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.
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!
Image: Amber Scott and Kevin Jackson. Photography Justin Smith
“The dancers are at peak energy, seemingly hungry to embrace rarely performed choreography.” Sunday Herald Sun
This November in Sydney The Australian Ballet presents Concord, three works by three of the most daring choreographers in the world. Take a peek at Nacho Duato’s Por vos muero, Alexei Ratmansky’s Scuola di ballo and Wayne McGregor’s Dyad 1929 in our latest gallery.
More images of the Concord season can be viewed on our Facebook fan page
It’s possible to lose a day poring over old issues of Ballet and Ballet and Opera magazine. With their technicolour covers, articles about ballet’s rich past and dreamy black and white photos that look like they’ve been shot in a smoky haze, these magazines capture a fascinating era of ballet.
From top L-R Ballet Vol 9 No 2 February 1950 – Margot Fonteyn. Photograph by Felix Fonteyn Ballet Vol 9 No 3 March 1950 – Kenneth MacMillan. Photograph by Hans Wild Ballet and Opera Vol 8 No 4 October 1949 – Moira Shearer and Michael Somes. Photograph by Baron Ballet Vol 9 No 2 February 1950 – Ram Gopal Ballet Vol 10 No 1 July 1950 – Nicholas Magallanes and Tanaquil Le Clercq. Photograph by George Platt Lynes Ballet and Opera Vol 8 No 2 August 1949 – Jean Babilee. Photograph by Roger Wood
“The movement is the message”, Wayne McGregor says of his brand-new work for The Australian Ballet. Dyad 1929 unpicks the themes of exploration, discovery and invention with a bold new choreographic language. These rehearsal photos of McGregor with dancers Danielle Rowe and Adam Bull were shot in The Australian Ballet Centre studios by our Concord blogger Teagan Glenane.
Dyad 1929 opens in Melbourne tomorrow night as part of the Concord season, alongside Alexei Ratmansky’s Scuola di ballo and Nacho Duato’s Por vos muero. It then plays in Sydney from 11 – 30 November.
A glimpse inside the studios of The Australian Ballet where Random Dance’s Wayne McGregor is creating a brand-new work on the company, called Dyad 1929.
Video by The Apiary (Lily Coates & Gavin Youngs), with additional sound design and music by Matt Ridgway. A glimpse inside the studios of The Australian Ballet where Random Dance’s Wayne McGregor is creating a brand-new work on the company, called Dyad 1929. Video by The Apiary (Lily Coates & Gavin Youngs), with additional sound design and music by Matt Ridgway.
The Australian Ballet remembers former Principal Artist David Ashmole, who passed away on Saturday morning after a brief but courageous fight against cancer. David was a principal dancer with The Australian Ballet from 1984 to 1994.
David Ashmole and Christine Walsh in Maina Gielgud’s 1988 production of The Sleeping Beauty. Photography by Anthony Crickmay
In late May, photographer Chloe Ferres sat in on the dress rehearsal for Bodytorque 2.2 and captured a very different side of the company. She shares some of her pictures.
Main image: Danielle Rowe and Luke Ingham in Damien Welch’s Chemical Trigger. Photography Chloe Ferres
Danseur, choreographer and raconteur Serge Lifar (1905 – 1986) made two visits to Australia in his lifetime, first in 1939 as part of the Ballets Russes tours, then later in 1981 to stage Suite en blanc for The Australian Ballet.
Suite en blanc will be performed as part of theParis Matchseason in Melbourne 24 June – 4 July.
Serge Lifar pictured in his ballet Icare
Image scanned from an edition of ‘Special Danse’ 1969, signed and given to The Australian Ballet by Serge Lifar in 1981.
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.