Prince, peasant, artist, cad, student, swashbuckler – there’s no role Damien Welch hasn’t performed in his 18 years as a dancer. This Monday 30 November he’ll take his final curtain call as a Principal Artist with The Australian Ballet.
The son of Australian dance legends Marilyn Jones and Garth Welch, and the younger brother of choreographer Stanton Welch, Damien started ballet classes at the relatively late age of 15. He quickly made up for lost time, joining The Australian Ballet in 1992 and reaching the top rank of Principal in just six years. Dancing countless ballets both at home and overseas (often cast opposite his on-and-offstage partner, fellow Principal Artist Kirsty Martin), he’s worked with some of the world’s leading choreographers, and had numerous roles created on him, switching effortlessly between classical and contemporary works.
In recent years Damien has worked behind the curtain as well, restaging Stanton Welch’s masterwork Divergence and documenting new works. Earlier this year, he made his choreographic debut with a piece called Chemical Trigger for the Bodytorque 2.2 season, for which he also composed the score. The sight of Damien wandering the hallways of The Australian Ballet between rehearsals, guitar slung from his shoulder, will be sorely missed. He’ll return as a guest artist in 2010 and continue his long relationship with the company, but for now we bid farewell to an extraordinary talent.
Damien takes his final bow on the closing night of Concord in Sydney
The Ballets Russes were citizens of the world. Born in Paris, they performed in countless countries, propelled by a fast-beating Russian heart. It makes perfect sense, then, that Wayne McGregor’s Dyad diptych, honoring the Ballets Russes, premiered in two cities about as far away as cities can be: Melbourne and London.
Dyad 1909, which recently opened at Sadler’s Wells, was in some ways a more literal realisation of McGregor’s Antarctic preoccupations. Two dancers, dramatically muzzled in Swarovski Crystal masks, appeared alongside the fur-wrapped figure of an explorer. What unfolded was a dense and invigorating work, video, movement and music colluding to disarm and intoxicate. The lush and appropriately chilly score was composed and conducted by Icelandic prodigy Olafur Arnalds (snake-hipped, floppy haired, wearing a natty burnt-orange cardigan), who presided over a five-piece ensemble from his keyboard, occasionally unleashing a computerised vocals in the ‘Fitter, happier, more productive’ vein. Conjuring shifting icebergs, cracking glaciers and, occasionally, oblivion, the music was both beautiful and terrifying, the perfect accompaniment to the shape-shifting videos and the thrusting, seeking movements of the seven dancers from Random Dance.
Images:
In the Spirit of Diaghilev
A Sadler’s Wells Production
Wayne McGregor Dyad 1909
Photography Hugo Glendinning
Most dictionaries define art as the production, by aesthetic principles, of that which is beautiful. Trust a dictionary to be so curt and clinical. If I were to provide a definition, I would say that art is the expression of the human psyche. Art may express beauty but there will be art that disturbs, or challenges, too. By ‘disturbing’ I don’t mean alarming or upsetting audiences, but confronting and inspiring them with new insights, innovation of form and pushing social parameters. A fundamental element in art – and not just art, but good art – is that it should challenge the viewer.
As dancers we are extremely privileged to be able to use our bodies like a brush on canvas, if you will, as our creative voice. When you consider that we don’t have the assistance of our voices, we’re challenged to articulate in a strong and coherent manner exactly what it is that we are aiming to convey. I have had the good fortune to dance some roles by choreographers whom I admire for their understanding of the human body and its limitations and expressive potential. These choreographers have dared to reinvent classical technique and their works have challenged their contemporaries – namely George Balanchine and Graeme Murphy. And so I couldn’t believe my luck when Wayne McGregor chose me as one of the dancers he wanted to work with for his piece Dyad 1929. Read the rest of this entry »
“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
Opening night of The Australian Ballet’s Concord was of course a glamorous champagne-fluted affair. By first interval I already had the urge to take off my Louboutin heels and slide around the plush red carpet of the Arts Centre to make room for the excitement pulsing through my veins.
First up were the mysterious velvet tones of Spanish choreographer Nacho Duato’s Por vos muero (For thee I die). This Spanish Renaissance-inspired work uses light and shade, tragic poetry, and Spanish and Catalonian music from the 15th and 16th centuries to unveil the conflict of love and emotions trapped in a renaissance world. Duato’s sensuous choreography conveyed the timeless gestures of ancient masks in a darkened amphitheatre, while the cast delighted the audience with intricate modern ballet routines influenced by courtly traditions. Rich glossy silk dresses caught the moody lighting in shades of silver, midnight green and ultraviolet, adding brightness to the ballerinas’ tranquil yet troubled personas. Read the rest of this entry »
The six Dyad 1929 ballerinas emerge slowly and silently from the shadowy wings, preparing for their state of flight as the stage is flooded in a powerful wash of yellow. They stand casually and chat in their costumes: two-tone flesh and black leotards, white leotards and a full-length leotard whose bold black lines and points remind me of a lost nautical chart.
Steve Reich’s Double Sextet rises from the orchestra pit and increasingly frantic clarinet and piano notes race rhythmically over the stage. The combined energies of the ballerinas and the composition convey the miraculous pulse of nature.
After a week of rehearsals with Michael Gordon’s commissioned piece, Wayne McGregor discovered the Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet was actually the perfect match for Dyad 1929. Steve Reich is a highly revered composer and his work has influenced many musicians in a variety of genres. The Guardian doesn’t apply quotes like this to anyone: “There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them.” Read the rest of this entry »
When Concordphoto blogger Teagan stepped inside the domain of The Australian Ballet’s set and costume masterminds, she discovered a world of manneqins, fabric rolls and countless sketches of visionary promise. In the lead up to Concord, designers stitched, snipped, glued and assembled, adding colour, light and shade to three stunning works.
“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.
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Miranda Coney, Steven Heathcote and 
The six Dyad 1929 ballerinas emerge slowly and silently from the shadowy wings, preparing for their state of flight as the stage is flooded in a powerful wash of yellow. They stand casually and chat in their costumes: two-tone flesh and black leotards, white leotards and a full-length leotard whose bold black lines and points remind me of a lost nautical chart.
