British Liaisons: The Australian Ballet Flowers From Its British Roots, by Andrew Miller


The Australian Ballet dances Ninette de Valois' Checkmate: The Black Queen (Miwako Kubota, front centre) cuts past the knights to the Red King (Colin Peasley, back centre). Photo: Jess Bialek.

British Liaisons
Sydney Opera House, Opera Theatre: 7 May 2011
continues in Sydney until 21 May, in Melbourne from 25 August - 3 September 2011

The Australian Ballet
The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra
conductor - Michael Lloyd

Ballet is very much an international art form, its artists often experience wanderlust. It was Catherine de Medici who brought Renaissance Italian balletto from Florence to Henri II's court and encouraged theatrical dance there. In the following centuries, Louis XIV defined the French national ballet style a gave it a permanent home. Then over four generations, four french choreographers, Didelot (Pushkin was a fan), Perrot (Giselle), Saint-Léon (Coppélia) and Petipa (Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake with Lev Ivanov, and Nutcracker), each left France after completing their training, for St. Petersburg to do wonderful things for the Imperial Ballet. In the 20th Century, to finish a satisfying historical palindrome (see Margot Fonteyn's book The Magic of Dance), four Russian dancers and choreographers immigrated to the west: Fokine, Massine, Nijinksy and Balanchine, all thanks in part to Serge Diaghilev. They, and other Russians traveled beyond Europe; Pavlova indefatigably spread her art over the globe, reaching Australia. This sloshing back and forth of Europe's creative ballet talent kept the national styles fresh when they tended toward artificiality without destroying or making uniform their unique characters, often by sharing foreign folk dancing and inspiring a rediscovery of the local vernacular.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!