Since joining The Australian Ballet 15 years ago, Principal Artist Olivia Bell has performed many powerful lead roles: Clara’s dream ballerina the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, the warrior-like Flavia in Spartacus and the duplicitous Manon. After a short hiatus, Olivia returns to The Australian Ballet to perform the leading lady in red in Stephen Baynes’ At the edge of night. As she prepares for the role, Olivia shares some of her favourite performances to date.

The Nutcracker, Sugar Plum Fairy
Tchaikovsky’s score makes this magical ballet a favourite of mine. The Sugar Plum Fairy solo in act two is one of ballet’s most recognised pieces of music and, for me, epitomises the music of mystical dancing fairies. I have one particularly special memory of performing this role at the Sydney Opera House with my family in the audience as I was promoted to principal artist and presented flowers on stage by my husband, Nicholas. A moment I hold close to my heart.

Other Dances
This is a pas de deux choreographed by Jerome Robbins originally for Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov, two of my all-time favourite dancers. I was plucked from the corps de ballet to perform this ballet. It contains all the elements I love about dancing. The dance gradually builds up in intensity and technical complexity until it finally explodes in a flourish of fluid and luxurious movements. It also combines subtle Russian undertones that reflect my heritage.

Manon
A dramatic story about love and betrayal. I always love the process of becoming a character. From the early rehearsals when we’re understanding the character behind the story, to the performance when I no longer think and just fall into the role and tell the story through every inch of my body.

Ballet Imperial
Every Balanchine ballet is a challenge. They’re always technically difficult with very precise choreographic demands and built-on stylised movements. His ballets require coaching from specialised Balanchine repetiteurs weeks prior to the performances.

Spartacus, Flavia
This was my first full-length principal role. But I was in the trustworthy hands of my long-time friend and colleague, Robert Curran, who has been dancing with me since I was 10 years old! The ballet is both emotionally and physically exhausting, but the music keeps you going. The score was composed by Khachaturian, who created an incredible atmosphere. Some parts are so beautiful I have had tears in my eyes on stage.

Edge of night opens tomorrow night in Melbourne and opens in Sydney 11 November

Olivia Bell in Suite en blanc. Photography Justin Smith

With his new work Halcyon premiering on the mainstage in less than a fortnight, Tim Harbour has made a seamless transition from the top ranks of The Australian Ballet to the role of fledgling choreographer. We chatted to Tim about Halcyon and how he balances the excitement and hard work involved in his courageous career shift.

How did you come up with the title for your piece and what is it about?
Halcyon is the name of the lead character in a Greek myth. She falls in love with a mortal and they anger the Gods. He is killed and she redeems his body by transforming into the Halcyon, a type of kingfisher.

You drew inspiration from a Greek mythological love story. Where else do you draw inspiration from?
While I was thinking and working on this ballet I turned to works by Martha Graham, for the way she told stories through strong theatrical choreography. I’ve often thought of Graeme Murphy for the same reason. I also read about the art of the playwright and the structure of plays. I also looked to the stage and costume designers, and I collected a gazillion images that helped us to formulate visual ideas.

For Halcyon’s music you worked with Australian composer Gerard Brophy. Will this piece have an overall Australian feel to it?
To me it sounds more Middle Eastern, actually. Gerard took my ideas away after our talks and now his music is influencing me. I’m actually at a point where I’m trying to reconcile my earlier thoughts with the music. Sometimes that means changes. It’s a different process for me. It’s surprising and exciting hearing what Gerard’s done and wonderful to have someone working on Halcyon with me.

You’ve actually danced in Stephen Baynes’ Molto Vivace. How does it feel to have your work  featured next to his in Edge of night?
Yes, I created the role of the Cupid in Molto Vivace and danced in performances of At the edge of night, too. Stephen is a great choreographer and they’re wonderful ballets. I can only hope my work stands up alongside them!

When did you first try your hand at choreography?
In 2005 I made a duet that became part of that year’s Bodytorque programme. I wanted to try it before then, but time and courage failed me.

What is it like working with dancers that you were dancing alongside only three years ago?
Every dancer in my creative cast is someone I’ve worked with in the Bodytorque programme. It’s a luxury to know your dancers intimately, who are all so inspiring.

What was it like to choreograph a piece for Christopher Wheeldon’s company Morphoses in New York?
Both exhilarating and a little intimidating. I was a little unprepared for the pace of it all, but I’ve come to admire Chris all the more for his ability to produce such fine work so quickly and so often. He did it right before my eyes but I still don’t know how!

How have you found juggling your new career as a choreographer with a young family? [Tim is married to Principal Artist Madeleine Eastoe. They have a young daughter.]
To be honest, it is a challenge. Sometimes creativity seems like such an indulgence when you look at your kid and think of your responsibility as a parent. I’m working hard and I’ll just keep doing that.

Would you ever perform in one of your own ballets?
Yes, I think so. It would have to be a walk-on part though!

Edge of Night plays in Melbourne 26 August – 4 September and Sydney 11 – 29 November.

A former dancer, Lydia Gibala is now studying for a Masters in Marketing at RMIT University and recently completed an internship with The Australian Ballet’s marketing team.

Image: Tim Harbour and Rachel Rawlins in rehearsal for Halcyon. Photography Jessica Bialek

You’ve worked with Stephen Baynes before on 1914 and Requiem, both distinctly different to Molto Vivace. What most heavily influences the style of your designs?
I have designed the costumes for seven of Stephen Baynes’ ballets and they were all very different. Sometimes there was an established narrative, other times we were interpreting the nature of the music. My costume designs are influenced by the choreographer’s style, the choice of music, the size and nature of the performance space, the set design and the particular dancer who will be wearing the costume.

Do you watch many rehearsals prior to designing the costumes?
I try to watch as many as I can. It reinforces my connection with the choreography, allows me to visualise the costume in motion and realistically review the demands made of the garment. But, most of all, it allows you the privilege of witnessing the development of the choreography.

The music in Molto Vivace is by Handel who composed music around the 17^th and 18^th centuries, and yet the costumes are quite modern and funky. Can you talk about how Handel’s score fits with the costumes?
Stephen had a very particular attitude to the music which really influenced both the set and costume design. There was a formality on the surface of the music disguising a mad frivolity beneath. I tried to echo this in the costume designs in particular with the eclectic fabric choices, colours, and the silhouette.

Obviously dancers have to be able to move  freely in their costumes than, say, opera singers. Are there any tricks of the trade to accomplish this?
The choice of fabric is crucial: how it falls, its flexibility, and its ability to withstand strain and constant laundering. When drawing the costume on the figure, the designer has to bear in mind the skeletal and muscular structure of the human body. The cut of the design lines, in relation to the rotation of the body joints, often requires the cutter to adapt traditional pattern blocks.

What is the first thing you do when commissioned to design costumes?
I listen to the music as many times as I can, as often your mood at the particular moment of listening can affect your interpretative skills. But the very first time you hear the music is a moment that never returns and is particularly special.

You started out designing costumes for plays. How did you come to design dance costumes?
Dame Peggy van Praagh asked Kristian Fredrikson to suggest a designer for Barry Moreland’s ballet Trocadero, and he recommended me for the commission. I was very familiar with the world of ballet as my mother danced in the 1940’s with the Borovansky Ballet.

Is your approach different when designing costumes for the various art forms: theatre, dance and opera?
Yes, it is often a question of scale, though there are basic principles that apply to all areas of theatrical design.

You’ve designed extensively for television. How does that differ from designing for the stage?
You become aware of ‘the close-up’ in film and television. The area around the face and hands becomes important in terms of detail. Though you have to take ‘the big picture’ into consideration as well and plot the ‘extras’ palette carefully to support the principal characters. The costume designer, because of the size of the cast, often has the added task of combining hire costumes with those they have specifically designed for the film.

What do you do when you’re not designing?
I love gardening, travel, going to films and theatre, though I do spend a lot of time and energy working on a travel scholarship for theatrical designers and makers. The scholarship was established to create an ongoing memorial to the career of the late Kristian Fredrikson.

A former dancer, Lydia Gibala is now studying for a Masters in Marketing at RMIT University and recently completed an internship with The Australian Ballet’s marketing team.

For further information about the Kristian Fredrikson scholarship visit www.fredriksonscholarship.org.

Edge of night plays in Melbourne and Sydney in August and November

Image: Artists of The Australian Ballet in Molto Vivace 2003. Photography Jim McFarlane

Tim Harbour’s Halcyon began with a single image: a goddess, transformed into a bird, flying like an arrow into a storm. Tim enlisted designer Alexis George to recreate his visions on the ballet stage with a unique collection of danceable, period-style costumes. Martyn Pedler caught up with Alexis to talk about how she began designing costumes for the new ballet.

When Tim first told you the Halcyon story, did images immediately start to turn in your head?
It was actually quite immediate. Especially when the narrative is set in a particular time and place. Greek gods have such a striking visual image, so that was a really great starting point for me.

Tim said that he gathered a folder of images that inspired him during the initial stages of the creative process. Did he bring those to you as well?
Yes, that’s correct. He had a few paintings of the Halcyon goddess and her lover Ceyx. In particular, Tim liked the way the wind swirled the fabric, and the movement that was in the painting.

Is there an example of how you interpreted one of those images into your costumes?
Initially I guess it was more about capturing the feeling and mood of the painting. I did some further research on Zeus and I pulled out some particular design lines from the images I found – though they’re not in the final designs. Research in those initial stages is really important: starting with something, and then moving on from there.

What’s the most exciting stage of this process? Is it the initial brainstorming, the research, or when it begins to take a more definite shape?
Every stage is fantastic, but I think it’s when you start seeing the two-dimensional drawings turn into three-dimensional life on the bodies. That’s quite an amazing feeling. It can be really nerve-wracking; you don’t really know if it’s going to work. Something can look amazing on paper but not on the body. The most exciting part is probably finding the fabrics that speak of the design, and getting that onto the body.

I hadn’t thought of that. So, not only is there the initial step from the paper to the object, there’s another step as it’s put onto the dancer …
Absolutely. A lot can change then, particularly in these designs for Halcyon. I’ve done a lot of cut-outs on the body, with lines that follow the contours of the body really closely for the most flattering look. On paper, I’ve drawn something that I think will be flattering, but I actually need to finish the designs on the body. Kerry, the cutter at The Australian Ballet, is going to create a ‘white’ – what we call a ‘trial’ – to put on the dancer, and then we’ll draw on the dancer’s body where the lines are most flattering to their shape. Designs continue all the way up to opening night, really. There are always little changes.

Has there been a particular challenge that’s come with working on this ballet?
Tim challenged me a lot in the design stages, which was really exciting, because he was still developing things in his head. I kind of developed the designs with him, and he kept pushing me to go further and further in different directions. I’m glad we came up with something that works really beautifully together. But we would have never have got there if he didn’t travel that path. So the design stage was quite a challenge to achieve something we both liked and that fit the design aesthetic, and that was something new as well. It’s quite difficult to recreate the leotard! I had to think outside the box a little bit.

Are you used to people coming to you with more of a concrete idea about the costumes?
I think the difference definitely lies between dance and theatre. In theatre, or opera, you always start with a script or a score. But with dance – especially works like Halcyon, which is newly commissioned – we were all there from step one. As a designer, that’s the way I love to work. You really feel like you can contribute to the overall show through design.

Are there sometimes designs you come up with that you think would be amazing, but know that dancers could never dance in?
Definitely. You’ve got to consider the movement, how light something is, whether it stretches with the body, and what sort of fabric it is. They’re such hard-wearing costumes and get put through a lot. There’s the Melbourne season, and then the Sydney season, so everything has to be made from high-quality fabrics. The Australian Ballet has an incredible wardrobe department and they can produce anything, really. If I came to them with a design that seems impossible to move in, they would somehow make it moveable.

Edge of night plays in Melbourne and Sydney in August and November

Stephen Baynes’ ballets are famously beautiful, often exploring themes of memory, love and loss. In the ’80s, Dame Peggy van Praagh encouraged the Adelaide-born dancer to flex his choreographic muscle. Today, Stephen is The Australian Ballet’s resident choreographer and has worked with companies worldwide. Edge of night features two beloved works by Stephen. In the first of two interviews, we chat to Stephen about Rachmaninov, writers’ block and his achingly romantic At the edge of night.

You’ve used the Rachmaninov score to inspire your choreography in At the edge of night. Does the choreography come before the music or the music before the choreography?
Never the choreography before the music. It’s usually a matter of finding a piece of music or knowing a piece of music. Apart from a couple of commissioned scores where there’s been an idea, and the music has been written after that idea, the music is always the primary motivation for the choreography.

If you could ask Rachmaninov one question, what would it be?
I’d ask him how personal his Preludes [the music used in At the edge of night] are to him. Are they autobiographical in any way? I’m sure that’s not something he’d let on! There’s a certain dialogue in them; each of them paint a little picture and set a mood. I sometimes think about the way music assists film – it does the same for choreography. So you imagine a scene, a story, a mood or an atmosphere in the music.

What are the kinds of feelings you want the dancers to communicate on stage?
Each of the Preludes are a little different. The ballet is very oblique, and very cryptic. It’s about a woman looking back on her past. But it’s left open for interpretation; I left it open deliberately. It’s mostly pas de deux, so they naturally have a romantic feel about them. One pas de deux features a dancer who’s an idyllic youth, in the bloom of first love. Another is parting.  And another is just a memory. So they have their own stories.

You’ve choreographed works on many companies around the world. What’s it like to be back working with The Australian Ballet?
Well, dance is the same everywhere, really. But the advantage of working with a company where you know the dancers is amazing. You don’t have those barriers to break down. You need to know what your dancers can do. It’s that sort of ease in the studio where you’re not struggling with a stranger. Instead, you feel completely comfortable. Then again, I’ve always said it’s very dangerous to be completely comfortable, but choreography is very exposed. It’s one of those art forms you have to do in public; you can’t do it on your own. When you’re familiar with your dancers you feel more comfortable trying new things, so there’s more room for experimentation.

Do you ever experience the equivalent of writer’s block?
Sometimes you get stuck in the studio, and you freeze, and the dancers are just standing there. But you just throw out some steps out and try something. Once there’s something in front of you it’s very easy to work through that feeling. But in terms of writers’ block before you’ve even started the choreographic process? Well, not really. There’s always a piece of music or an idea that gives you the impetus to start.

Do you have anyone in your creative circle who you bounce your ideas off?
My design team, mostly. Richard Roberts, Michael Pearce and Anna French have been the main ones I’ve worked closely with in the past. I know some directors, too. There’s no one I talk to about choreography, though. You’re kind of on your own on that front!

Edge of night plays in Melbourne and Sydney in August and November

Image: Stephen Baynes and Daniel Gaudiello. Photography Christopher Tovo

[Show as slideshow]

Inspired by an ancient Greek myth, Tim Harbour’s brand-new ballet Halcyon explores weighty themes of life, death, pride, betrayal and transformation. We snuck into the studio recently to photograph rehearsals for Tim’s mainstage debut and caught up with him to find out how the work’s progressing.

Can you shed some light on Halcyon’s concept?
It’s based on a Greek myth. The allure of any Greek myth is that they’re always really simple. Even though this one is  simple, it’s been a real challenge to get across the ideas in 25 minutes. As far as the narrative goes, it’ll be far more abstracted than Coppélia for example. Loads of imagery and symbolism; they’re the mechanisms I’ll be using to drive the story. Hopefully it’ll be an emotional drama.

Your work has never really been narrative-based. It’s always been quite poetic and abstract, correct?
Yeah, I’ve always tried to have a theme or some kind of poetic idea …

So why the change?
Ah, well, you’ve got to! This is a really big opportunity for me – it might be the only time I ever do something like this. I might as well try it.  Even though this is a highly pressurised opportunity – a lot of people are going to see it; it’s The Australian Ballet, and there’s a lot of expectation – I do have the confidence of coming back to the dancers who I created my first choreographic works on. My time away has always been about coming back to this opportunity to try something bigger. So I’m confident in my cast.

When you begin the creative process, do you get the music and then start choreographing?
Normally I would, but this time I started with this concept. This time I was able to go to Gerard Brophy and say: ‘this is the idea’. We had a lot of conversations and eventually I was able to delineate six scenes for him that had fairly clear scenarios. And then I was able to do that with Alexis George, who is doing the costumes. And I was able to do that with Bluebottle, the guys doing the stage design.

So, right now you have the music – have you got the costumes ready?
They’re designed. I’ve actually got a mock up of one of the costumes. There’s this special idea I have for the storm scene. Think pants, and between the legs, all along the inside thigh is pleated material so that when the dancer lifts her leg the material makes the shape of a fan. I hope it’ll be a really fun thing to work with. I actually tried a pair on the other day and they’re a really funky look; just walking. At the moment we’re playing with materials that are going to work and deciding whether to make them out of polyester or silk. There are all these issues about colouring. Some fabrics can’t be coloured, some can’t be painted, and there are others that aren’t heavy enough or won’t last the distance of 30 shows. So there are issues everywhere … and the cost! I thought the costs would be so simple, and I think they [the wardrobe department] have a budget of about $30,000 and they’re already like, “well, I don’t think we’re going to make this under our budget – what can we cut?” It’s interesting. But, hey, it’s great to have a budget!

Edge of night plays in Melbourne and Sydney in August and November

Ty King-Wall and Madeleine Eastoe in rehearsals for Halcyon. Photography Jessica Bialek