To continue to celebrate its 60th anniversary, The Australian Ballet has commissioned a double-bill of two new dance productions. Each of these sets-off the other to showcase the vast breadth of creative energy and beauty that this company has built up over the years. Together, the new productions highlight the unmistakable love of their work, their art, and their fellow dancers and creatives, that defines this company’s evolving identity.
The first new work features six dancers from Australian Dance Theatre (ADT), and thirteen from The Australian Ballet. ADT is Australia’s oldest contemporary dance company. Its Artistic Director, Daniel Riley, a Wiradjuri man from western NSW, choreographs and directs this collaborative work titled THE HUM.
Assisting Daniel is Associate Director Sarah-Jayne Howard. Choreographer, director and teacher, Sarah-Jayne was appointed Associate Artistic Director of the Australian Dance Theatre in 2018.
The work has been co-devised on the unceded lands of both the Kaurna peoples of the Adelaide plains and the Wurundjeri Woi peoples of Melbourne. And it is enriched by a specially commissioned score for a full orchestra by celebrated first nations composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon AO.
THE HUM tenaciously interweaves a resilient, crisp-footed tribe of dancers, as much at home in the asphalt city as in uncolonised country. Their energy relentlessly sprints. Their gestures indefatigably dart. Their interrelationships assiduously spur each other on. Yet the resonance of the accompanying music harmonises their strobe-lightning staccato into a fluid river of consciousness’ vibration, exhilarating throb, and synchronised cadence.
THE HUM intonates the song lines of the earth dancing its peoples from stolen selfhood to renewed and reinvigorated quintessence.
Above all, it brings divergent identities into a fertile and potent synergy. The collaboration of the Australian Dance Theatre and The Australian Ballet achieves a complementarity of diverse cultures inspiring each other’s innovation and verve.
Taungurung woman from central Victoria, Annette Sax, created the earthy, flowing costumes.
Multi-disciplinary artist, Matthew Adey, created the set and op-art lighting design.
In vivid contrast to THE HUM’S grit and guts is the beneficent grace of The Australian Ballet’s second world-premiere work PARAGON.
Many dancers can identify with Yuri Lubovitch’s recollection: “It was like fate. When I was eight years old, a strange feeling brought me to dance, as if my legs went by themselves. Though I had never seen ballet before, it quickly became the main thing in my life.”
PARAGON is a distillation of a ballet dancer’s soul. It brings back onto the stage an alumni of The Australian Ballet’s finest stars throughout the years. The current company of young dancers join many of the legends of Australian ballet in a suite of tantalisingly luscious new choreographies.
The Australian Ballet’s Resident Choreographer, Alice Topp, has created twelve spine-tingling vignettes, spanning the heart and soul of ballet’s strivings to embody the human spirit’s eternal fire. Also, simultaneously, to express the exquisite vulnerability and intimate tenderness of human contact. The essence of human identity.
Born in Bendigo, Alice began dancing at age four. After two years dancing with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, she joined The Australian Ballet in 2007, where her choreographic identity has burgeoned. She has created numerous productions, showcased here and abroad.
Assisting Alice is Melbourne-based dancer and creator Jayden Hicks.
Sydney-based composer, Christopher Gordon, has created a mesmerizing score for PARAGON. Christopher has an extensive repertoire, spanning concert halls, dance, film, and events.
San Francisco Ballet’s Eric Hoisington once said: “Years ago I saw Swan Lake . . . During a scene in which the queen tells the prince that he must marry, there was a contraction in his body that was so meaningful. It was then that I realised that I could combine theatre with athleticism in dance.”
PARAGON seamlessly blends narrative storytelling, visceral lyricism, and the exquisite span of human interrelation.
Aleisa Jelbart designed the multifarious costumes.
Jon Buswell designed the superb set and lighting, that tightly work in concert with, enhance, and focus the action on stage.
The Australian Ballet’s IDENTITY is at the Sydney Opera House until 20th May 2023 with the Opera Australia Orchestra, and is at Arts Centre Melbourne 16th-24th June 2023 with the Orchestra Victoria.
Featured image ; Fiona Tonkin and Adam Bull in the Australian Ballet’s production ‘Identity’ at the Sydney Opera House. Production photography by Daniel Boud