THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS

 

The Musical of Musicals   Music by Eric Rockwell Lyrics by Joanne Bogart. Book by Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart .

Creatives: Musical Director: Nick Griffin Lighting Designer & Stage Manager: Nikki Fitzgerald Set Designer: Jarrad West Costume Designer: Fiona Leach. Stage Manager and Lighting designer Nikki Fitzgerald. Original production directed by Duncan Driver and Duncan Ley   Cast Jarrad West,Louiza Blomfield, Hannah Ley, Will Collett Presented by Everyman Theatre. ACT HUB. Causeway hall.  Bookings: (02) 6210 8748

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Louiza Blomfield (Aunt Abby), Hannah Ley (June),Will Collett (Willy)

 

 

 

                                Jarrad West (Jitters) in  Everyman Theatre's The Musical of Musicals

From the cornfields of Kansas to the Speakeasy of Chicago The Musical of Musicals is a ride you won’t want to miss. The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye and there’s enough of it in Everyman’s wacky parody of musical favourites to keep you tapping and clapping and laughing and screaming through an evening of over the top send-up.  Merrily roll along in the company of superstars Louiza Blomfield, Hannah Ley, Will Collett and Jarrad West with Musical Director Nicholas Griffin at the piano and Duncan Driver doubling as the Narrator and director of this gem of a production.

 

Hannah Ley as June and Will Collett as Willy

 

For musical buffs it’s a clever game of Guess the Musical as the quartet of performers lampoon Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim Jerry Herman and Kander and Ebb. It’s all bundled together with June (Hannah Ley) having to pay the rent to Jitters (Jarrad West) only to seek the advice of Abby (Louiza Blomfield) and eventually be rescued by the dashing Will (Will Collett). 

Jarrad West as The Phantom Jitters and

 

 

 

                                            Hannah Ley as Christine June.
 

This clever montage of musical snippets with music by Eric Rockwell and Joanna Bogart and lyrics by Joanna Bogart would test any professional performers of musical theatre and  Everyman’s dazzling troupe of  acting. singing, and dancing musical stupendoes rise to the occasion. Under Nicholas Griffin’s musical direction and with  snappy original choreography  by Hannah Ley and Jarrad West, re-rehearsed by Meg Millbrand The Musical of Musicals is a must see night of musical theatre for any lover of the uplifting compositions of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, Herman and Kander and Ebb. In the Off Broadway tradition the actors open in basic blacks and gradually assume costume add-ons by designer Fiona Leach for their singular numbers. It all makes for a sharp, snappy and rollicking good time.

Louiza Blomfield as Abby with 

 

                                            Nichols Griffin at the piano
 

Rehearsal director Duncan Driver keeps the action moving at a high energy pave., interjected by wry comments by Driver as a somewhat wry narrator. Each performer has their moments in the spot and every one of them shines. There’s Will Collet’s   affable Curly from  Oklahoma, Hannah Ley’s dizzying rendition of I’m Not Getting Married from Company, Louiza Blomfield’s Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard,, Jarrad West’s drag number I Am What I Am from La Cage Aux Folles and the company’s divinely decadent Medley from Chicago.. This is just a taste of a banquet of spoof.    The Musical of Musicals was first performed in 2003 at The Courtyard Studio with West, Blomfield and Ley in the cast, Collett is a recent addition to this music theatre melodrama. Ley makes a welcome return from her home in England with husband Duncan Ley, who with Driver directed the original and subsequent seasons. Ley, like the other veterans of the production has lost none of the vitality an pizzazz of performance over the intervening years.

 

Louiza BHlomfield and Hannah Ley

 

                                                in The Speakeasy.

So, get along to ACT HUB’s Causeway Hall for this night of fun, song, dance and frivolity. Cheer the Hero, Willy (Collett), Sigh with Heroine June (Ley), Hiss the Villain Jitters (West) and Hear! Hear! the advice of wise Abby (Blomfield). At a time when entertainment is sorely needed, The Musical of Musicals spreads a bright golden haze on the meadow. A must see production for all lovers of musical theatre and top notch performances. 

Photos by Michael Moore - Captured Moments Photography 

 

THE WOLVES by Sarah DeLappe - The Studio - Mockingbird Theatre Company, Belco Arts, Belconnen.

 

Jayde Dowhy -Ainslie Bull - Eleanor Graham - Susan Brown and members of "The Wolves".

Designed and directed by Chris Baldock -Assistant Director: Steph Evans

Lighting Design and Projections by Rhiley Winnett - Stage Manager: Seth Burr

Costumes & Props by Chris Baldock, Steph Evans, and cast.

Lycan Cast – Eleanor Graham – Zara Huber – Jennifer Noveski – Susan Brown – Ainslie Bull – Jayde Dowhy – Grace O’Mahoney – Eva Loxley – Ruth Hudson.

Mockingbird Theatre Company – The Studio – Belco Arts – Oct. 15 to Nov. 1, 2025.

Performance on October 16^th – Lycan Cast reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Grace O'Mahoney - Zara Huber - Susan Brown -Eleanor Graham -Eva Loxley -April Telfer - Ainslie Bull - Jennifer Noveski- Jayde Dowhy as "The Wolves".

“The Wolves” is a one-act, 90-minute play, written by Sarah DeLappe, set in an indoor Soccer field somewhere in suburban America during a 2016 winter, and premiered Off-Broadway in 2016.

A slice- of- life – drama, it follows the lives and concerns of the members of a female High School soccer team, The Wolves, whose lives evolve around their weekly warm-up sessions. During these sessions they share gossip about their friends, world events and politics, confidences about their bodies, and occasionally; long held secrets.

Each is identified simply by the number they wear on their backs, and each is provided with a back-story by the author. Beyond these guidelines, it is left to each actor to create a character that will hold the interest of the audience.

Discovering that he had enough suitable talent to field two casts, Director, Chris Baldock, did exactly that, in a canny move likely to entice his audiences to return a second time to see how the play fares in the hands of a different cast.

This review focusses on the performance of The Lycan Cast.

Members of The Wolves pose for the camera with orange quarters in their mouths.
You'll need to see the play yourself to find out why.

As is expected of a Baldock production, the design and presentation are impeccable, as it the casting, in which every actor looks exactly as you would expect of a teenage soccer team. Perhaps a little more enthusiasm for the warm-up exercises might have been expected, because it was hard not to imagine how The Matilda’s might have fared had they trained as unenthusiastically as this team, especially as the audience was meant to believe, later in the play, that the team was talented enough to attract talent scouts.

Because it is such an ensemble play, set in contemporary times, much of the interest came from watching the choices made by each actor in responding to the storyline set for their particular character.  Appropriately for this production, the director has guided each actor towards making their own decisions with their responses to the dialogue and the situations.

This worked very well in achieving a naturalistic rhythm used by contemporary teenagers to communicate with each other. However, unless the theatregoer can hear and understand that dialogue it is difficult to become engaged in the storytelling.

 In this performance, much important storytelling information was lost because of lines delivered too quickly or too softly. Part of this was due to the construct of the play, which, for much of the time, has actors delivering lines standing or seated in a circle with their backs to the audience.   

Therefore, no matter where one is seated, much of the dialogue was lost by actors working hard to achieve naturalism, at the expense of important story points almost impossible to decipher because the actors were not adept at projecting that information.

For the less experienced actors in this cast, this is a skill which they will hopefully work to perfect as this season progresses.

 “The Wolves” is an interesting play offering a thoughtful perspective on the lives and challenges faced by contemporary teenagers, performed with sincerity by an engaging cast already facing those challenges.

                                                         Photos by Chris Baldock.

Figa No Face, & Virtual Gaze

Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

Figa No Face | Lilah Benetti

Virtual Gaze | Annabelle McEwen

Photo Access | 18 September to 18 October 2025 

Some research told me that anarchive is a term denoting absence in archives. Archival documents, in colonial holdings in particular, are replete with absences, especially as concerns the voices of the colonised. These absences come into sharp view during disagreements when the past is invoked to claim a right of belonging.

Lilah Benetti’s personal website informed me that the Black and Blur Anarchive is a transdisciplinary project building a living, relational archive of Black queer memory, kinship and cultural survival. It values ambiguity, intimacy and incompleteness, resisting singular narratives and centring gender non-conforming ways of being. Shaped by the part of philosophy that is about the study of how we know things, the archive space is where memory and imagination blur and intertwine as mutually sustaining forces.

Black and Blur maps geography relationally, cultivating conditions where Black futures can be dreamed into being. The works displayed are part of artist Benetti’s ongoing transdisciplinary project building a living, relational archive of Black queer memory, kinship and cultural survival across Australia, Africa and the UK. The artist has drawn on conversations in West Africa with elders, activists, artists and others living at the intersection of marginalised Black life, engaging Indigenous knowledge systems that view the body as spiritual and relational rather than singular.

The room sheet for Figa No Face tells us “The image is never neutral. Each photograph carries the weight of what has come before, rippling across borders into the political present, folding into impressions, memories, and projections.”

In these artworks the figure appears as a trace, as memory drifting into myth, as fragments gathering into story. There are prints of analogue film stills (a number of which, appropriately, are significantly blurred), a multi-channel high-definition tape video, and a 15:44 minutes audio installation titled Black and Blur, Frequency Soundscape Portraits. There is much to think about and absorb in this collection of material.

Figa No Face installation image © Eunie Kim

Figa No Face installation image © Eunie Kim

Figa No Face installation image © Eunie Kim

'CIRE [009]', 2024 © Lilah Benetti

Annabelle McEwen is a multidisciplinary artist. The room sheet for Virtual Gaze tells us that McEwen’s work “interrogates corporate surveillance of the body, where gestures and expressions are observed, hijacked and interpreted by algorithms. Synthesising analogue photography, digital technologies and material processes, the project considers how surveillance systems and algorithmically curated content shape agency, reality and future.”

You very possibly haven’t heard of The Extended Cohn–Kanade (CK+) dataset. It is a large-scale facial expression recognition dataset containing 2,065 images of 215 subjects displaying 8 basic emotions. Way back in 2000, the Cohn-Kanade (CK) database was released  for the purpose of promoting research into automatically detecting individual facial expressions. Since then, it has become one of the most widely used testbeds for algorithm development and evaluation.

McEwen has re-staged expressions from the dataset, which is used by governments and corporate bodies to register, stratify, interpret, and store our facial expressions. Applying them to their face using expanded photographic methods such as photogrammetry and gaussian splatting (a technique that enables the conversion of multiple images into a representation of 3D space, which can be used to create images as seen from new angles) the artist has captured a virtual gaze of the body. The resultant images are displayed as sculptural prints, exposing and visualising power structures embedded in contemporary technologies.

There is a print animation with a recorded data centre hum displayed on an iPad.  There are artworks printed on a fine-grained paper and on vinyl. Others are etched copper with cast silicon frames. There is a group of works created using Portland cement, graded sand, calcium aluminate cement, calcium carbonate and polyvinyl acetate homopolymer resin. And there is a dye sublimation print on carpet tile. Expressions conveying surprise, anger, disgust, joy, sadness and fear are portrayed in several works. Again, there is much to think about and absorb in these artworks.

Virtual Gaze installation image © Eunie Kim

Virtual Gaze installation image © Eunie Kim

Virtual Gaze installation image © Eunie Kim

‘Silicone Valley Conductor (surprise)’, 2025 © Annabelle McEwen

This review is also available on the author's blog here.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

 

 

Pride and Prejudice. Adapted from Jane Austen’s novel by the company. 

Created and Performed by Bloomshed. Directed by: James Jackson and Elizabeth Brennan. Performed by: Laura Aldous, Elizabeth Brennan, Syd Brisbane, Anna Louey, Lauren Swain, Emily Carr and James Malcher.
Set Design: Savanna Wegman. Costume Design: Samantha Hastings. Lighting Designer: John Collopy. Sound Designer: Justin Gardam. Stage and Production Manager: Jacinta Anderson
Creative Producer: James Jackson. The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. October 15-18 2025. Bookings: www.canberratheatrecentre.org.au or 62752700

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 What happens when a theatre company satirizes the satirist? An hilarious romp, that’s what. Devotees of Jane Austen and lovers of Pride and Prejudice could fall into two camps when attending Bloomshed’s production of Pride and Prejudice billed as a love story in a Housing Crisis. It certainly resonates at a time of escalating housing prices and unaffordable rental costs. The traditionalists may snub their noses at the twisting of Austen’s tale. Those who can relish the ridiculousness in human nature will find it difficult to stop laughing for a moment to catch the wit of the company’s adaptation. .Bloomshed’s zany production lends credence to Shakespeare’s observation of “What Fools these humans be“ where Much Ado About Nothing rollercoasts luckily into All’s Well That Ends Well.

The premise is the same. Mrs. Bennet (Emily Carr ) with Mr Bennet still firmly in her grip but here transformed into an obedient pot plant is eager to divest herself of daughters Mary (Lauren Swain), a gun toting sure fighting daughter who shoots for the other side, Lydia (Emily Carr) who can’t resist a handsome man in uniform but takes a wrong turn with the unsavoury Wickham (Lauren Swain), Kitty (Syd Brisbane) , sexy Jane (Anna Louey)  whose desperation for Bingley (James Malcher) can only bring sobs  until the prospect of penury and the collapse of a real estate prospect saves the day and the love affair.and Lizzie.(Elizabeth Brennan) caught in Love’s confusion and affection for the dour Darcy(James Jackson). It all adds up to a crazy hither and thither show until Lady Catherine De Bourgh arrives from on high to partake in a momentary afternoon tea break. Costume designer (Samantha Hastings) lends a touch of cheek to the Lady Catherine’s costume with two cherries on top of her hat. Those lucky enough to own land and bountiful wealth really do get the cherries on top.

Elizabeth Brennan as Elizabeth Bennet and James Jackson as Darcy

In spite of the silliness of Bloomshed’s farce cum goonery on set designer,Savanna Wegman’s huge layered wedding cake stage there is cause to ponder. Austen’s critical commentary on class, religion and the complexities of love and marriage has not been lost on Bloomshed’s cast and creatives. There are references to Margaret Thatcher, the CPI, and above all the housing crisis. We know that the course of true love never did run smooth so why not sugarcoat it with the lascivious Reverend Collins chasing Lizzie through H row and finally handing the bouquet to a lady in the second row, hereafter acknowledged as his wife, or Mary popping off her gun before coming out .

Bloomshed’s cast are obviously having a great time. The performance, apart from the pause for Lady Catherine to enjoy her cup of tea that never leaves the hand for the lips, belts along at a cracking pace. In eighty non-stop minutes, there is barely time for depth or reflection and audience members familiar with the novel may glean more from the irony and ambiguity that is at the heart of Austen’s satire. For the rest, leave your preconceptions at home, release your expectations and settle back for what will be a frivolous evening of fun-filled entertainment. And at a time of rising house prices, crippling rentals and a soaring cost of living for those without Darcy’s billions this Pride and Prejudice is a passing panacea. 

SHAKEN NOT STIRRED - Blamey Street Big Band - The B

 

Jared Newall - Ian McLean- and the Blamey Street Big Band.

Music Director and Conductor – Ian Mclean AM CSC

Vocalists: Jared Newall – Leisa Keen – Ashleigh Harris.

Saxophones:   Joshua Hackwill – Amanda Macfarlane - Sophia Hadjimichael – Tanya Kiermaier - Andrew Hackwill.

Trumpets: Mark Du Rieu – Peter Levan – Catherine Pollard - Matthew Johnston - Mike Hauptmann.

Trombones: Bronwen Mackenzie – Caitlyn Bool - Paul Trezise – Peter Redpath

Piano:  Perrin Lionis – Guitar: Col Bernau - Bass: Peter McDonald – Drums:  Derrick Brassington.

The B. Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre – October 11^th, 2025.

Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Leisa Keen - Ian McLean and the Blamey Street Big Band.

Since it was established in 2002, The Blamey Street Big Band has been wowing audiences across Canberra with its innovative arrangements of Big Band classics. A community band, The Blamey Street Big Band consists of some of the region’s finest jazz musicians united by their love of the big band genre.  

Until last year, the band’s public appearances were mainly confined to occasional concerts at the Harmonie German Club, where it has built up a loyal, appreciative audience, at Floriade, the Royal Botanic Gardens and jazz festivals around the country.  

In 2024 the band gave its first concert in the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. It performed a concert based around the music of the Beatles in the B, which it discovered was an ideal venue for its music.

That concert proved so popular, that earlier this year the band returned with an even more ambitious program, and possibly a world first achievement, focussing on the music of ABBA. For that concert all twenty-one ABBA compositions in the program were re-arranged by resident band arranger, Andrew Hackwill, in the style of the great swing bands of the forties and fifties. Here is a link to my review of that concert.

 https://ccc-canberracriticscircle.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-music-of-abba-blamey-street-big-band.html

“Shaken Not Stirred” focused on the music featured in the James Bond movies, and although Hackwill did not attempt to outdo himself this time - there are some iconic James Bond sounds you just don’t mess with - he still contributed no fewer than nine stunning new arrangements of the twenty compositions that formed the program.

The scene was set by guitarist, Col Berneu with that familiar guitar riff from the first James Bond movie “Dr No”,  before vocalist Leisa Keen got the ball rolling with a stirring rendition of “Goldfinger” written by composer John Barry, who was responsible for most  of the music associated with the James Bond movies, in an arrangement by his favoured arranger,  Jesper Riis, for which on this occasion, that extraordinary baritone saxophone solo was  given a masterful rendition by Andrew Hackwill.  

Perris Lioni (Piano) - Leisa Keen (vocalist) - Peter McDonald (Bass) - Derrick Brassington (Drums)

Leisa Keen is the Blamey Street Big Band’s resident vocalist, and she demonstrated why with her beautiful rendition of Carol Bayer- Sayer’s “Nobody Does It Better” which the band accompanied with the original arrangement by Marvin Hamlish, who, Leisa noted, was also the composer of the musical “A Chorus Line” which was currently playing in the adjacent theatre, The Q, at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, and in which she is also performing.

During the concert Leisa contributed several other solos, including a spritely, up-tempo version of “Moonraker” written by John Barry and Hal David, and “Licensed to Kill” both arranged especially for her by Hackwill, and “Diamonds are for Ever” in the original arrangement created by Jesper Riis for Shirley Bassey.

Ashleigh Harris with the Blamey Street Big Band

Ashleigh Harris made her debut with the Blamey Street Big Band as a backing singer in the previous concert, “The Music of ABBA”.  But for “Shaken Not Stirred” in addition to teaming with the inimitable Andrew Hackwill to provide backing vocals for several of his arrangements, she stepped into the limelight to reveal herself as a polished soloist in her own right, with her rendition of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David classic “The Look of Love”.

 Harris also shone in the Jesper Riis arrangement of “All Time High” and in Hackwill’s arrangement of “Golden Eye”, but it was her drop-dead gorgeous rendition of the Napier/Smith song “The Writing’s on the Wall” that really revealed her exciting potential as a singer to watch.

Jared Newall - Derrick Brassington (drums).

A special feature of this concert was the performance of guest soloist Jared Newall. Newall is familiar to local audiences from his appearances in leading roles in the musicals Jersey Boys and The Boy from Oz. And when not appearing in musical, he spends his time touring the world as a member of “The Ten Tenors”. So far, visiting 20 countries, appearing in 1200 concerts and still counting.

Clearly revelling in the opportunity to fulfil an ambition to be a big band soloist, he soon had the audience eating out of his hand with his cheerful, confident professionalism and excellent vocalism.

Newall commenced his first set with a specially written Hackwill arrangement of “No Time to Die”, which he followed with a Jesper Riis arrangement of “You Know My Name”.

Jarad Newall with the Blamey Street Big Band.

Newall opened the second half with two Hackwill arrangements, the first, an up-tempo version “The Living Daylights”, introduced on drums by Derrick Brassington, followed by John Barry’s “Thunder Ball”.  Later, two more Hackwill arrangements, a stunning solo version of “For Your Eyes Only” for which Hackwill and Ashliegh Harris provided superb backing vocals, before being joined by Leisa Keen for polished duet renditions of John Barry’s “For Your Eyes Only” arranged by Hackwill, and the Jesper Riis arrangement of Paul & Linda McCartney’s “Live and Let Die”.

Leisa Keen and Jared Newall performing "For Your Eyes Only"

Although this report has focussed primarily on the three excellent vocalists, it would be remiss not to mention the thrilling sounds achieved by the brass section, the lush tenor sax solos of Josh Hackwill , the understated elegance of Perris  Lionis’ piano accompaniments, especially for “The Writings on the Wall” ,  the brilliance of Col Bernau guitar embellishments, the understated security of Peter McDonald’s bass, grounded by Derek Brassington’s ever-secure percussion, or the professional polish achieved by Musical Director and conductor Ian McLean.

Ian McLean Conductor and Musical Director of the Blamey Street Big Band.

At the end of the concert Ian McLean announced that the Blamey Street Big Band had accepted an invitation to become the Band in Residence at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, and that it’s next concert in the B would take place on 16^th May 2026, and would feature the band’s special arrangements of songs associated with Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel and The Bee Gees.

Judging by the audience reaction to this concert, you might be wise to book early.

                                           All images by Stephen McGrory

RESONANCE - James Batchelor and Collaborators - The Courtyard Studio-Canberra Theatre Centre.

 

James Batchelor - Emma Batchelor in "Resonance"

Lead artist, Choreographer, Producer:  James Batchelor

Dramaturg, Producer: Bek Berger – Composer: Morgan Hickinbottom

Lighting Designer: Katie Sfetkidis – Lighting Associate: Lara Gabor

Costume Designer: Theo Clinkard – Costume Maker: Alice Ortona Coles

Youth Dance Partner: QL2 Dance.

The Courtyard Studio -Canberra Theatre Centre - October 10th & 11th 2025.

Performance on 10th October reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

Dancers performing "Resonance"

In the latter part of this performance, in what appeared to be a stream-of-consciousness musing, a dancer remarked “I wonder what those critics are writing in their little pads?”. At that moment, this critic was thinking “I wonder what I’m supposed to be thinking about what I am watching just now?”.

Nothing in a James Batchelor work is there without purpose, so that apparently off-the-cuff remark set up the thought that Tanya Liedtke may have had some concerns about dance criticism.  

In 2023 Batchelor created a masterwork, Shortcuts to Familiar Places, which explored the technique and legacy of Gertrude Bodenwieser. Having seen a performance by the Bodenwieser Ballet many years previously it was fascinating to watch how cleverly he had captured the essence of her work through exquisitely danced sequences featuring himself and collaborator, Chloe Chignell, and filmed passages in which Bodenwieser exponents, including Ruth Osborne and Eileen Kramer, shared their memories of the Bodenwieser technique.  

Remembering being delighted by the originality of Tanja Liedtke’s choreography in a 2009 performance of Construct in the Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse, restaged after Liedtke’s death by Solon Ulbrich, with a cast that included Kristina Chan, Lisa Griffiths and Paul White, then much later, watching Life in Movement, the documentary on Liedke and her work; only vague recollections of her style and technique remained.

Therefore, curiosity as to how Batchelor would shape a legacy for a young choreographer, whose work he had never seen, because she’d been tragically killed on the cusp of taking on the daunting task of succeeding Graeme Murphy as the Artistic Director of the Sydney Dance Company, made Resonance an unmissable event.

Dancers performing "Resonance"

Performed in-the-round, with the audience seated around the four walls of the Courtyard studio, Resonance began with the 12 dancers sitting on the floor in front of the audience, wearing transparent ponchos over nondescript practice clothes.

 Batchelor took the floor and slowly moved around the room, reading from a small book and with the aid of a microphone, explaining the circumstances and processes as to how and why his work came to be created.

He told how he had interviewed many of Liedtke’s associates, including four dancers who had worked closely with Liedtke and who were actually taking part in this performance. Those dancers were Theo Clinkard, who had also designed the costumes, Amelia McQueen, Anton, and Kristina Chan, seen in that performance of Construct all those years before.

Theo Clinkard performing "Resonance"

The other dancers, though not identified by Bachelor in his narration, were himself, his dance associates, Chloe Chignell and Leah Marojevic, his sister Emma Batchelor, and four senior dancers from QL2, Akira Byrne, Gigi Rohriach, Jahna Lugnah and Maya Wille-Bellchambers.

 One-by- one, each of the four Liedtke dancers took the stage to continue the narration, moving around the room as they recalled individual interactions with Liedtke, sometimes recalling and demonstrating snippets of steps and moves she had created on them and occasionally questioning the accuracy of their own memories.

While the narrations were being delivered, other of the dancers, still wearing the ponchos and apparently inspired by the descriptions, began taking the floor to improvise moves inspired by the descriptions, until the floor was awash with ghostly dancers lost in their own endeavours and apparently oblivious of each other.

Two particular descriptions of key movements associated with Liedtke resonated above the others. The one which drew its inspiration from posing bodybuilders, and another describing the dancer pulling their shirt up over their head to expose their bare midriff.

The latter because the cover of the printed program for the 2009 performance of Construct  featured an image of dancer Paul White pulling his singlet above his head to expose his torso, exactly as described, and the former, because later during the work, Bachelor riffed on this idea to demonstrate how those bodybuilder poses could be re-interpreted in many ways to create beautiful dance movement.  

Chloe Chignell - Leah Marojevic - James Batchelor incorporating bodybuilding poses in "Resonance"

  The idea of the dancer’s body becoming the archive for a choreographer’s legacy has long been a basis for reproducing classical ballets, where dancers who had worked with the original creators are employed to share their recollections to ensure the accuracy of the restaging.

So, as Resonance moved towards its conclusion Bachelor embraced this idea to create an exhilarating finale based on Liedtke’s creativity and driven by Morgan Hickbotham’s orgiastic soundtrack, to express his idea of how some now- never-to-be-created work by Liedtke may have looked.

As with all of Bachelor’s creations Resonance demands a great deal from its audience but for those willing to respond to those demands, his ideas are captivating, always illuminating. His ability to capture and express the essence of an idea is uncanny.  

But apart from the pleasure Resonance provides by reminding of the influence of a brilliant dance-maker whose potential was cruelly extinguished before it could properly flower, this work also provided the opportunity to again admire the brilliance of four talented dancers and other associates, who 18 years after Liedtke’s death are still driven to preserve her legacy.

                                           Images by Olivier Wikner  -O&J Photography

        This review also posted in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au