Journal articles and newsletters from Ausdance and industry partners.
‘Disagreeable object’ a work devised and performed by Michelle Heaven
In this very short article, Shirley McKechnie pays homage to Michelle Heaven's imagination and creativity shown clearly in her new work Disagreeable Object.
Black symbols on a white page or colourful moving images?
The challenge to capture, preserve and recover the dance continues. Laban notator, Ray Cook, looks at some of the arguments both for and against film/video and dance notation as the better method for preserving choreography.
Perceiving dance bowing to the ineffable
Although a great deal of philosophical thought has gone into dance as art over the last few hundred years, little if any has attempted to take a more dispassionate, scientific view, let alone conduct any original research into dance. That may all be about to change.
The Kirov Ballet ready for the new century
Belgium-based dance writer and photographer Marc Haegeman looks at some history and changes at The Kirov Ballet—for better or worse.
Graeme Murphy’s Nutcracker
Music scholar and passionate balletomane, Rodney Edgecombe makes a thorough analysis of Murphy's The Story of Clara with comparisons to previous choreographic versions of The Nutcracker.
Madame Ballet
Kira Bousloff's name is synonympous wth ballet in Western Australia. She was a consumate performer and a personality to be reckoned with. This paper proposes that she saw her life as romance or fairytale, and tended to ignore the historical, political and cultural complexities of her creative enterprise.
Brief thoughts from an interview with Barry Moreland
Barry Moreland, Artistic Director of West Australian Ballet from 1983 until talks about why he went to Perth to lead the company, why he stayed and what inspired him about WA.
Ted Brandsen a late starter moving fast
Maggi Phillips gives an insight into Ted Brandsen, the Dutch dancer and choreographer who was Artistic Director of WAB from 1998 – 2001.
The 1964 tour
This story of the West Australian Ballet Company’s 1964 tour of the Northern Territory and the north-west of Western Australia is taken from a manuscript held in the National Library of Australia, Canberra. The provenance of the document is not clear but it is attributed to Kira Bousloff ‘as told to Val Green’ in 1964.
The more things change…WAB 1952 – 1982
Susan Whitford explores the home-grown nature of West Australian Ballet and the outward-looking strategies that the company embraced. WAB experienced a long list of significant directors and choreographers (both Australian and international) who led the company from strength to strength.
The cost of dancing the dream Linley Wilson & Alison Lee
Dance scholar, Dr Maggi Phillips, gives us an idea of what it might have been like to earn a living in the world of legitimate or avant-garde theatre in Perth during the early decades of the twentieth century.
‘Crazy link-ups all over the place’
Dance scholar Maggi Phillips has chosen a particular intersection of destinies to illustrate the unpredictable and complex lineages of dance. Her focus here is on three major and influential Perth artists: Boris Kniaseff, Lucette Aldous and Barry Moreland.
The Bolshoi ballet only the strong survive
In the 90s both the Mariinsky (Kirov) Theatre in St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow—homes to two of the world’s most famous ballet and opera companies—have been struggling to survive in the radically changed socio-economical environment of post-communist Russia. Dance writer and photographer Marc Haegeman, talks about these companies and their ability to survive.
Tivoli a tribute
No-one should be surprised that it was Graeme Murphy who conceived the idea of a dance musical to honour the Tivoli, the variety show that entertained audiences around the nation for over seventy years. Dance writer and critic Lee Christofis tells the story.
The classical pas de deux a descendance of the ‘classical’ suite?
Rodney Edgecombe, an English literature scholar with a passion for dance, speculates on the origins and influences of the "classical" suite in the world of classical ballet.
Moving mind: the cognitive psychology of contemporary dance
The production, performance and perception of music has been studied in detail by cognitive psychologists. Music has been recognized as a window into cognition. The status of dance, however, is less clear. The authors propose that contemporary dance too affords insight into human cognition and can be powerfully communicative.
Mischa Burlakov and the first Australian ballet
Anne Gollan speaks from personal experience about the great teacher Mischa Burlakov and his studio/home in Sydney during the 1940s and 50s.
Destroying illusion or ‘the unmasking of ballet’
Dance writer/critic, Stephanie Glickman gives an in-depth exploration and analysis of Philip Adams’ Amplification, which she concludes is a 'contemporary ballet....that exposes not only the painful process of performing the dance technique....but also works to express his obsession with 'morbidly beautiful' aspects of death that often remain latent in Romantic ballet'.