I saw Flora at its premiere in Melbourne in March and was struck anew by the breadth of artistic director David Hallberg's vision for The Australian Ballet. Hallberg's counterpart at B…
Code of Conduct is pungently sited on the 20th floor of a Brisbane office block. Look out the windows and a shiny city full of possibilities beckons; inside it's all concrete, low ceil…
Sybylla Melvyn blazes like a comet in the night sky, although one with a path that can't be predicted with any accuracy whatsoever. Sybylla is an agent of chaos, crashing her way towards a l…
It goes without saying creating new work is always a gamble. When it's staged as part of a major festival the stakes are even higher. The show has to compete with much more seasoned fare. Od…
You hear it a lot in foyers. "A short show's a good show" we cry before heading into the auditorium. It's shorthand, if you will, for the knowledge that we don't be detained too long if a te…
The contemporary triple bill Prism starts its Sydney season on November 7, after which, just for something completely different, The Australian Ballet will dive back into David McAllis…
Two years ago I was at the 2023 Brisbane Festival to see Salamander, the astonishing dance-theatre-visual arts piece by British choreographer and director Maxine Doyle with an extraordinary …
Sydney Dance Company's INDance, now in its fourth year, is a small festival that presents already existing " although relatively new " works in SDC's black-box Neilson Studio. It's a pick'n'…
Tchaikovsky was "charmed and captivated" when asked to write the music for The Sleeping Beauty by the director of the Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky. Audiences have felt the s…
Whenever I am within cooee of a venue for The Australian Ballet's regional tour I will be there. Port Macquarie, 2023; Newcastle, 2024; Wollongong, 2025. Other places in other years too. I r…
You don't go back to a ballet again and again just to see the ballet. You go to see what different artists make of that ballet (same with opera; same with theatre). An alternative cast bring…
Queensland Performing Arts Centre is celebrating its 40th anniversary by giving out the presents. Free screenings of Ballet Preljocaj's contemporary Swan Lake, which had a season just …
There's a vibrant spirit of renewal at Canada's Alberta Ballet, the Calgary-based company that next year celebrates its 60th anniversary. Artistic director Francesco Ventriglia has been i…
It's been known for some time that Queensland Ballet is in financial difficulty. This week we discovered it is in the process of cutting staff from behind the scenes and within its company o…
It's all change at Queensland Ballet. Again. The company is far from being the only arts organisation experiencing some turmoil " here's looking at you, Opera Australia " but every company's…
The stars were out and so was the moon. The audience gathered, as always, on the terraces at City Beach's Quarry Amphitheatre with the traditional picnic baskets and wine to hand. The dancer…
If you want to sum up the thrust of Karen Pearlman's witty new short film in one piece of advice it's this: women, whatever you do, do not gaze wistfully through a window. This passive…
Queensland Ballet has chosen Ivan Gil-Ortega to be its next artistic director. The Spanish-born international artist will be the company's seventh AD. He will start in February after a perio…
Obviously we're not precisely at the opera. If so, the doors would have been shut against all-comers at the scheduled start time and there wouldn't be all these people standing around in the…
It's been a few years since I've done a year's-best list. Everyone loves a list, including me, and it's fun to see what others found memorable. But while I'm always happy to share my opinion…
Can something be simultaneously too much and not enough? That was the case for Oscar Wilde in his tumultuous, ill-fated, on-off relationship with the mercurial Lord Alfred Douglas and it's t…
Is there anyone, anywhere, ever, who hasn't kept shtum about something not precisely true when put under pressure? Mostly it doesn't matter but in the earnest chamber musical Dear Evan Ha…
The unwieldy name of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's bio-ballet carries the intimation that not everyone will know who Chanel was. Tell that to Brisbane, where Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion …
Francesco Ventriglia became artistic director of Alberta Ballet in January 2024. Now 46, he has worked as a dancer, artistic director and choreographer in Italy, New Zealand, Uruguay, Austra…
Andrew Lloyd Webber is rarely absent from a stage somewhere and it's safe to say his work will outlive the scoffers, of whom there are many. Oh well, he can always cry all the way to the ban…