CriticalDance Forum

Swanning about
August 30 2002
Sydney Morning Herald

Star-crossed lovers and flapping swans are among next year's Australian Ballet attractions, writes Jo Roberts.

The Australian Ballet launched its 2003 season in Melbourne yesterday, with artistic director David McAllister outlining six dance works promising "a rich tapestry" of repertoire favourites and exciting new works.

Bookending the season are two classics, opening with a revival of John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet, featuring Spanish-born American star Angel Corella as Romeo, and ending the season, says McAllister, "with a bang" in the form of Andre Prokovsky's version of The Three Musketeers, a piece created for Australia's flagship ballet troupe in 1980 and last presented 15 years ago.

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<small>[ 11-28-2002, 10:05: Message edited by: Malcolm Tay ]</small>

<B>Ballet's fairytale reunion</B>
By Jane Albert and Georgina Safe
August 29, 2002
The Australian

A NEW full-length work by Australian choreographer Meryl Tankard will form the centrepiece of the Australian Ballet's 2003 season, a mixture of new local works and classical crowd-pleasers.

Wild Swans is Tankard's first important work in her home country since her acrimonious departure from Adelaide's Australian Dance Theatre in 1999. Since then she has worked largely overseas, with the rare exceptions being choreographing a segment of the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony in 2000 and two works for a concert for the Dalai Lama held in April this year.

"It's great to be back," says Tankard. "I always felt the [Australian] Ballet was my family and my home, but in the past I think they thought my work too avant-garde for them. But now, with a new artistic direction, I think they can see I'm still using the classical techniques but in order to challenge myself and the dancers – which hopefully Wild Swans will do."

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<B>Conductor up-beat about changes</B>
By Jane Albert
September 06, 2002
The Australian

IF Nicolette Fraillon gets her way, there will be a lot of changes at the Australian Ballet next year. And they have nothing to do with dance.

The incoming musical director and chief conductor of the AB has many ideas about improving what she sees as the neglected dance orchestra scene in Australia. These range from having more of a musical say in the AB's season program to instigating specialist training for ballet conductors, encouraging closer ties between musicians and dancers and fostering appreciation for the orchestra's work.

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On Graeme Murphy's upcoming reworking of <I>Swan Lake</I>:

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New life for an old bird
By Neil Jillett
September 17 2002
The Age

The Australian Ballet's new and unconventional production of the classic Swan Lake looks the way it does partly because Kristian Fredrikson wanted to write The Great New Zealand Novel.

More than 40 years after he was struck by that ambition, the novel remains unwritten, and the hobby he took up to support him while he made his name as a Kiwi Patrick White has expanded into a career as one of Australia's busiest and most applauded stage designers.

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<B>An army of swans</B>
By Jo Roberts
September 17 2002
The Age

The first major commission by new artistic director David McAllister, it is a mammoth production, even bigger than the Tivoli collaborative extravaganza that Murphy created last year with his own SDC dancers and the Australian Ballet. This production of Swan Lake involves every one of the AB's 71 dancers, Murphy calling it "a military exercise".

Dancing the principal roles in the first of three casts (which will alternate each night) are Steven Heathcote, Simone Goldsmith and Margaret Illman. "This is a four-act ballet, so it's a killer," Murphy says of the 155-minute work.

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<small>[ 09-17-2002, 04:41: Message edited by: Malcolm Tay ]</small>

<B>Murphy's sublime Swan Lake</B>
By Hilary Crampton
September 19 2002
The Age

<I>Swan Lake</I>, Choreographed by Graeme Murphy.
The Australian Ballet.
State Theatre, until September 28.

Perhaps the most consistent aspect of choreographer Graeme Murphy's career is that he never fails to surprise. Rather than the anticipated radical re-imagining of Swan Lake, Murphy makes frequent reference to tradition. We see the massed ensemble of swan maidens, the familiar four cygnets, and the reconfigured story line still centres around the eternal ideals of light versus darkness, good versus evil, and true love versus desire. Even the famous fouettes make an appearance, though repositioned into Act I.

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<B>Promotion for Goldsmith following Odette triumph</B>
By Jo Roberts
September 19 2002
The Age

On a high from her performance as Odette in the world premiere of Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake on Tuesday night, which climaxed in a standing ovation, Australian Ballet senior artist Simone Goldsmith probably thought things couldn't get much better.

That was until the post-show speeches, when AB artistic director David McAllister announced to the packed room that Goldsmith was being promoted to principal artist, effective immediately.

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<B>Swan Lake (Review)</B>
By Lee Christofis
September 20, 2002
The Australian

JUST minutes after the curtain went up on the Australian Ballet's new Swan Lake on Tuesday, we knew we were witnessing the birth of a classic and the emergence of a ballerina of extraordinary quality. Three hours later the house went wild, wilder than any ballet audience in town for years, in a nearly 10-minute standing ovation.

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What an intriguing review. Thanks, Malcolm.

<B>Burley's bulging disc a blow to ballet</B>
October 01 2002
By John Mangan
The Age

A bulging disc forced Australian Ballet principal Nigel Burley off the dance floor in May - now he has announced his premature retirement from the stage.

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<B>Switching chairs</B>
October 03 2002
By Jo Roberts
The Age

Australian Ballet chairman Mel Ward, has been appointed chairman of the Australia Council's major performing arts board.

He succeeds Dr Helen Nugent, who chaired the 1999 key performing arts inquiry.

Ward, who leaves the AB board on November 2 after almost 12 years as a board member, and chairman since January 1999, said he was "pleased to have this further opportunity to serve the arts community in a wider role".

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<B>Numbers man new chief of the Australian Ballet</B>
By Sharon Verghis
October 3 2002
Sydney Morning Herald

Accounting supremo David Crawford - more used to untangling numerical webs in his former life as national chairman of KPMG - has been appointed the new chairman of the Australian Ballet.

Crawford, who takes over the position from outgoing chairman Mel Ward early next month, has been the board's deputy chairman since 1999.

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<B>United!</B>
Reviewed by Jill Sykes
November 8 2002
Sydney Morning Herald

The Australian Ballet has been celebrating its 40th all year, one of its birthday gifts being member Adrian Burnett's first work for the touring repertoire. Its title, Subtle Sequence of Revelation, was a mystery to me until curtain call when the lights showed the religious and art history references printed on Jennifer Irwin's costumes. Until then, John Rayment's lighting made lovely stage pictures but revealed little. The piece is well crafted to music from the Philip Glass quartets 2 and 5 and provides plenty of dancing for 16 performers drawn from both companies. The solos, especially Timothy Harbour's, the duets and - outstandingly - a trio are stronger than the larger ensembles, which move the performers around well enough but lack the kind of choreographic invention that makes an impact.

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<B>Triple treat not to everyone's taste</B>
November 5 2002
Sydney Morning Herald

<B>In a year of celebration, the Australian Ballet is counting the cost of being cutting-edge, writes Sharon Verghis.</B>

At Guillaume at Bennelong restaurant at the Opera House last Friday, the Australian Ballet's year-long celebrations of its 40th anniversary took shape in the form of rose petals, martinis, accolades and an official changing of the guard.

The mood, appropriately enough, was upbeat, a stream of celebrities, fashion designers, politicians and the informal ballet aristocracy of former dancers, benefactors and supporters gathering to mark the milestone as well as the massive changes underfoot from boardroom downwards.

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<B>House full for Swan Lake</B>
By Jane Albert
November 28, 2002
The Australian

"WHO do you have to be to get a ticket to this show?" That was Graeme Murphy's question after learning Ross Stretton would be in the opening night audience of Murphy's Swan Lake while his own friends would not.

Stretton, the recently ousted artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London and former head of the Australian Ballet, is expected to attend tomorrow night's performance at the Sydney Opera House of Murphy's reworking of the 19th century Russian classic for the AB.

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