lindsay Kemp, a dancer who studied with Marcel Marceau in the fifties and also trained David Bowie in mime. These classes were the starting point of an extraordinary career, a career in which Bush has relentlessly sought to use dance as an extension of her music.
Read the rest of this entry »
8 May 2009
By Kate Scott
filed under Books, From the studio
Principal Artist Lynette Wills has been photographed more times than she could ever count during her long career with The Australian Ballet, but in 2005 she moved behind the lens to spend 18 months documenting her fellow dancers. The result, after hundreds of rehearsals and performances, is Step Inside The Australian Ballet, a book that captures a very different side of dance to the one you see onstage.
What was the first camera you ever owned, Lynette?
Probably a $30 point-and-shoot film camera that really did nothing else but point and shoot!
When did you start bringing a camera into rehearsals?
Not until after I had proposed the book idea to David [McAllister, Artistic Director]. Mainly because you need permission – you need a lot of permissions – from the company, from the theatres, from the people doing the ballets. I needed to float the idea with him first, and the dancers. I needed to make sure they were going to be comfortable with me carrying a camera and taking photos of them non-stop. And then at the end of that first season I realised that I needed better lenses and equipment, so I quickly upgraded.
When was that?
The end of 2005. It was before I was pregnant with Thomas [Lynette’s first child], so I was full-time dancing when I started taking the photos. I had no photography qualifications so I bought several photography books, and over the Christmas holidays I did a photography course – a very basic one – to understand as much as I could. I’ve only just learnt the beginnings of photography and I’m desperate to learn more.
Read the rest of this entry »
7 May 2009
By Jasmin Tulk
filed under Ask Colin
Colin Peasley, The Australian Ballet’s Education Manager and in-house raconteur, answers all your ballet questions.
“I’m learning a routine for the Narrabri (NSW) Eisteddfod next week. Do you have any tips for me?”
Sami, 8
Dear Sami,
Firstly, congratulations on being so successful with the first part of what I hope will be a bright career in dance for you.
As you probably already know, hard work, though very important, is not enough, because unlike ballet exams which concentrate on your technique, when you appear in an eisteddfod it is your performance that will be judged. So listen carefully to your teacher’s corrections and apply them so that you can not only dance the solo well, but you can also communicate your joy of dance to the audience. And remember Sami, if you enjoy your dancing, so will the audience.
Best wishes
Colin
You can email your ballet questions to Colin at hello@behindballet.com
Image: Kirsty Martin with artists of The Australian Ballet.
Melbourne Telstra in the Bowl 2008. Photography Natalie Verheggen
6 May 2009
By Kate Scott
filed under Fashion
The Ballets Russes’ Schéhérazade season of 1910 had a swift and colourful effect on fashion. Stylish Parisian salons were suddenly overflowed with jewel-toned cushions, in the style of Schéhérazade’s Kit Willow creating an entire season influenced by the Ballets Russes. steamy harem, while the sartorially daring adopted turbans and Turkish-style pants. Almost a hundred years later the pendulum has swung the other way, with Australian designer
Read the rest of this entry »
