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Queensland Ballet
REVIEWS | Di Gracia Haby

But a Dream

As soft as a white rabbit’s fur: Edwin Landseer’s Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Titania and Bottom (1848–51). In a down of fur, the painting hanging in the National Gallery of Victoria depicts Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, besotted with Bottom, who has recently been reshaped into an ass, from William Shakespeare’s comedy of misplacement. A fairy queen and an ass, two of opposite realms entwined and for all to see in the fairy dell, accompanied by the requisite fairy folk and white rabbits. In an engraving of Titania and Bottom by Henry Fuseli they too, are encircled by...

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RED
REVIEWS | Di Lorna Irvine

Dance as Revolution

This Scottish debut, fusing documentary with performance, is at once a celebration of feminine power, and deconstruction of the “model” ballets performed around the time of China's Cultural Revolution. Beijing-based choreographer Wen Hui, formed Living Dance Studio with filmmaker Wu Wenguang in 1994, becoming China's first independent dance theatre company. And this witty and inventive study of both the implications of the Communist regime, and what is expected of female dancers, is also incredibly powerful in its own subtle and understated way—never didactic for its own sake.

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Jewels
REVIEWS | Di Oksana Khadarina

Shine On

After attending the premiere of George Balanchine’s “Jewels,” on April 13, 1967, dance critic Clive Barnes described it in the New York Times as “too beautiful for words,” musing on the fact that at the time of its premiere the ballet had no title: “I can only presume that Mr. Balanchine must have taken one look at the extraordinary thing he created and at once found himself at a loss for words.”

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Spartacus
REVIEWS | Di Gracia Haby

Rise Again

“Broken necks, splattered patellas, severed arteries: These are the things from which dreams are made of,” according to former professional wrestler, Road Warrior Hawk (ring name of Michael Hegstrand, 1957–2003). Said fellow former professional wrestler Cactus Jack (ring name of Mick Foley, 1965–), “if the Gods could build me a ladder to the heavens, I'd climb up the ladder and drop a big elbow on the world.” They might have been talking about old school wrestling, but on Tuesday night, their words could easily be re-moulded around the hulking form of Lucas Jervies’ world premiere of “Spartacus” created on the...

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Philly Fringe
REVIEWS | Di Merilyn Jackson

Philly Fringe

Two back-to-back shows in Philadelphia’s 2018 Fringe Festival had me thinking in compare and contrast mode. One, full of lusty life and joy, reached out to the audience to join in the fun and total experience, and the other devoid of anything but interior dialogues, often inaudible, blanked the audience out.

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DANCEworks
REVIEWS | Di Penelope Ford

Something Wonderful

DANCEworks, a month-long residency at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara, has been attracting big-name choreographers for the past decade. It's easy to see why—where else can you create in a uniquely supportive environment, in a fully-equipped theatre, by the sea? The residency culminates with a performance of the work-in-progress, and many of these works have gone on tour across the U.S. and internationally. This year marks DANCEworks' tenth anniversary, and artistic director Dianne Vapnek has every reason to celebrate.

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Natalia Osipova
REVIEWS | Di Sara Veale

Breaking out of the box

The last programme Natalia Osipova commissioned at Sadler’s Wells was tenacious but shaky, the Royal Ballet superstar storming the stage with then-boyfriend Sergei Polunin and a trio of hit-and-miss contemporary numbers. This time around, the commissions are stronger and the performances steadier. The six works of “Pure Dance” mix classical variations alongside brand-new solos and duets, with choreography from established dancemakers and emerging artists alike. It’s a lot of faces to try on in one night, but Osipova moves between the disparate routines like a chameleon, demonstrating the expansive versatility of her talent and how eager she is to branch...

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Bangarra Dark Emu
REVIEWS | Di Gracia Haby

The Emu in the Sky

Up in the sky there is a giant emu. They have been there all along, in the calendar in the sky. Above our heads, a creator spirit,[note]The title of Bruce Pascoe’s book, Dark Emu, on which Bangarra Dance Theatre’s “Dark Emu” is inspired by, “refers to the shape of the ‘Dark Emu’ in the night sky which represents Baiame, one of the spirit creator figures of Aboriginal Australia. The emu is also a grain feeding bird, and a plains bird, so the reference is to the creator spirit and to Aboriginal food production”. Bruce Pascoe, in interview, “The Book,” Bangarra...

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Giselle
REVIEWS | Di Gracia Haby

Ethereal Giselle

Light and dark, day and night, youth and maturity, a flirtation and redemption, naturalistic and ethereal: “Giselle” spins a conjuror’s trick all the wilier for its very familiarity, its everlasting allurement. An autumnal village presented in Act I flips to reveal the ballet blanc of Act II: two halves of a whole. We know this, we anticipate this, we lap it up. Fermented in honey before interval, raising a flagon of mead to love, and even love’s folly, and unpinned madness, we heed the warnings spun to the villagers. The flipside to a light-hearted Peasant pas de deux is heartache...

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Sydney Eisteddfod
REVIEWS | Di Claudia Lawson

Showtime

With cash prizes totalling $36,000, the Sydney Eisteddfod Ballet Scholarship is the biggest cash prize for rising ballet stars in the southern hemisphere. Now in its 44th year, the scholarship is open to dancers aged 16-19 all of whom are teetering on the edge of securing a place in a world class ballet school, or for the lucky few, a company contract. For an art form reliant on funds to enable careers, the scholarship presents a serious opportunity.

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Michelle Manzanales
REVIEWS | Di Rebecca Ritzel

With Open Arms

Of all the touring modern dance companies based New York, none has consistently introduced talented new choreographers (or new-to-me choreographers) like Ballet Hispánico.

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szalt
REVIEWS | Di Victoria Looseleaf

Moondance

While the full moon was never actually visible—at least from this reviewer’s seat—during the world premiere of Stephanie Zaletel’s “moon&”—there was still an incandescent quality to the dancer/choreographer’s fifth evening-length work. Especially when Zaletel took center stage at the outdoor amphitheater, a sylvan venue nestled in Hollywood’s Cahuenga Pass, where she led her six-person, all-female szalt (dance co.), a collaborative founded in 2015, in a work that veered from meditative stillness and surrender to frenzied states of prolonged rapture and the accompanying struggles—gravitational and otherwise—of what it means to live on this earth.

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Featured Reads

REVIEWS | Rachel Howard
Starry Nights

Beneath blue California skies, manicured trees, and the occasional hum of an overhead airplane, Tamara Rojo took the Frost Amphitheater stage at Stanford University to introduce herself as the new artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.

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