Born on a sheep station in South Australia in 1909, Sir Robert Helpmann was one of Australia’s most legendary performers. He was an actor, a choreographer, and the director of plays, operas and musicals, but he was a dancer first and foremost.
The Bobby Dazzler! exhibition, currently showing at the Arts Centre, marks the centenary of Helpmann’s birth. Wandering through the rich and varied items on display you get a great sense of the dancer as a man, the man as a dancer. Photos, posters, theatre programmes, costumes and films paint a portrait of a brilliant and agile performer.
Helpmann was a student of Anna Pavlova and Ninette de Valois and starred in many films, including 1948’s The Red Shoes. He partnered Margot Fonteyn, and had a great friendship with Katharine Hepburn. The exhibition includes a hilarious photo of Hepburn and Helpmann at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, on their 1955 Old Vic tour to Australia, both smiling cheesily and cuddling koalas.
Another highlight is the lyrebird mask worn in The Display, the 1964 ballet Helpmann choreographed for The Australian Ballet. Look also for an action figure of him as the Child Catcher in the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, alongside the actual coat he wore in the film.
The hour I spent there was crowded, with people drawn in by the costumes and especially by the 1990 film by Don Featherstone. It may be worth coming to the exhibition to see this illuminating 54-minute documentary alone. Bobby Dazzler! is an unmissable exhibition for ballet fans.
At the Arts Centre Gallery 1 until 6 June
Kathleen Gorham and Barry Kitcher in The Display - photographer unknown
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