6 January 2010
By Vicki Car
filed under Costume, Swan Lake
I have discovered that swans use a lot of glitter. And a very particular sort of glitter at that: very, very fine bright white glitter that sticks to everything and can be found in all sorts of interesting places at the end of the day.
We refurbished Swan Lake recently for the Perth season and although the show is in quite good condition, there’s no getting away from the fact that it has been on tour every year since it was made in 2002. The headdresses are very stylised, with two pieces of thermoplastic shaped to represent a wing and a tail. The girls pin them into their hair either side of their French rolls and originally they were painted with white opalescent paint and finished off with glitter at the base of each piece. It was only when we resprayed one did we realise how brown they were! I guess it’s down to the stage lighting that we had no idea; during the performances they looked beautiful. Close up however the poor swans were looking a little worse for wear, not quite as sparkly as they had been and rather like they had been swimming in a murky pond.
Kate my fearless and trusty assistant had no idea what l was letting her in for when we talked about bringing them up to scratch. For days we were lost in a haze of glitter, spray paint and PVA glue like drag queens at the Mardi Gras. But finally they were done, resprayed, reglittered and packed into their boxes for their journey to Perth.
Ready, as Betty Pounder used to say on opening nights, to “Sparkle, Darlings”.
Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake is available to purchase on DVD from The Australian Ballet Shop
13 November 2009
By admin
filed under From the studio, Swan Lake
Amber Scott returned from Perth after performing one of the most iconic roles for the ballet stage, Odette in Swan Lake. For Behind Ballet Amber writes about bumps and bruises, sunshine and beaches, and the thrill of performing on opening night.
Week one of rehearsals …
Here we are again: a room full of dancers faced with the task of taking on complex characters, entering into a world of love, betrayal, longing and redemption. Four acts of love scenes, mad scenes, swan scenes and a lot of lung-bursting dancing. I have missed Odette since the overseas seasons where we performed Swan Lake last year. There is something about this character that endlessly fascinates me. Each year as I begin work on the role of Odette I feel like I’m revisiting an old friend, and layers are peeled away to reveal what has been learned since we last met.
Graeme Murphy has given our company a beautiful Swan Lake. There is fantastic material to share with my partner the Prince (Adam Bull) and the nemesis Baroness (Lucinda Dunn) as the three characters tell their stories. There is also a lot of devilishly difficult dancing, partnered and solo work which, no matter how many years you have danced, requires a great deal of stamina and sweaty hours in the studio. This is the stuff that gives you strength and focus on stage. The rehearsals are a wonderful start to the journey. In saying all that, the first few rehearsals sometimes feel like a battlefield as you work out the various grips and holds for the pas de deuxs and trios.
In week one, there have been knees knocked, faces slapped (accidentally of course!), bodies slammed, fingers trod on, knees grazed and, at one point, I even managed to pull Adam over my head to the floor while I was in the splits! It was spectacularly funny and kept Miss Fiona Tonkin laughing for the rest of that rehearsal. After a few more days of sweating our way through the choreography, and going through boxes of bandaids, serenity returns to our lake. The pas de deuxs cease to flap and we start to glide harmoniously with one another. Read the rest of this entry »
23 October 2009
By admin
filed under Swan Lake
Alice Topp, corps de ballet member with The Australian Ballet, has been performing as one of Graeme Murphy’s swans for three years to sell-out crowds across Australia and the globe. She has danced in cities as far flung as Paris and London, and this week she graces the stage in the riverside city of Perth.
Swan Lake is incredibly special to me as a corps dancer: the movements lend themselves to artistic interpretation and expression for every individual on the stage. While we appear as a collective in corps swans, we are still dancing as if we are experiencing the love and pain of the lead swan.
There are these incredible, choreographed moments where we are very protective of Odette – we swoop in to support her and, as the music is so dramatic, it’s hard not to get completely involved in the story and swept up in the emotion of the tragedy.
No matter how many times I perform swans, I never grow sick of it. It’s always a challenge to move as a synchronised flock and I always feel that even though I am but one of many swans, we are all equal contributors to the production – when you realise the beauty of the shapes and patterns we are creating, there’s a real sense of team spirit and unity between us onstage.
Every time I do Swan Lake, and this is my third year performing as a swan, it’s so exciting to see the production grow as dancers take on new challenges in principal roles and new company members share their first Swan Lake experience. It’s definitely one of my favourite productions!
Artists of The Australian Ballet. Photography Jeff Busby
22 October 2009
By admin
filed under From the Artistic Director, Swan Lake
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
16 October 2009
By Isabel Dunstan
filed under Flashback, Swan Lake
The broken-hearted Odette finds peace at last as she descends into the depths of the still, cool water. This is the single image choreographer Graeme Murphy wanted to capture for the 2002 photo shoot of his brand-new production of Swan Lake – and the only way it could be achieved was, literally, underwater. Graeme Murphy, David McAllister, former Principal Artist Simone Goldsmith, then Director of Marketing Yvonne Gates and a team of people including, the photographer, make-up artist and lifeguards met at Coogee Beach, south-east of Sydney.
Simone plunged into the water, wearing a specially designed dress by Kristian Fredrikson. She would be treading water for hours. “I can remember how gorgeous David and Graeme were to never let her be alone in the water,” Yvonne remembers. Graeme choreographed underwater movements for Simone – the first of his Odettes – and she sustained flawless technique while absorbed in her on-stage character.
When the images were developed, one of the most painstaking editing challenges for the photographer and designer was to remove the countless fish seen darting around Simone. “I couldn’t believe it – it looked like she was in a fish bowl,” Yvonne says. The 2002 underwater photo shoot of Swan Lake proves how careful planning, hard work and boundless imagination can coalesce to create one, perfect moment.
Swan Lake runs in Perth 21 – 25 October
Simone Goldsmith. Photography by Hugh Hamilton & Keith Lo Bue
30 September 2009
By admin
filed under From the studio, Swan Lake
Following in David McAllister, Madeleine Eastoe and Steven Heathcote’s footsteps, Kevin Jackson and Leanne Stojmenov travelled from their home town of Perth – to Melbourne – to pursue their careers in dance. Performing for the city you were raised in can be a nerve-wracking experience for any dancer. But when West Australians Kevin and Leanne talk about returning to Perth to perform the leading roles of Odette and Prince Siegfried in Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake, they think beaches, sunshine and childhood ballet studios.
Where did you begin your training?
Kevin: I started dancing when I was seven at a small studio in Morley in Perth. My teacher Shirley Farrell ran classes from her backyard shed. I trained in tap and Scottish highland dance for the first few months and, over the next couple of years, Shirley and her twin daughters accommodated my passion to learn all styles of dance and taught me for eight years.
Leanne: I had so many wonderful teachers. My very first teacher was Helen McKay and by the time I was twelve I decided that I wanted to be a ballerina! Helen encouraged me to train with Terri Charlesworth and so I started my full-time training at The Graduate College of Dance the next year. I felt so lucky to have the opportunity to complete my secondary studies as well as pursue my dream. Read the rest of this entry »
