Tetsuya Kumakawa, In the Comfort Zone
For a man considered an icon in Japan’s performing arts world, Tetsuya Kumakawa, in person, is surprisingly down-to-earth.
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
Anyone who has visited Cuba will know it is a country full of music and movement. The country’s first ballet company, the Ballet Alicia Alonso, was founded in 1948 by the renowned ballerina of the same name, Alicia Alonso (the company went on to become the Ballet Nacional de Cuba). Contemporary or modern dance, as it is known in the West, was only introduced in the early 60s after Cuba’s revolution. With trade embargos meaning the world has seen little of the Cuban dance scene, when Cuban dance company Ballet Revolución decided to include Australia in its world tour, the opportunity to attend opening night at Sydney’s State Theatre was more than intriguing.
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Ballet Revolución in their eponymous performance. Photograph by Nilz Boehme
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For a man considered an icon in Japan’s performing arts world, Tetsuya Kumakawa, in person, is surprisingly down-to-earth.
PlusAmelie Ravalec is a London-based French film director and producer, photographer, publisher and colourist. Her internationally screened films include Art & Mind, Paris/Berlin: 20 Years Of Underground Techno and Industrial Soundtrack For the Urban Decay.
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PlusThe American Ballet Theatre’s opening bill was not a hole-in-one, but the ideas behind the programming were sound: feature a new work that builds upon company traditions (Gemma Bond’s “La Boutique”), push the dancers in a different style by a hot choreographer (Kyle Abraham’s “Mercurial Son”), and show off the troupe’s prodigious technical chops in a grand manner (Harald Lander’s “É tudes”).
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