25 February 2010
Dancers Simon Vaughn and Che McMahon promoting The Australian Ballet’s very first Bodytorque season, Women on Men, in 2004. Bodytorque returns to Sydney Theatre this May with the á la mode season, pairing five emerging choreographers with emerging fashion designers.
22 February 2010
In just four days the curtain will rise on The Silver Rose. With an all-Australian creative team, Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon took this quintessentially European story and tailored it for the ballet stage. We chatted to the master choreographers about how this extraordinarily lavish ballet got off the ground, and found its way home.
Where did the idea for The Silver Rose come from and was it a work you had been thinking about for a while?
Graeme: It’s something that had been in our minds for some time. Der Rosenkavalier was a particular favourite; Janet and I have always loved it musically. We loved the roles, and I have a thing for themes about age, love, loss, moving on and being left.
Ivan Liska, [director of the Bavarian State Ballet] asked us in 2004 to do a work. He wanted something for the family for the Christmas premiere season and The Silver Rose surfaced. Ironically Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier had premiered in the same theatre in Munich. That was something that linked the ballet and the opera.
Janet: It was very short notice. We didn’t think we would be able to do it because we were working on Hua Mulan, Graeme had just finished choreographing Grand, and we’d just taken Swan Lake to London with The Australian Ballet.
What was it about the characters that appealed to you in a ballet context?
Graeme: They’re all large – they all read big. You have the mature, pensive, distraught, self-obsessed, slightly older Marschallin; and by contrast the total innocence of the fresh young flower [Sophie] and the puppy-love of adolescent youth [Octavian], which is really nice for a dance character. Then there’s the Baron who is a sympathetic buffoon, whose love is really based around desire, sex and lust. You just knew the actions for these incredibly intricate relationships could be explored in solos, duos and quartets.
Janet: And underneath those four principals there are the soloists (who are the paparazzi), and the entourage of hair dresser, make-up artist and couturier introduce interesting subplots as well. Read the rest of this entry »
19 February 2010
“Bodymap,” dancer and choreographer Michael Clark says, “is trying to do the same kind of thing I’m trying to do with classical ballet, but with design – taking very basic design and trying to look at it in a different way.” FOLLOW ME Magazine, August 1987.
Classical ballet was in for a shock when the baby-faced “Nijinsky with a Mohawk” Michael Clark, the enfant terrible of ballet, collaborated with David Holah and Stevie Stewart, designers of Central Saint Martin’s most forward-thinking label Bodymap.
In the 1980s, ballet was gripped at the throat by the anarchic youth culture of sex, fashion and performance art. It wasn’t just the look of the dancers that changed but the feel and sound of ballet as well. Clark enlisted the help of avant-garde performance artist Leigh Bowery and live music by post-punk groups in the London scene: Wire, The Fall and Laibach.
In Clark’s large-scale production No Fire Escape in Hell (1986) dancers wore hand-printed, buttock-baring unitards with batwing sleeves and strapped-on rubber appendages from sex shops. Leigh Bowery – a magnificent sight in ten-inch heels – wielded a chainsaw.
Ballet once again had influence on the catwalk. Clark regularly performed at Bodymap and Vivienne Westwood fashion shows, and in film clips. In Scritti Politti’s clip for ‘Wood Beez (Pray like Aretha Franklin) 1985’, Clark performs clad head-to-toe in Bodymap. Youth culture penetrated ballet and it never looked so good.
Michael Clark pushes the boundaries of ballet to this day; the collaborators have changed, the music is different, but the spirit of style, design and anarchy live on.
Mia Veur is a freelance womenswear buyer and stylist
17 February 2010
Gene Kelly is standing in the wardrobe department of The Australian Ballet Centre. So are Isadora, Juliet and Princess Buttercup. They’re all mannequin dummies named by the chortling group of seamstresses. Each is adorned with one of the exquisite costumes Kristian Fredrikson designed for George Ogilvie’s 1979 production of Coppélia. It is an important historical production for The Australian Ballet; Ogilvie’s insights combined with Dame Peggy Van Praagh’s choreography and Fredrikson’s genius result in a superlative production of the ballet. This year, The Australian Ballet will try Coppélia on for size once again, first with a season in Sydney in May, then Melbourne in June.
The stuffy hot air outside the Arts Centre one January morning is thick with the smell of approaching rain, and Melbourne is a swamp of sweaty businessmen and clammy café workers. But inside The Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre, a cool and collected Michael Williams, head of the Wardrobe Department, takes me through the hundreds of Coppélia costumes being picked, tucked and stitched. There is barely a moment to waste as the department works frantically on preparing not only Coppélia, but also the equally mammoth The Silver Rose. It quickly becomes apparent that Gene Kelly and Princess Buttercup are here to keep the smiles coming and frowns at bay.
Fredrikson’s Coppélia costumes were created over 30 years ago in a canvas goods factory off Racecourse Road. Today they are undergoing an extensive restoration process. Layers of silk, lace, tulle and taffeta are flopped over chairs and big worktables. It’s a scene with all the flurry and adornment of a Parisian atelier. Many of the costumes are being remade or restored. Rotting silk on jackets must be replaced then dyed to match the older, harder-wearing silks. Saggy tutu skirts need a lift, and Swanhilda receives a new Act 3 Wedding tutu that looks like it’s been plucked straight from a Christian Lacroix runway show. The ‘Reaper Boys’ trousers require a total remake. With the original fabric no longer stocked, wardrobe has found a remarkable look-alike solution: cotton waffle-weave blankets. There is no waste as each unused costume is pillaged for its healthy trimmings, which are then used on new costumes. The wardrobe department looks like a beautiful and fantastical hospital. Costumes on the brink of death are brought back to life with a lot of care and a lot of thread. Read the rest of this entry »
16 February 2010
Sylvie Guillem recently starred in a production called Eonnagata for Sadler’s Wells, dressed entirely by Alexander McQueen. Teaming up with the renegade ballerina was something new for the maverick designer. He was, of course, no stranger to histrionic design, but had never developed costumes for the theatre. McQueen’s creations for Eonnagata were true to his aesthetic; all billowing tulle, structured bustles, and oversized crimson fans – in short, a diaphanous visual feast.
McQueen studied fashion at the iconic Central St. Martins in London, then the art of tailoring through apprenticeships on Saville Row, where he whittled his pattern-cutting technique down to perfection; all this to abandon fashion’s rules and limitations. In throwing off the conventions he created some of the most sensational clothes of the early 21st century. Much like Madame Guillem herself, who studied the purest of classical ballet techniques in order to relinquish them, McQueen’s fantastical and rebellious imagination flourished precisely because he understood the beauty of a flawless cut.
McQueen defied numerous fashion luminaries to earn himself the title l’enfant terrible. His runway shows were escapist spectacles. He would often hold performances in abandoned London locations in the middle of cold winter nights. His most recent production, his last, unveiled those shoes. Dubbed the ‘Armadillos’, the alien hoof-like constructions were made famous by one prancing and dancing Lady Gaga in the Bad Romance film clip.
As the Alexander McQueen online store sells out of his most famed creations, a ring adorned in delicate enamel flowers and a single dark skull evokes his aesthetic better than any other piece – a testament of his struggle to acknowledge beauty yet defy it.
10 February 2010
Every week we receive some wonderful emails quizzing us on The Australian Ballet dancers’ feet, training regimes, lifestyles, diets, tutus, pointe shoes, and their life after ballet. Recently, one email in particular caught our eye. Blog reader Azura wrote to us about her great grandmother, a young vaudeville performer who was known as Babs St Clair the Musical Mascot …
Hello Mr Peasley,
My name is Azura (I know, I have the same name as that ship ). I am 13 and a ballet student. I don’t have a question for you, but I do want to share some pictures and some press clippings with you of my great grandmother, Josie Melville. My great grandmother spent most of her childhood on stage as a small vaudeville performer and in J. C. Williamson’s productions. Her first name was Elsie but her stage name was Babs St Clair the Musical Mascot. Babs was one of three girls chosen to be supernumeraries for Anna Pavlova’s Adelaide tour in 1929. I have inherited my great grandmother’s press clippings book and a thesis written about her, which was going to be turned into a book. I will one day donate it to The Performing Arts Collection in Adelaide as we have been told that there is not another press clipping book like it. Babs’ dance teacher was Louise Larson and this is what she had to say about my great grandmother in 1923 in a journal called Pam: Read the rest of this entry »
8 February 2010
Dear Colin,
I just completed my first year of Cecchetti ballet, and have discovered a deep passion for it. I can’t imagine a world without dance now, and I would adore it if it could be my career. I understand the difficulty of this, but I would still like to try. What can I do to improve my technique?
Mikhaela, 14
Dear Mikhaela,
One of the biggest joys of learning to dance is discovering that you have a passion for it. It is this passion that will help you improve your technique. All you need to do is to continue attending classes and you will be amazed at how quickly you improve. One thing you should remember is that learning anything worthwhile takes effort and commitment. As our Artistic Director David McAllister says, “talent is work”! But dance is well worth the effort, because your training will give you heights of exhilaration and a sense of purpose that few other endeavours can provide. Mikhaela, follow your dream!
Best wishes,
Colin
You can email your ballet questions to Colin at hello@behindballet.com
8 February 2010
Dear Colin,
My 13-year-old daughter dances and loves it, she aspires to become a professional one day. However, like many girls, she’s insecure about her weight. Could you suggest a diet and exercise plan that would be safe for a person her age?
Much thanks,
Janet
Dear Janet,
Nutrition is such an important subject that The Australian Ballet always gets the advice of a dietitian/nutritionist to help its dancers, and I suggest you do the same. By assessing the amount of dance training your daughter is currently doing and her eating habits, the dietitian will be able to guide her in her quest to become a professional dancer.
Best wishes,
Colin
You can email your ballet questions to Colin at hello@behindballet.com
5 February 2010
February will be a big month for The Australian Ballet, with the company travelling to Brisbane to open the performance year with Graeme Murphy’s The Silver Rose. It will also be a big month on Behind Ballet, and once again we’ll be giving away a fantastic prize for the best blog comment. Up for grabs? A copy of
Lynette Wills’ Step Inside The Australian Ballet, a beautiful photography book capturing our dancers at work and play. Happy commenting!
4 February 2010
When you hear the term synchronised swimming you may very well think of plastic women doing water aerobics in a swimming pool. They wear silly pegs on their noses and are crowned with evangelical smiles. But at the start of the 20th century, the sport was known as Water Ballet, named after the beautiful underwater dance sequences that Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman performed in glass tanks at variety theatre shows throughout the UK and the USA.
Kellerman was successful across a number of fields, including swimming, fashion, film (where she often starred as a mermaid), and sport. One of the highlights of her career was replacing Anna Pavlova in The Big Show of 1916 at New York’s hippodrome. She was everything a modern woman should be – self-possessed, independent and active.
Kellermann is also credited with popularising the one piece swimsuit for women, after she was arrested for indecency in 1907. Her crime? Flaunting her bare legs on Revere Beach in Boston. Oh, the scandal!
Her biography is told to great effect in the 1952 MGM musical, The Million Dollar Mermaid, starring actor Esther Williams (herself a champion swimmer). It belonged to a sub-genre called aquatic musicals whose spectacularly elaborate underwater production numbers paved the way for the fantasy film genre. The Million Dollar Mermaid’s splashy, hyperreal aquacades were choreographed by Busby Berkeley and featured Williams rising out of a cascading waterfall amidst a backdrop of gold lamé-suited mermaids, all spinning and spiraling like tangoing starfish to create a kaleidoscope of human pattern and movement. Production values included vast plumes of coloured smoke, fearless trapeze acts, and bathing beauties shooshing down waterslides lined with flag-waving and skimpily clad modern day gods. In another memorable scene, Esther plays a pearl-like mermaid in a white tutu who treats us to a cross between an underwater pole dance and a classical ballet before retreating to the clandestine chamber of a giant clam shell.
