Celebration Gala

The Australian Ballet
Wednesday 15th December, 2021
State Theatre

Serenade
Amy Harris, Imogen Chapman, Benedicte Bemet, Callum Linnane, Cristiano Martino, Riley Lapham, Ingrid Gow, Katherine Sonnekus, Jacqueline Clark with artists of The Australian Ballet

Excerpt from Artifact Suite
Jill Ogai and artists of The Australian Ballet 
Piano: Kylie Foster 

La Favorita
Benedicte Bemet, Brett Chynoweth 

Excerpt from Watermark
Artists of The Australian Ballet
Piano: Stefan Cassomenos

Black Swan Pas de deux from Swan Lake
Sharni Spencer, Callum Linnane

Pas de deux from Chroma
Jill Ogai, Jarryd Madden

Dance of the Snowflakes from Act I of The Nutcracker
Clara: Aya Watanabe
The Nutcracker Prince: Christopher Rodgers-Wilson
Snow Fairy: Imogen Chapman
With artists of The Australian Ballet

A Serene Celebration, my response to The Australian Ballet’s Celebration Gala, drawn up especially for Fjord Review.

Beginning in the light of the moon, a remembering. Beginning with a much-loved (and most-performed) George Balanchine Serenade, in the State Theatre, The Australian Ballet’s Celebration Gala was a surprise foretoken to the 2022 season, and, as the name evokes, a celebration. A celebration to say welcome back to the theatre. A means for me, sat in the audience, to say ‘thank-you’ and feel what I’ve missed, the goosebumps of a live performance. Beginning at the close of the year, something unexpected: the gift of a new era.

The Celebration Gala coincides with the annual Geminid meteor shower. Two breathtaking illuminations across the night sky, active in December, varied only by their radiant location: State Theatre, for one, constellation Gemini, the other. The former concluding on the 18th, the latter, around the 20th. Balanchine’s Serenade invokes this vibrance by moon set. When it premiered, it “was performed in the open air, and it still somehow maintains that atmosphere.”[i] Against the gentle night sky of a bare stage, artists of The Australian Ballet appear in long pale-blue tutus as a cascade of musical motion. The stage is not bare, it is, in that moment, as infinite as the sky. It leads you to audibly draw breath. And the audience, as encouraged by Artistic Director David Hallberg’s in person welcome, burst into applause that feels befitting of both a homecoming and a bestirring. Seventeen night-blooming waterlilies, or perhaps a vine of scented moonflowers, unfurling at twilight to lure nearby pollinators, either way, this serenade is serene. One arm raised to shield the eyes, the hand flexed, we all begin.

In groupings of four, with arms overhead, a floret to a whole. Later, foliage swaying in the breeze to the running lines of the score. Led exquisitely by Amy Harris, and Imogen Chapman and Benedicte Bemet, this succession of fleeting images and repeating patterns seems to chime: pay attention; be grateful; for nothing is ever fixed.

To four movements by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op. 48, with the last two, Elegy and Russian Dance, swapping places so to reveal a new meaning, and conclude on a wistful note, Balanchine’s kinship with the composer suffuses his Serenade[ii] and makes this a beautiful vision.

Links to the natural world, and experiences of lockdown-late, flow into the brilliant excerpt from William Forsythe’s Artifact Suite, for though this choreography is described as being “a kind of machine, with ballet as its precision tool”[iii], there is no need to necessarily read ‘machine’ here as being one that is manmade. To me, the ‘machine’ I see on the stage is akin to the interconnectedness of the natural world where all the pieces work in harmony to sustain each other. I see the long walks of looking. I relate to the feeling of off-balance poses too.

I picture individual spheres around the dancers on stage, seeking, by definition of ‘kinesphere’[iv], to reach the periphery of their spheres with their extended limbs. The space each dancer occupies, the shapes they make together. Lines and shapes and groupings once more. Lines in the pattern form at speed and in doing so I see linked green tendrils in the many arms entwined. The push-and-pull is not just in the movement, but in the smudging of the edges of form against a dark ground, and the effect is utterly hypnotic. Jill Ogai as the Other Person, and artists of The Australian Ballet, accompanied by pianist Kylie Foster, as intended with this excerpt, left me wanting to see more, more, more.

Left wanting to see more is, I imagine, part of the intention of a gala of highlights. From Pam Tanowitz’s excerpt from Watermark, in which with an arm folded up and over your head, so as to cradle your own face, and a neat propulsion sideways is the only way to travel and simultaneously morph into a Spotted pardalote in the crown of a eucalypt canopy, to the Dance of the Snowflakes from Act I of The Nutcracker, season 2022 can’t come soon enough. I might be indoors, but thanks to Caroline Shaw’s “tribute to and deconstruction of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto”[v], performed by pianist Stefan Cassomenos, I am crouched in a forest watching a microcosm of life flutter before my eyes. Rejoice! A procession of round-backed, sap-sucking aphids in jazz shoes! Such sweet astonishments must every gala yield!

Welcome back. More please.

[i] Serenade synopsis, The Australian Ballet Celebration Gala programme, 2021, p. 10.

[ii] George Balanchine is quoted in an interview, remarking: “In everything that I did to Tschaikovsky’s music, I sensed his help. It wasn’t real conversation. But when I was working and saw that something was coming of it, I felt that it was Tschaikovsky who had helped me.” Serenade notes on The George Balanchine Trust website, https://www.balanchine.com/Ballet/Serenade, accessed 16th December, 2021.

[iii] Roslyn Sulcas, quoted in Artifact Suite synopsis, The Australian Ballet Celebration Gala programme, 2021, p. 12.

[iv] “The notion of kinesphere was created by Rudolf Laban to define: “the sphere around the body whose periphery can be reached by easily extended limbs without stepping away from that place which is the point of support when standing on one foot” (1966, p.10). This spherical space around our body shifts as soon as we shift our weight.” ‘Kinespehere’ definition on Space and relationship: an exploration of Laban’s spatial concepts in current dance practice, https://thespaceintherelationship.wordpress.com/kinesphere/, accessed 16th December, 2021.

[v] Excerpt from Watermark synopsis, The Australian Ballet Celebration Gala programme, 2021, p. 15.

PRODUCTION CREDITS: MELBOURNE

Serenade
Choreography: George Balanchine
© The George Balanchine Trust
Music: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op.48 
Costume design: Barbara Karinska

Excerpt from Artifact Suite
Choreography and costume design: William Forsythe
Music: Eva Crossman-Hecht

Black Swan Pas de deux from Swan Lake
Choreography after Marius Petipa
Music: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Costume design: Hugh Colman

Excerpt from Watermark
Choreography Pam Tanowitz
Choreographer’s Assistant: Melissa Toogood
Music: Caroline Shaw Watermark
Costume and set design: Harriet Jung and Reid Bartelme (Reid & Harriet)

La Favorita
Choreography: Petal Miller-Ashmole
Music: Gaetano Donizetti
Costume design: The Australian Ballet Costume Workshop

Pas de deux from Chroma
Choreography: Wayne McGregor
Music: Joby Talbot Transit of Venus
Costume design: Moritz Junge

Dance of the Snow Fairies from Act I of The Nutcracker
Choreography: Peter Wright
Music: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Costume design: John F. Macfarlane

With Orchestra Victoria

You may have noticed a few changes on Marginalia since your last visit. The typeface is Romie, a serif typeface “born from calligraphy”, designed by Margot Lévêque. And in the archives (by category, in the navigation) the Dance archives continue to spin and grow.

Image credit: The Australian Ballet in Pam Tanowitz’s Watermark, 2021, by Jeff Busby