Journal articles and newsletters from Ausdance and industry partners.
Quantum leaping
Shona Erskine interviews Mark Gordon, director of the Australian Choreographic Centre, and Ruth Osborne, artistic director of the Quantum Leap Youth Choreographic Ensemble in Canberra. This discussion of the program, indicates how this kind of project can have a direct influence on the community and the public perception of dance.
Homage and critique in contemporary dance
Amanda Card writes about American iconoclast Yvonne Rainer, French scientist/choreographer Xavier Le Roy and Sydney dance group The Fondue Set. According to Card the work of both Le Roy and The Fondue Set pay homage to dance and its history, and she offers a critique of it.
Pavlova’s 1929 Australian tour
Following on from her article in Brolga 30 about Pavlova’s first Australian tour, Nina Melita investigates audience reaction to the second and final tour in 1929. She talks about the effects on the community, aspects of Pavlova’s personality, personal life and Pavlova's views on the arts in Australia.
Working solo
Martin del Amo talks candidly and elegantly about the way he makes work—how he begins, how he collaborates with others and how they "get things done".
Some thoughts on working, 2010
Poetic reflections by Trevor about the work he makes. This prose evokes—rather than explains—the why, when and how of his devising processes.
The mentor—mentored
Brain Lucas writes a generous, reflective musing on how even established artists are in a constant and continuing state of development and growth.
Mystory #5
Julie-Anne Long takes us on a journey, through the inspiration, creation and realisation of a working process. She reflects on collaboration and the influence of place with a word skill that replicates her expertise as a dancing devisor.
Retrospective
Shelley Lasica talks candidly and elegantly about the way she makes work – how she begins, how she collaborate with others, and how they get things done.
Thoughts on work, October 2010
Helen Herbertson provides some poetic reflections about the nature of her. This results in some beautiful, powerful prose that evokes, rather than explains, the why, when and how of her devising processes.
The Fondue Set present…The Fondue Set
The Fondue Set – Jane McKernan, Elizabeth Ryan and Emma Saunders – offer up a fascinating response to a set of provocations. They reveal their process in a three-part harmony that speaks to the particular concerns of this group of female artists.
Thinking through dance—dancing through thought
Tess de Quincey expresses ideas about how and why she makes art in a stream-of-consciousness style of poetry.
Motion as expression and communication
Narelle Benjamin talks about how and why she makes dance for both stage and film.
Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow: Toward a definition of the ‘Ballet Lyrique’
Rodney Stenning Edgecombe looks for a new genre within ballet itself, making connections between other musical forms and such works as The Merry Widow, which was part of The Australian Ballet’s 2011 season. Reaching back into the history of ballet and opera, he proposes a new term, ‘Ballet Lyrique’.
The two Cups of 1962: the dancing horses of The Australian Ballet and the National Theatre
2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the premiere season of The Australian Ballet's Melbourne Cup, choreographed by Rex Reid. Melbourne Cup was a popular hit of 1962 and the ballet drew on the country’s most famous social sporting event for its story and setting. Jordan Vincent has investigated the surprising facts connecting Reid’s work with a second ballet on the same subject by Melbourne's National Theatre, titled Cup Fever: a fantasy on The Cup.
Thinking bodies, dancing minds: research with communities of creative minds
In seminal investigations, researchers from the Victorian College of the Arts and the Universities of Melbourne and Western Sydney collaborated with dance artists and scholars to explore the nature of thinking in the embodiment of kinaesthetic, cognitive, emotional and aesthetic perceptions.
Maybe we’re not human
Jonathan Bollen explores the utility of actor-network theory for researching performance. The focus of his analysis is Australian Dance Theatre's Devolution created as a collaboration between choreographer Garry Stewart and robotics artist Louis-Philippe Demers.
Designing for Nina Verchinina’s choreographic vivacity: a new light on Loudon Sainthill’s art
Art historian Andrew Montana presents his perspective on the designs the young Australian artist Loudon Sainthill made for the ballets of the beautiful Russian ballerina, Nina Verchinina. The story of this collaboration, and the fate of Verchinina as choreographer is intriguing.
In/between/Place: Tess de Quincey’s bodyweather of the central desert
Mary Elizabeth Anderson gives an account of Tess de Quincey’s experiments in Bodyweather training, place-based performance-making and documentation at Hamilton Downs, an old cattle station and youth camp about 100 kilometres beyond Alice Springs.
Variations in proximity as a tool for audience engagement
Clare Dyson illustrates her account of proximity in the relationship of audience and performer with examples from her own intriguing choreographies. How close is close? What does being a member of an audience, as opposed to being an ordinary person in an ordinary place mean?
Galvanising community (pt 1) Margaret Barr at Dartington Hall 1930 – 1934
Dance historian and scholar, Garry Lester introduces us to some of Margaret Barr's achievements at Dartington Hall in Devon during the 1930s. (You can read the second part of this article in Brolga 26.)