Bangarra Dance Theatre first brought this cross-cultural work to the main stage of the Sydney Opera House in June 2024. “The Light Inside” is a wondrous collaboration between leading Māori choreographer Moss Te Ururangi Patterson and Bangarra choreographer, Deborah Brown. The work explores the spiritual ties between land, water, and sky—the natural forces that shape First Nations identities across Aotearoa, Australia and the Torres Strait—in one 70-minute production. “The Light Inside” covers two distinct landscapes, Deborah Brown’s “Salt Water,” moving seamlessly into Patterson’s “Fresh Water.” Having debuted at the Sydney Opera House, “The Light Inside” is now touring across Australia.
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Winning Works
The late John Ashford, a pioneer in programming emerging contemporary choreographers across Europe, once told me that he could tell what sort of choreographer a young artist would turn into when watching their first creations.
PlusScottish Ballet x Royal New Zealand Ballet
Last weekend, the Royal New Zealand Ballet hosted two nights of performance in collaboration with the Scottish Ballet at the St. James’ Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand. The bill included two works by choreographers affiliated with Scottish Ballet, and two by RNZB choreographers. There was welcome contrast in timbre and tempo, and common themes of self-actualisation and connection, through a love of dance. As RNZB artistic director Ty King-Wall announced in the audience address, the two-night only performance was in the spirit of “bringing the companies together in mutual admiration and respect.”
PlusBack to School
Who knew that a PB & J sandwich could conjure Proust’s madeleine? Certainly not this writer. But it’s not farfetched to think that Lincoln Jones, the artistic director, choreographer and conceptual guru of American Contemporary Ballet, had the idea of memory in mind when he conceived “Homecoming.”
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