M&T MAKE MAGIC

In May this year Melbourne audiences will have the chance to see a unique pairing of talents: Australian choreographer Tim Podesta and principal guest artist of the Royal Ballet, Mara Galeazzi.

The pair formed a collaboration in 2015, M & T in Motion, and since then have been steadily building an international reputation. Podesta's Shadow Aspect was nominated for five awards and won Best New Ballet Production at the Wales Theatre Awards. That work, which included dancers of Ballet Cymru, premiered in late 2017 in Newport, Wales, followed by a sell-out London performance at the Sadler’s Wells Linbury Theatre.

This year they will be joined in Australia by Company Wayne McGregor dancers James Pett and Travis Knight, Chilean principal dancer from the National Ballet of Mexico, Sebastian Vinet, and principal dancer from Germany, Marlon Dino. Together they will present FORTÉ, a program of new contemporary works, including one by Podesta and a joint work by Pett and Knight.

FORTÉ will premiere in Melbourne at the Deakin Edge at Federation Square on May 25, and will also at The Cube, Wodonga, on May 26. Further UK performances are planned for 2019.

Before then, Dino and Galeazzi will feature in a new dance film by Podesta, La Jeune Femme e la Mort, which was filmed in Australia in March. The work is a reimagining of the Roland Petit’s Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, which was later also created in film versions for Nureyev and Baryshnikov.

M &T In Motion will also be offering student workshops in both Melbourne and Albury-Wodonga in conjunction with the performances and a Dance Research Conference in Albury-Wodonga themed ‘Destinations and Definitions: How is the production of art and dance influenced by the culture of the place it is created in?’

For more info go here.