Journals + newsletters

Lee Christofis talks eloquently about Simon Dow's love for Puccini's opera La Bohème and the creation of the his full length ballet created for West Australian Ballet which premiered in May 2004.

Robin Grove talks eloquently about one of Australia's "star" ballerinas during the '50s, Lynne Golding.

Choreographer Margaret Barr developed a rich style of dance-drama to communicate her strong social conscience. Since dance is ethereal, works are often lost after their performance, but fortunately, two of Margaret Barr’s choreographies were captured on film so we are able to observe her dramatic skills, sophisticated wit, manipulation of dance elements and the societal issues that were important to her.

Dancer Josef Brown shares his experience of Palestine, its people and working with artist Nicholas Rowe in 2003.

Susan Graham examines macro level environmental and political influences on two dance forms that represent the cultural origins of modern day bicultural Aotearoa New Zealand—kapa haka and ballroom dancing. The historical origins, foci and functions of both forms will be compared and traced over the past one hundred years.

Don Asker looks at collaborative processes across art-forms and examines ways in which memories and reflection can contribute to the creative practice/experience.

Dance critic Kevin Ng talks to Professor Susan Street about her experiences as Dean of Dance at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Hong Kong dance critic Kevin Ng talks to freelance choreographer Natalie Weir at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, just before the premiere of her new work Turandot.

This article by dance writer and critic, Lee Christofis, draws and elaborates on the material collected by Lee in an interview with Graeme Murphy about his Swan Lake for The Australian Ballet.

Once character, emotion and action are added to abstractly satisfying movement, some questions may arise: "What and how does dance mean?" "Must it necessarily turn to mime, and strive for ‘verbal’ representations without words?" Music scholar, Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, explores this fission by discussing the key terms that became current over time, starting with Noverre’s scène d’action, and ending with Gorsky’s mimodrama.

In this very short article, Shirley McKechnie pays homage to Michelle Heaven's imagination and creativity shown clearly in her new work Disagreeable Object.

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.

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.

Belgium-based dance writer and photographer Marc Haegeman looks at some history and changes at The Kirov Ballet—for better or worse.

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.

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.

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.

Maggi Phillips gives an insight into Ted Brandsen, the Dutch dancer and choreographer who was Artistic Director of WAB from 1998 – 2001.

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.

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.