Australian Dance Theatre celebrates
Australian Dance Theatre was founded 50 years ago this year by Elizabeth Dalman. To celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, the company is holding a Gala season at the Adelaide Festival Centre in July. The program will consist of tributes to former directors as well as a new work by the company, co-choreographed by artistic director Garry Stewart with a former dancer, Larissa McGowan.
Other 50th anniversary events include a Founders' Celebration held in the Adelaide Arcade – the first home of the dance company – and commemorative book written by Maggie Tonkin (also a contributor to Dance Australia) which will be launched in November, and involvement with the 2015 Australian Dance Awards, which will be held in Adelaide in September.
ADT will also tour nationally and internationally. Garry Stewart’s Be Yourself will be presented in WA, NSW and SA throughout June and July, and his dance film Collision Course will be presented in Melbourne’s Federation Square in February as part of the Recharge: Experimenta Biennial of Media Art.
Two European tours of the company’s newest work Multiverse will take place in March and June to French and Spanish theatres, including the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris. ADT will also tour to South America - a new market for the company.
In another highpoint for the company, Stewart has been named as one of 10 inaugural recipients of the Australia Council Award for Outstanding
Achievement in Dance. “There are so many incredible artists making
extraordinary, fascinating work in this country and I’m honoured to be a component in this unfolding evolution,” Stewart says.
Stewart has been leading ADT since 1999. The awards are the highest accolade the Council can bestow, and grant $50,000 each to the high-calibre recipients.
DATES: 20 June: Mandurah Performing Arts Centre (WA)
24 – 27 June: State Theatre Centre (Perth)
7 July:Dubbo Civic Theatre (NSW)
10 -11 July:Illawarra Performing Arts Centre (Wollongong, NSW)
5 – 6 August: Barossa Arts & Convention Centre (SA)
7 August:Marion Cultural Centre (SA)
14 August: Murray Bridge Town Hall (SA) ]
Ballet Revolucion
Cuba has gained a reputation as a breeding ground for stunning dancers – think Carlos Acosta – and the incredibly successful Ballet Revolucion is no exception.
Returning to Australia and New Zealand for a third time, this troupe is drawn from Cuba's Escuela Nacional de Arte, with its renowned faculty of modern dance, and at the famous Escuela Nacional de Ballet for classical dance. Dance training is strongly promoted in Cuba, as dance means more than art: on the Caribbean island, it means “life”.
Leading Australian choreographer Aaron Cash, along with Cuban choreographer Roclan Gonzalez Chavez, have created a show in which the superbly trained dancers blend ballet and contemporary technique with salsa and Cuban dance to produce a unique fusion. They are supported by a live band of Cuban musicians.
The tour starts in Auckland on June 17 and goes to Wollongong, NSW, Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Frankston, Vic.
See: ????????????????????????????? for tour details
WEB ONLY:
Dates:
17 – 21 June
2015
Auckland, New Zealand
The Civic Theatre
23 June
2015
Wollongong, Australia
WIN Entertainment Centre
24 June
2015
Canberra, Australia
Canberra Theatre
25 – 28 June,
2015
Sydney, Australia
State Theatre
1 – 5 July,
2015
Melbourne, Australia
State Theatre
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7 July,
2015
Frankston, Australia
Frankston Arts Centre
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9 – 12 July,
2015
Brisbane, Australia
Concert Hall, QPAC
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14 – 19 July,
2015
Adelaide, Australia
Her Majesty’s Theatre
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21 – 31 July,
2015
Perth, Australia
The Regal Theatre
CAP B: A scene from the hugely successful Ballet Revolucion.
Photo: GUIDO OHLENBOSTEL
Bangarra double bill
Bangarra's 2015 season will combine the work of one highly respected artist, Frances Rings, with two budding choreographers.
Company dancers Waangenga Blanco and Deborah Brown are collaborating on a new work titled I.B.I.S. – their first for the company. They will draw on their Torres Strait Islander heritage to “celebrate of the resilience and optimism of the Torres Strait Islander people”.
Rings, on the other hand, has “proven herself time and time again to be one of Australia’s most innovative and successful choreographers,” as says Bangarra's artistic director Stephen Page. Her creation is called Sheoak. In Indigenous culture, the Sheoak is know as the Grandmother Tree and is symbol of shelter, medicine and protection.
The two works are presented under the title, “Iore”.
The premiere season takes place at the Sydney Opera House from June 11 to 27, and then tours to Canberra, Wollongong, Brisbane and Melbourne.
See ???????????????????????????? for dates.
[ WEB ONLY] DATES
Sydney Opera House: 11 – 27 June
Canberra Theatre Centre: 9 – 11 July
Merrigong Theatre, Wollongong: 24 – 25 July
Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane: 7 – 15 August
Arts Centre Melbourne: 28 August – 5 September.
To book visit www.bangarra.com.au/lore
CAP C: Bangarra's Kaine Sultan-Babij.
Photo: Edward Mulvihill.
Hanging up her shoes
Madeleine Eastoe, the acclaimed principal dancer with the Australian Ballet, has announced her retirement.
Eastoe joined the company from the Australian Ballet School in 1997. She will dance her final performances during the Giselle season, which tours Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide, with her final show taking place at the Adelaide Festival Centre on Monday July 6.
“Ending on Giselle is very significant for me,” she says. “I was promoted to principal after my debut performance in 2006. Being able to revisit a cherished role in your career is a blessing.”
Among many career highlights, she nominates working one-on-one with Resident Choreographer Stephen Baynes to create the lead role in 2007's Constant Variants, and dancing with guest artists such as Angel Corella in La Fille mal gardée and Cédric Ygnace in Giselle.
Another highlight was dancing Odette on the opening night of Graeme Murphy's Swan Lake in London.
Eastoe says she is looking forward to spending more time with her family (she is married to former AB dancerTimothy Harbour???), particularly her five-year-old daughter, and “getting to know myself outside of dance”.
See more photos of Madeleine Eastoe on our app!
CAP D: Bowing out: Madeleine Eastoe with Kevin Jackson in the Australian Ballet's current season of 'Giselle'.
Photo: JEFF BUSBY
A long day at the office
Is this the world's first dance performance on a sandbar?
The photo (????) is of the first production by the new Gold Coast company The Farm, featuring Gavin Webber and Josh Thomson.
Called Tide, and presented as part of the Bleach festival, the two dancers set up an office on the sandbar at Currumbin Creek, and stayed their for 48 hours, regardless of the rising tide and the fear of sharks!
“During the day we had people coming out to us,” says Webber,” we did long physical improvs, and we tried intermittently to sell another sandbar that was near ours, but lower so that it never came out of the water, pretending we were a real estate office. Ironically we later found out there is a true story about a dodgy real estate agent that actually sold land on an island in Moreton Bay that went under at high tide.”
Webber expects his next major production – Cockfight – will take place in September at NORPA (Northern Rivers Performing Arts) in Lismore, NSW.
See http://www.danceaustralia.com.au/news/new-company-for-gold-coast for more details about this brand new company.
PIC E: Swamped with work: Gavin Webber performing on the Gold Coast.
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Come to Neverland!
The story of Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn't grow up, never fails to enchant, and the Queensland Ballet is presenting a ballet version of the story in June and July.
Pronounced “brilliant” by the Canadian magazine Ballet International, this version is by the US choreographer Trey McIntyre, choreographed for the Houston Ballet in 2002 when he was the company's choreographic associate.
McIntyre is a hugely successful, award-winning freelance choreographer – he ran his own Trey McIntyre Project for many years 2005 to 2014 and has choreographed for companies around the world.
The ballet is three acts and promises much aerial dancing and a Captain Hook hook that can bend and curl like a finger. It is set to music by Elgar and the design is by Thomas Boyd, technical director of the Qld Ballet. A former production director of Houston Ballet, he worked with McIntyre on the original ballet.
Peter Pan runs from June 26 to July 11 at the Playhouse, Qld Performing Arts Centre.
DANCE AUSTRALIA IS OFFERING A FAMILY PACKAGE GIVEWAY TO THIS MAGICAL BALLET! SEE ????????????????? FOR A FAMILY PACKAGE GIVEAWAY!
CAP F: Rian Thompson as the boy who wouldn't grow up in the Qld Ballet's 'Peter Pan'.
Photo: GEORGES ANTONI
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For dates and more see http://www.danceaustralia.com.au/news/adt-celebrates-50-years
CAP A– [ADT]: Elizabeth Dalman, the founding artistic director of ADT, in a 1974 work called 'Inside'.
Photo: JAN DALMAN