After landing in Perth to prepare for the opening night of Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake, David McAllister took time to breathe, see family and blog.
At times, going back to Perth has felt like mission-impossible. We have been trying to return for the last three years, and impediments surface at the most crucial time. But as I boarded the plane on Friday night it sunk in that this time all the stars were aligned. We were travelling west with our most successful production of the new millennium.
It has been a particularly great lead-up to this tour. The ballet centre was alive with Tchaikovsky as we revisited Graeme Murphy’s production of Swan Lake. We prepared the new casts that will be performing at Burswood Theatre alongside Phillip Adams’ creative development for Aviary, which saw three of our men working with BalletLab.
It was great to have BalletLab with us and the showing last Friday was fabulous. Their rehearsals were a closed affair, but the sounds were emanating from the studio – the dancers were singing a variety of Abba and Messiaen! Steve Reich echoed down the hall as we rehearsed Dyad 1929 and Rachmaninov sounded from the studio while Stephen Baynes revisited his wonderful ballet At the edge of night.
Apart from adjusting to the three-hour time change, a weekend at home in Perth with my family was bliss! I had a chance to spend time with my two budding ballerina nieces who scored the very latest ballet T-shirt. Family time is always at a premium so it was wonderful to just hang out and catch up.
