GARDEN - QL2 Dance

"the beginning is the end is the beginning" Choreographed by Alice Lee Holland.

Artistic Director: Alice Lee Holland – Artistic Associate: Jason Pearce

Costume Designer: Andrew Treloar – Lighting Designers: Alice Lee Holland & Craig Dear

"Bloom"– Choreographed by James Batchelor – Sound design by Morgan Hickinbotham

                      Rehearsal Director: Emma Batchelor.

"the beginning is the end is the beginnning".

                      Choreographed by Alice Lee Holland – Rehearsal Assistant – Jason Pearce

      Sound design: STREAMS – Malcolm McDowell & Stevie Smiles.

The Fitters Workshop, Kingston. 2-4^th May 2025. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

GARDEN is the over-arching title of a program of two new contemporary works, "Bloom" (James Batchelor) and "the beginning is the end is the beginning" (Alice Lee Holland)

 As an inspiration for its creation, both choreographers pay tribute to the influence of mentor and former QL2 Dance Artistic Director, Ruth Osborne OAM in shaping their approach to dance. 

For Batchelor, who worked with QL2 Dance from the age of eight, and who now lives between Berlin and Canberra, pursuing his career as a freelance artist worldwide, it was Osborne who inspired his research into Gertrud Bodenwieser who pioneered Ausdruckstanz in Australia, and of whom Osborne was a student, and later teacher.

A 20^th century European dance movement, Ausdruckstanz  emphasises personal expression over technical formality, and in his program notes Batchelor explains how he has drawn on his research into this movement to create Bloom, which involves dancers of varying ages, as a ‘powerful tribute to intergenerational transmission, danced connection, and the enduring expressive spirit of movement’.    

For Holland, who succeeds Osborne as the new Artistic Director of QL2 Dance, the connection goes even further, as she comes to QL2 Dance having spent six years as Artistic Director of STEPS Youth Dance Company for which Osborne was founding Artistic Director.

For QL2 Dance the creation of GARDEN is particularly significant as it marks Holland’s first major production as the Artistic Director of QL2 Dance and signals a major shift for the company from a traditional theatre space to the informal atmosphere of The Fitters Workshop.

But this shared artistic heritage between the two choreographers was not the only factor that led to similarities between the two works. Both were conceived for the same environment, shared the same dancers, and even the same costumes.

Deprived of the possibility of the sophisticated technical imagery associated with many previous QL2’s productions, GARDEN was presented on a vast, specially installed raised dance floor, with cross lighting providing enhancement.

For Batchelor’s creation "Bloom", created to a driving soundscape by Morgan Hickinbotham, the twenty-seven young dancers, including three from the Bangkok Dance Academy, and those whose ages ranged between nine and eighteen years, were costumed in graceful grey and green toned flowing trousers and loose tops designed by Andrew Treloar.

The Ausdruckstanz influence was reflected in the dancer’s movements as they formed sweeping waves, curves and loops while careering around the stage making only the merest eye contact to avoid collision.

Akira Byrne and Genevieve Rohrlach in a moment during "Bloom"

Some connected occasionally to execute gentle lifts, with each dancer absorbed in exploring his/her own responses while creating set angular arm and body movements.

Deliberately ensemble and scrupulously avoiding drawing attention to any individual dancer, the interest for the observer lay in observing how dancers of varying skills and experience executed the set choreographic movements within their own skill set.

For Holland’s work, "the beginning is the end is the beginning", the dancers wore the same costumes as for "Bloom", but this time overlaid with sparkly mesh tops, and for some, matched with sheer elbow-length mittens. They performed to an abrasive soundscape, entitled “Streams” composed by Malcolm McDowell and Stevie Smiles.

Although also an ensemble work, each dancer, including the youngest, moved centre stage to execute a brief self-devised spasmodic solo. These little solos were combined to create a spectacular image of dancers absorbed in performing their own unique solo simultaneously with the others.   

Elsewhere the movement was less frenetic than for the Batchelor work, and included a segment danced in impressive unison, but with the dancers creating the impression of performing for themselves rather than the audience.

This of course was in keeping with the expressed ethos of encouraging self-discovery and self- expression, while also satisfying the metaphor of growth and development inherent in the title for the program, GARDEN, while perhaps heralding a new direction for QL2 under the artistic direction of Alice Lee Holland.  

                              Images by Olivia Wikner, O & J. Photography.

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

 

Blithe Spirit - Canberra REP

 

Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward.  Canberra Repertory Theatre - Season: 2 – 17 May 2025

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 2

Directed by Lachlan Houen
Written by Noel Coward

Cast:

Winsome Ogilvie - Elvira
Alex McPherson - Ruth
Peter Holland - Charles
Elaine Noon - Madam Arcati
Antonia Kitzel - Mrs Bradman
John Stead - Dr Bradman
Olivia Boddington – Edith

Creatives:
Set Designers: Andrew Kaye & Michael Sparks OAM
Lighting Design: Leeann Galloway
Sound Design & Composition: Marlené Claudine Radice
Costume Design: Suzan Cooper; Props Coordinator: Gail Cantle




Blithe Spirit is a satirical farce about the English upper classes in the 1930s, with references to the class structure, marriage relationships, and at a comically deeper level about their capacity to believe fantasies about the nature of truth and falsity.  And about death.

“He wrote it in a week. He referred to it as “An Improbable Farce in Three Acts” and took the name from the first line of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem, To a Skylark. The play opened at London's Piccadilly Theatre on July 2, 1941—just six weeks after it was written. On November 5, 1941, it premiered on Broadway.” (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival - Blithe Spirit:A High-Spirited Comdey...)

I was born in January 1941, evacuated from London to a small village, Coedpoeth, in rural Wales, in the wake of the Battle of Britain.

The reality of war was not a farce.  But Coward’s instantly successful play was a metaphor, making absurd laughter out of the upper class who had not wanted to understand that reality.

At www.bard.org/study-guides/noel-coward-as-the-mirror-of-a-generation there’s a neat article: Noel Coward as the Mirror of a Generation by Lynnette L. Horner (Utah Shakespeare Festival).

So, as I enjoyed the laughter along with everyone else at Canberra REP last night, I was also asking myself why?

Why should REP in 2025 choose this play?  Is it enough to laugh at the cast's excellent reproductions of the mannerisms and accents of Noel Coward’s 1930s, as you notice in the corner the maid Edith peddling away on her exercise bike to keep fit like Elaine Noon's totally energetic Madam Arcati, just for the sake of having a bit of fun?

Or might something more substantial been made of why we should laugh at them – in their time, or in our time of international mayhem?  In 1941 British and American audiences could make the connections for themselves.  Maybe today we need a bit of help – unless like me, you were there at the time.

Don’t miss REP’s Blithe Spirit, which is very stylishly done.  But don’t be afraid to wonder what it means in today’s Trumpian world.

 

 

 

 

BLITHE SPIRIT

 

Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward. 

Directed by Lachlan Houen. Set design Andrew Kay and Michael Sparks OAM. Lighting design Leannn Galloway. Sound design and composition Marlêné Claudine Radice. Costume design Suzann Cooper Properties coordinator Gail Cantie. Canberra Rep. May 1-17. 2025 Bookings 62571950 or
62474222

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins 

 

Elaine Noon as Madam Arcati in Blithe Spirit

Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit in six days between May 3 and May 9 1941 during the horror of World War 2. In his diary he described his play as “very gay,superficial comedy about a ghost. Really feel I have done a rousing good comedy.” 

It is a sign of the Master’s skill that he was able to write such a deliciously witty and perfectly structured comedy about two wifely ghosts who are materialized to torment their former husband. The play opens with a séance organized by novelist Charles Condamine (Peter Holland) as research for his new novel. He and wife Ruth (Alex Mcpherson) invite their friends, a sceptical Dr. Bradman (John Stead) and his wife Violet (Antonia Kitzel), to witness the séance conducted by mystic psychic Madam Arcati (Elaine Noon). When Madam Arcati conjures dead first wife Elvira (Winsome Ogilvie) mayhem erupts as ghostly ruptions turn Charles’s world upside down. The scene is set for confusions and discombobulations. 

Director Lachlan Houen has paid careful attention to Coward’s text and stage directions and keeps the stage action and business moving after a rather static opening conversation between the egotistical and priggish Charles and his staid wife Ruth. The conservative stuffiness of the middle class manner is instantly disrupted by the frenetic zeal of the Condamines’ maid Edith in a delightfully hilarious and comical performance by Liv Boddington. It is with the entrance of Madam Arcati that Coward’s plot takes spirited flight. This is also largely due to Elaine Noon’s wonderful portrayal of the thoroughly eccentric psychic. Noon plays Arcati like a child let loose in a lolly shop as she clamours for connection with the ghostly Elvira. Boddington and Noon extract every jot of absurdity from their performances. I am slightly confused by the decision to have Edith in sight offstage on an exercise bike or later reading a book with a bandage around her head. Perhaps there is a connection to her surprise revelation in Act Two. 

Coward’s plot becomes even more intriguing when it becomes apparent that only Charles and the audience can see the apparition. Ogilvie’s Elvira is less waftish and coquettish than is often the case with performances of the first wife conjured from the dead to fulfill her devilish plan. Although this may lessen the contrasting characters of Ruth and Elvira it does suggest a similarity in life and a plausibility when both wives team up against the selfish Charles in a final ghostly act of aggression. 

On opening night of Rep’s production of Blithe Spirit Coward’s “talent to amuse” provided a most entertaining night at the theatre. Coward takes great delight in exposing the silly nature of class and character and it is the lightheartedness and silliness of the play and the performances that was lacking at the opening. As the cast relax into their roles and begin to play with the blithe spirit of their performances, Rep’s production is bound to be the ‘rousing good comedy’ that Coward wrote.

SWEET CHARITY

 

 Sweet Charity. Book by Neil Simon. Music by Cy Coleman Lyrics by Dorothy Fields. Conceived by Bob Fosse. Based on the play, book and film Nights of Caribia.

Directed by Joel Horwood. Producer Anne Somes. Associate director Kelly Roberts. Musical director Callum Tolhurst-Close. Assistant Musical Director Darcy Kinsella.Choreographer James Tolhurst Close. Assistant choreographer Charlotte Jackson. Costume designer Fioa Leach.Set design Chris Zuber. Lighting designer Zac Harvey. Sound designer Telia Jansen. Free Rain Theatre Company. The Q Theatre. April 29 – May 18. Bookings: theq.net.au

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Kristy Griffin (Helene), Amy Orman (Charity) and Vanessa Valois (Nickie)

 It is difficult to believe that it is almost sixty years since Sweet Charity premiered on Broadway. The heartwarming story of Taxi Dancer Charity Hope Valentine’s desperate search for love and her abuse at the hands of a long list of men exposes the chauvinistic and sexual exploitation that resonates as much today as it did in the swinging Sixties. Charity (Amy ORman) and her friends Helene (Kristy Griffin) and Nickie (Vanessa Valois) are dancers for hire at the seedy Fandango Club on Times Square. The girls dream of escape (There’s Got To Be Something Better Than This) and there is hope for Charity when she is trapped in an elevator with Oscar Lindquist and true love blossoms between two vulnerable and sweet souls. In the end the past metes out a harsh judgement but the hope still remains.

Amy Orman (Chastity), Vanessa Valois (Nickie)

Sweet Charity is not your usual light weight musical. The deft hand of legendary playwright Neil Simon (The Odd Couple) is apparent in every scene. Cy Coleman’s talent for music grabs you by the heartstrings, lyricist Dorothy Field’s clever character driven lyrics and groundbreaking choreography by Bob Fosse ( Cabaret) earned Sweet Charity nine Tony nominations with Bob Fosse winning a Tony for his direction and choreography. Free Rain Theatre has taken on a colossus of the American Musical and come up trumps. Every aspect of the production currently playing at The Q Theatre in Queanbeyan deserves gold star rating. 

An ubertalented company of actors, singers, dancers and musicians does the creators of the musical proud. There is not one weak link in a production that transports you through every occasion of Charity’s used and abused life. She is a victim of the exploitation of her innocence and quest for true love. Director Joel Horwood is an actor’s director, skilfully drawing out fully drawn performances from cameo roles (James Morgan’s narcissistic Charlie, Eamon McCaughan’s film star Vittorio Vidal, Stephanie Waldron’s Ursula March, Emily Morton-Hue’s naïve Rosie and Alissa Pearson’s exploitative manager of the Fandango Club, Herman). As Charity’s friends Valois and Griffin embody the fate that they accept as dancers for hire in the bleak and unsavoury club scene. They capture the inherent goodness of women trapped by circumstance without the means to escape their lot. Their strength is in their camaraderie and their loyalty. Joshua Kirk’s Oscar Lindquist is a masterclass in comedic acting. He is as engaging as the panicking claustrophobe in the stuck elevator or as the brave protector in the stalled rollercoaster carriage. Kirk captures the nuance of Oscar’s dilemma in a final scene that portrays the entrenched prejudices of the conventional male. Simon’s writing has the power to make you laugh one moment and cry the next.

Free Rain has scored a triumph in casting Amy Orman as Charity. Her performance lights up the stage with a richly layered characterization of a woman, desperate to be freed by the man who loves her. Orman’s Charity is child like, naively innocent, hilariously funny in the scene in Vittorio’s apartment, both simple and complex, insecure and yet possessing inner strength in her final affirmation of hope. Orman is a triple threat performer. She sings, dances and acts brilliantly and I hope that her debut performance with Free Rain holds the promise of great performances to come.

The Ensemble in Sweet Charity

Choreographer James Tolhurst-Close layers homage to the great Bob Fosse with his own inventive choreography in terrific ensemble dance sequences while musical director Callum Tolhurst-Close conducts a feisty and joyous orchestra. Audiences will recognize the iconic Big Spender (Nickie, Helene and the Fandango girls), If My Friends Could See Me Now (Charity) and the Hippie Revivalist foot tapping rendition of Rhythm of Life under the Guru influence of Daddy Brubeck (Katie Lis).

Director Horwood has opted for a no frills production of Sweet Charity. He has directed a show of real characters with real problems living life as best they can. Even Chris Zuber’s set of steel frames that can be moved into position to represent a lake, an elevator or a closet lends the production an imaginative sparsity. It is Charity’s circumstance as a victim of male exploitation and her desperate desire that lends this production a powerful voice, a captivating story and a message of hope through song and dance. It proves that one doesn’t need glitz and glamour and high tech to capture an audience’s heart and sympathy.

Free Rain’s Sweet Charity runs for a limited season until May 18^th. Don’t delay. Get your tickets today for this exceptional production.

The Orchestra:

Musical director Callum Tolhurst-Close. Keys Alex Unikowski, Andre Le. Guitar June Dixon. Bass Lizzy Collier. Reed Lara Turner, Lenore Studdert, Jordan London Trumpet Sam Hutchinson. Jesse Hill. Trombone Dominic Harvey-Taylor, Madeleine Upfold. Percussion Jack Holmes.

 

 

Magic Realism at CIMF

 

Magic Realism at CIMF.  Presented by TURA, Canberra International Music Festival and The Street, with recorded Soundbed Performers, at The Street Theatre, Canberra.

Part 1        O Spectabiles Viri
Part 2        Mungangga Garlagula

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 1


Because, over my four-score years and four, I have never had formal training or education in music, I respond to the sound of music in an unsophisticated immediate emotional way.

Viewed as offerings in an International Music Festival, both O Spectabiles Viri and Mungangga Garlagula are interesting as examples of unusual music presentations, but from my point of view as a theatre critic they were both less effective than they might have been.

Since there did not seem to be any particular connection between the two items in the evening’s program, I’ll discuss them separately.

In each case, though, I heard not just the music but saw a performer presenting us with a show of their own devising: Jane Sheldon in the role of the early 12th Century European composer Hildegard von Bingen; Mark Atkins in the role of a lonely travelling Aussie bushman camping out on country with a 60,000 year history.

Each had a co-creator/performer in Erkki Veltheim, with backstage support from a dramaturg, Ruth Little; a lighting designer, Niklas Pajanti; and set/costume designer, Emily Barrie – plus a team of recorded musicians from Soundbed Performers; engineers and management from the Tura Production team; technicians from The Street; and overall production management from CIMF’s Joshua Robinson, who gave an introductory speech.

I have read about Hildegard, who was clearly a forceful feisty woman in her day, 1098 – 1179, as a “German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages”, according to Wikipedia.  

She obviously organised everybody in sight, and yet it still took until 2012 before Pope Benedict XVI declared her to be a saint.

I found Jane Sheldon’s performance of Hildegard’s music essentially sad, rather than uplifting, and I wondered if our modern concerns about women’s glass ceiling were influencing what seemed to be Hildegard’s frustration when more expansive moments in the singing more or less died away – often into silence.  Too much in the 15 minutes was time waiting for a new development to happen, which in the end never eventuated.  

I read up more about Hildegard after hearing Jane’s piece, and felt Hildegard would have insisted on more action.  Or perhaps Jane was representing that thousand years’ wait for canonisation.

Mark Atkins’ un-named bushman (I think – or perhaps I missed his name in some of the muffled speaking into the microphone) was a very different story.
 
Though I was a naive invading Pom as a teenager, I was a regular overnight bushwalker most of my life, including in outback Queensland.  But it was in Far-West New South Wales, in Broken Hill country where I actually saw the MinMin lights he speaks of as mysterious spiritual connections to the old country of his traditions.

I saw them one time following down along a station property wire fence.  On another occasion, they were less like a light-bulb, more like a lighted mist, floating down a creekbed in Mootawingee.  And I spoke to a woman who had been frightened by a big bright MinMin following close beside her car while driving towards Broken Hill from the South Australian border.

I’m sorry to say, in response to the spiritual idea, that the scientific story was they are examples of static electricity forming between layers of different temperature air.

Though I found Mark’s characterisation a bit of an odd mix between old whiteman bushman stories and Aboriginal tradition. I heard bushwacker stories around the campfire – sometimes between my mouthorgan accompaniment to Click Go The Shears –  but I could only be amazed at Mark's dramatic performances on the didgeridoo.

The pace of his total presentation, even accounting for the old man bush character, was rather too slow for me, but his sounds of the didgeridoo brought his work to life.

And this is what a Festival is for – to bring out the unusual, where magic and realism meet in a 12th Century chant or the rhythm of an ancient didgeridoo.

 

 

 

 

SWEET CHARITY

Book by Neil Simon

Music by Cy Coleman

Lyrics by Dorothy Fields

Directed by Joel Horwood

Choreographed by James Tolhurst-Close

A Free Rain Theatre production

The Q Theatre, Queanbeyan to 18 May

 

Reviewed by Len Power 1 May 2025

 

Ever-hopeful but not very bright, Charity Hope Valentine just wants to be loved. Working as a dance hall hostess in the sleazy Fandango Ballroom in New York, she moves from one hopeless affair to another, until she meets Oscar Lindquist who just might offer her the perfect future she dreams of.

Director, Joel Horwood, wisely keeps ‘Sweet Charity’ within its 1960s period but gives it a modern touch with an impressionistic, simple setting for the many scene locations. Joel also ensures that dance is a major focus of the show with even the scene changes smoothly choreographed.

Amy Orman (Charity)

The marathon role of Charity is played with exuberance and skill by Amy Orman. Her comic timing and the warmth she gives this slightly pathetic character makes her the star of this very strong cast. Her dancing of ‘If They Could See Me Now’ and ‘I’m A Brass Band’ as well as her dramatic performance of the song, ‘Where Am I Going?’ are show-stoppers.

Vanessa Valois (Nickie), Amy Orman (Charity) and Kristy Griffin (Helene)

 Playing Charity’s friends at the Fandango, Vanessa Valois as Nickie and Kristy Griffin as Helene, both give very strong, funny and gritty performances. The song, ‘There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This’, performed by Charity, Nickie and Helene is yet another showstopper. Valois and Griffin also excel in their funny duet, ‘Baby, Dream Your Dream’.

Joshua Kirk sings very well and gives a strong performance as the flawed Oscar Lindquist. There are notable performances, too, from Eamon McCaughan as Italian movie star, Vittorio Vidal, Stephanie Waldron as the petulant girlfriend of Vittorio, Katie Lis as Daddy Brubeck, leading the company with ‘Rhythm of Life’, and Alissa Pearson as the tough employer at the Fandango, Herman.

 

The ensemble dancing 'Rich Man's Frug'

The very busy singing and dancing ensemble do a superb ‘Rich Man’s Frug’ as well as ‘Rhythm of Life’ and ‘Big Spender’ by the girls in the Fandango Ballroom is another highlight. You need to be a strong dancer to be in this show and everyone on that stage certainly is. Choreographer, James Tolhurst-Close honours the spirit of Bob Fosse but gives the dances his own unique choreographic design that suits the show perfectly.

The clever lighting design by Zac Harvey, a perfectly balanced sound design by Telia Jansen, strong musical direction by Callum Tolhurst-Close, colourful costumes by Fiona Leach and set design by Chris Zuber have come together to add to the success of this production.

The director, Joel Horwood, keeps the show moving at a fast pace, ensures that the characters have depth and, above all, has produced an entertainment that is edgy, funny and memorable.

 

Photos by Photox - Ben Appleton

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/

 

 

Stars in 3D

 

Stars in 3D.  The Stellar Company at Gorman House Arts Centre, Canberra.

Featuring the Chamaeleon Collective with special guests Hilal Dance Australia.

Director, Producer & Film Editing: Liz Lea
Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett
Technical Consultant: Craig Dear
Social Media: Olivia Wikner
Auslan Interpreter: Brett Olzen

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 30



Stars in 3D is a meditation in dance, audio and video, on our place in the universe.  

Unpretentious in performance and design, yet warm-hearted, intellectually stimulating, and emotionally positive, being present in the moment is much more than merely watching as an audience.  It’s like taking part in an important ritual cultural celebration – of true scientific understanding.

Diversity – even down to the varied number of protons, neutrons or electrons in a simple atom like helium – is what makes our universe what it is; just as we each are individually different yet come together to create new generations.

The story of our universe is represented symbolically in the choreography.  We see the amorphous gas being drawn together by gravity to form stars; the formation of galaxies, twin stars and black holes; culminating in the mathematics of the Golden Ratio in the Fibonacci spiral – the dance of the universe -  in “Legs: A joyful and empowering dance piece performed by a group of mostly senior women. Set to a song that celebrates their resilience and spirit, it’s a tribute to their love of movement, sense of fun, and refusal to stop dancing—at any age.”

The integration of video – from real astronomy, backing, or often surrounding, the dancers on stage, to scenes of the dancers on screen combined with those on stage – accompanied by an enormous array of sounds, music and song, was a highly original approach to using theatrical space (pun intended).

After the show, 3D headsets can take you further, by linking to your smart phone, into experiencing your place in our all encompassing universe.

For me, two important themes come to mind.  

First is the essential place of women in our understanding of living in this universe, as they are the elements of physical change – not just symbolically but in actuality.  The family groups with their children enjoying the dancing in such an enthusiastic atmosphere were a special feature of my experience last night.

Second, and equally significant, is the realisation that Art and Science are unified in our amazing human capacity for imagination.  They work together in this show, placing us thoughtfully where we belong, however briefly, in ‘our’ universe, where we have proven Einstein’s maths predicting gravity waves to be real – with the strong possibility that this universe, of which we can see only some 5%, may return to a singularity and explode again into another different universe in an infinite series.

WOW!  What a show this is!



Creatives and Performers:

Link to the Full Program, with details of performers, films and computer simulations.

 

For an equally fascinating but different angle on our understanding of mathematics, read how we (in this case mainly men in the form of ancient Indian Buddhist monks) 'invented' the idea of 0.  

From a philosophy of meditating in a state of 'nothingness' came the idea of counting needing to include a number in the space between +1 and -1.  Without zero, Einstein could never have made the calculations to prove the existence of the universal force we call gravity.

 The history is recounted from the time of Buddha, about 450 BCE, to the present day in another work of art - The Golden Road, How Ancient India Transformed The World - by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury 2024).

 

The Stars in 3D in action
Photo by O&J Wikner Photography