MOUNTAIN - Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse

Choreographed by Melanie Lane – Music composed by Clark.

Costume Design by Akira Isogawa – Lighting Design by Bosco Shaw & Nick Moloney

Produced by Freya Waterson, Visions – Assoc.Producer: Chelsea Byrne, Visions

Performed by dancers: Sara Black – Max Burgess – Tyrel Dulvarie -Madeleine Bowman – Yolanda Lowatta.

Musicians – Canberra Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble with Clark – Doreen Cumming (violin) – Bianca Porcheddu (Violin) – Tor Fromyhr (viola)– Samuel Payne (cello) – Susanne Powell (piano)

Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse – October 17^th, 2026 – Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

"Mountain" by Melanie Lane

There was a great deal of local interest in this work, given Melanie Lane’s strong connections with the local dance community majorly through her work with QL2 Dance, as well as the news that next year she will take over the Artistic Directorship of Lucy Guerin Inc.

But also because the cast of Mountain contained dancers well-known to Canberra audiences in Sara Black, Yolanda Lowatta and Tyrel Dulvarie, that the work had been inspired by the Brindabella mountains, familiar to all Canberrans, and would be danced in costumes designed by Akira Isogawa.  

The highly anticipated work began in a familiar place for Lane, known for her use of sculptural imagery, with the lights slowly revealing what at first appeared to be a silhouette of mountains.

As the lighting level rose however, the shape was revealed as an artful arrangement of the bodies of five tightly grouped dancers, flanked by musicians seated around the perimeter of one corner of the dance area.

Yolanda Lowatta and musicians performing "Mountain"

Bosco Shaw and Nick Moloney’s tightly focussed lighting design allowed the dancers to be isolated when necessary, and the orchestra to be revealed strategically. It worked brilliantly with Akira Isogawa’s extraordinary multi-layered costumes, and Chris Clark’s haunting score performed live on stage, inspiring the five highly skilled dancers to give themselves over completely to Lane’s ever-inventive choreography.

Isogawa’s ingenious costumes, fashioned from found elements, including deconstructed blue denim jeans and discarded ballet skirts, suggesting simultaneously, both the blue haze surrounding the mountains and their ruggedness.  

As the work progressed, various elements of the costumes were discarded until the dancers were left in form-fitting bodysuits painted with rock-art and indigenous motives subtly referencing the mountain’s First Nation heritage.

The casting of Yolanda Lowatta and Tyrel Dulvarie supported this reference, as did a sequence involving Max Burgess manipulating long bamboo sticks.

Sara Black - Tyrel Dulvarie in "Mountain"

Throughout, Lane’s choreography engrossed with its inventiveness, at times rhapsodic and always captivating, with her dancers performing her intricate sequences with effortless skill, as though transported by the music and the mood.

However, it was not only the dancers who responded in that way. Because by the time they appeared for the final sequence, their bodysuits replaced with ghostly diaphanous veils, the musicians, and indeed the audience, all seemed so enraptured by the gorgeous sounds created by Clark’s clever interweaving of electronics and live music, and the ecstatic performances by the dancers, nobody wanted the work to end. 

                                                        Photos by Jackson Loria    

          This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW.

AURORA, Oriana Chorale

 Larry Sitsky Recital Room, ANU School of Music. October 18. Reviewed by DAVID WHITBREAD

Aurora captured the awe and beauty of voices and composers inspired by the dancing lights of both hemispheres. Truly music of the spheres!

Oriana Chorale performing Aurora

Director Dan Walker crafted a program of choral delights with the responsive 38-strong Oriana Chorale in its 49th year. And what a fine instrument it is.

The excellence of their preparation showed in solid parts, mostly well upwards from the traditional four parts, presumably eight and often more in the contemporary works performed here.

Finely rehearsed details included patterned rhythmic chanting, or swooping to notes at different speeds, and against other lines. Rock solid semitones. Fine dynamics, swelling when required to impressive louds and fading to whispering softs. Beautifully controlled long notes. Good diction in a staggering range of languages.

Estonian Veljo Tormis’s Autumn Landscapes was a set of seven charming folk-like songs. Humming created the beginning of the evening’s soundscape to come. At times dance-like, but always evocative, this was a tour de force vocal achievement with crisp group staccato, oohing, whispering… the swoops in Wind over the Barrens building momentum leading to the lovely cool bleak stillness of Cold Autumn Night, punctuated sharply by glittering soprano lines.

Icelander Anna Þorvaldsdóttir’s Hear Us in Heaven had an ancient plainsong base with beautiful rich bass lines and a very peaceful effect.

An Australian work in English and Latin, Alice Chance’s And the Lord Said Fiat Lux for women’s choir had some lovely effects where, for example, wordless rhythms in the altos accompanied the melody in the sopranos.

Winter was written by Oriana member Patrick Baker. It was perhaps the epitome of soundscape in this concert.

Surrounding the audience in one long line, the chorale started very softly with sustained notes which subtly split into semitones, with some percussive tongue technique, all under numbered instructions from the conductor. Choir members timed their lines to fill the space between directions. The mellow chiming of bells. Quite affecting.

For the first time I noticed the ceiling projections of gently rippling images of the northern lights by Scandinavian based Quan Choi.

Two works were titled Northern Lights. Ēriks Ešenvalds featured a Latvian folk solo from David Faraker while the choir sang a story in English with chiming bells that created a magic effect. The second by Norwegian Ola Gjeilo was given a great full choir rendition with a tremendous sustained note held to the end.

Harmonically rich, undulating lines in Norwegian Kjell Flem’s Natten (The Night), also featured an otherworldly bass line intoning “requiem”. Such colours.

After a wonderful wandering vocal opening, Icelander Björk’s Cosmogony indeed “whirled around us and made us wonder” right to its incredible ending with a stunning slowmotion glissando from up high.

A nice Icelandic folk song setting by Scottish John Hearne It is Beautiful in the Fjords led to the finale.

The world premiere of Oriana Composer in Residence Sebastian ‘Bas’ Allen’s Aurora Aurealis. A delightful work, symphonic in scope, and realising effects of “shimmering in a carnival spectacle” from the words by Zoe Withington. Glorious melodies, subtle percussion from a shaker, it featured vocals from whispers to full-bodied singing.

As almost a benediction, the Oriana Chorale again surrounded the audience to sing the moving Underneath the Stars by English composer Kate Rusby. It featured individual voices, including the soloists from throughout the recital, as well as the whole choir intoning “Go gently.”

Photo by Leanne Davidson

This review originally published in Canberra City News Link here 

PARIS AFTER DARK - Milko Faucault-Larche Productions - The Street Theatre

 

Joseph Macri - Milko Faucault-Larche in "Paris After Dark.

 The Street Theatre - October 18th 2026 - Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

Joseph Macri - Corinne Andrew - Milko Faucalt-Larche in "Paris After Dark"

The promise of an afternoon of authentic French cabaret drew an appreciative audience of Francophile’s to The Street Theatre on a perfect, sunny, Spring afternoon to be transported to the boulevards of Paris with many of the most famous chansons of all time.

They were not disappointed as MO Award winning Mauritian-Australian balladeer, Milko Foucault-Larche, who arrived in Australia as a young man who couldn’t speak a word of English, and his Parisian born leading lady, Corinne Andrew, who’s appeared in the legendary Folies-Bergere, serenaded them with a generous program of songs made famous by the likes of Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand, Josephine Baker and Charles Trenet.  

For around 90 minutes, without interval, the pair held their audience enthralled, performing a program of solos and duets on a stage decorated with a Parisian café table and chair, bearing a bowl of red and white roses, to one side, and the genial Joseph Macri providing stylish accompaniments from a handsome grand piano on the other.

Joseph Macri and Corinne Andrew in "Paris After Dark"

Both performers changed costume frequently, each change more glamorous than the last, performing their songs in both French and English, and prefacing many with titillating stories about their creators, or the performers who made them famous.

Among the many expected favourites, Corrinne Andrew delighted with her interpretation of Edith Piaf’s,” Non je ne Regrette Rien”, Josephine Baker’s theme song, “J’ai Deux Amours”, and particularly with her dazzling rendition of “Tico Tico”, a tongue-twister associated with French performer, Dalida.

Milko Foucault-Larche offered masterful versions of songs by Charles Aznavour, Yves Montand and Charles Trenet, then surprised by performing, “The Impossible Dream”, from a French production of the musical, Man of La Mancha, and a rousing rendition of “Stand Up and Fight” from the musical Carmen Jones, justified of course, being best known as “The Toreador Song from the Bizet opera, Carmen.

Even Joseph Macri had his moment in the spotlight offering a charming rendition of Richard Clayderman’s lovely piano solo, “Ballade Pour Adeline”.

But it was two songs from a little-known musical by Charles Aznavour, “Monsieur Carnaval” sung as duets, the first, “La Boheme” and an ear-wig finale song, “La Vie est un Carnaval”, that were most likely buzzing in the heads of their delighted audience as it headed out, hopefully, to round off the night with a delicious French meal. 

                                         Photos by Maureen Wayling 

                      This review first published in CITY NEWS on 19.10.28 Link here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WE COME TOGETHER TO DANCE: Chaos 26 - Quantum Leap Australia.

 

Artistic Director: Alice Lee Holland

Choreography: Pat Hayes Cavanagh – Alice Lee Holland – Gabriel Sinclair – Isabella Stone

Lighting Design: Owen Davis – Sound Mastering: Kimmo Vennonen

Costume Co-ordination: Natalie Wade – Rehearsal Assistant: Jahna Lugnan

Belconnen Arts Centre, 16^th & 17^th October 2026

Performance on 16^th October reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Each year, Quantum Leap Australia stages an edition of The Chaos Project, an annual creative development process which introduces new members to the Quantum Leap process while allowing experienced members to experiment and explore their attraction to dance.

This year, 40 young dancers participated over an intensive 10-day period, under the direction of four professional choreographers.  The objects of the various segments were reflected in the titles of the five choreographed sections - We Come Together to Dance ‘Til We Drop (Isabella Stone) – We Come Together to Grow (Pat Hayes Cavanagh)- We Dance to Come Together (Gabriel Sinclair) – We Come together to Be Who We Are (Alice Lee Holland) - We Come Together to Dance, to Belong (Isabella Stone).

 Alice Lee Holland also choreographed the opening and closing segments.

As all the segments are marked ‘in collaboration with the cast” it appeared that all of the choreographers had followed the same process of seeking suggestions from the young dancers, then shaping those suggestions into an ensemble work, utilising whatever skills the participants could offer.  

Given the huge variation in ages and experience of the participants for each piece, it was inevitable that the resulting works would bear a similarity to each other, particularly as the costuming for each piece, with the exception of Gabriel Sinclair’s contribution, for which each participant wore similar black pants, white shirts and grey jackets, the dancers in each of the other works wore mis-matched, ill-fitted ‘dress-ups' rather than costumes.

So, while the young participants attacked their choreographed tasks with enthusiasm, and the pieces were doubtless useful as introductions for the participants to the Quantum Leap process, the lack of choreographic variation and attention to presentation detail, meant that as public performance, this year’s Chaos offerings were of limited interest other than to parents and relatives.

                               Images by Olivia Wikner, O & J Wikner Photography.

Cloud Studies

Visual Arts Review | Brian Rope

Cloud Studies | Rebecca Beardmore, Leah Beeferman, Yvette Hamilton, Anna Madeleine Raupach

Photo Access, Canberra, Australia | 24 September - 24 October 2026

The Cloud Studies exhibition is presented in partnership with the Canberra Art Biennial, which is Canberra’s biennial contemporary public art festival. The artworks have as a height datum contour 556, the water level of Lake Burley Griffin, which links the event in name as well as in purpose to the history of the central Canberra landscape. The artworks and installations selected for the festival respond in some way to Canberra’s history, from 65,000 years to the present day. The Biennial, therefore, offers the Canberra, Australian and international community a unique opportunity to engage with and understand the layers of Canberra’s history through art. 

The exhibition is at Photo Access, which is the Canberra region’s centre for contemporary photography, film, video and media arts. It has brought together four artists to imagine the atmosphere as a threshold, where clouds hover between the natural and the technological. They consider clouds not only as weather forms but as symbolic spaces where history, representation, science, and environmental change converge.

The artists photography, video, data visualisation and printmaking artworks in the exhibition echo the contemporary “cloud” of digital and algorithmic technologies. The atmosphere emerges here as a frontier, where earth and sky, human and machine, presence and disappearance intersect.

Rebecca Beardmore’s experimental printmaking practice investigates intersections of photography, materiality, and image-making systems. Current research explores moiré patterns as perceptual thresholds, revealing tensions between analogue tactility and algorithmic translation. She is exhibiting seven photopolymer photogravure pieces. They are all strong pieces, with the largest one shown below being the standout artwork for me. 

Rebecca Beardmore, Plate 4: Cumulus of strong vertical extent, WMO 1956 (1956/2026), Reconstruction (left panel), 2026, photopolymer photogravure, 180 x 107 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Leah Beeferman makes digital images, prints, objects, and videos, records sound and writes texts. She seeks to understand the atmosphere: the ways it makes weather forms, forms landscapes, and alters them. Her contributions to the exhibition are a video with sound, a dye sublimation print on fabric, and a CNC-routed aluminum piece. For readers who do not know, CNC refers to a computer-controlled machine used for cutting various materials

Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element in Earth’s crust. It appears as a silvery grey metal and is known for its low density, high conductivity, and versatility. Beeferman has created a delightful artwork relating to the Kennaook/Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station near the north-west tip of Australia’s island State of Tasmania. That scientific observatory plays a critical role in understanding our atmosphere and monitoring key drivers of climate change.

Leah Beeferman, The Uncertainty Location (Kennaook-Cape Grim), 2026, CNC routed aluminum, 180 x 107 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Leah Beeferman, Shadow Clouds Form (Barbados), 2024, Dye sublimation print on fabric, 335 x 183 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Leah Beeferman, And this atmosphere, an elusive alphabet, 2026, video with sound, 10 minutes (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Anna Madeleine Raupach is a multidisciplinary artist. Her practice engages with science and technology to critically address socio-political issues enmeshed with climate change. Her four pieces in the exhibition include one comprising Fresnel lenses and jump rings which are suspended from the ceiling and fascinating to look into and through – whilst doing so, I couldn’t resist capturing four photographs with my phone camera.

Another Raupach artwork features polaroids, hand-drawn animation and a custom display module. She also is showing a Neural Radiance Field HD video and another created from YouTube videos, electronic display modules, and chalk. Each of these exhibits drew me in and held my attention for some time.

Anna Madeleine Raupach, Still from In an instant, 2026, polaroids, hand-drawn animation, custom display module, 14.5 x 10 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Anna Madeleine Raupach, Still from Places on Earth Where all Forces are Absent, 2025-2026, Neural Radiance Field HD video, 6:55 min. (Installation image by Brian Rope) 

Yvette Hamilton’s photographic practice spans analogue, digital and alternative practices, and is conceptually guided by ontological explorations of photography and the link between vision and knowledge. She is exhibiting several silver gelatin lumen prints, a piece comprising a photographic collage, LED lights and a microprocessor, and The Middle Air, a limited-edition artist book.

The prints are delightful portrayals of clouds wherein viewers might visualise various landscapes. A shaft of light regularly penetrates the collage artwork then fades away. The displayed copy of the book is well worth looking through. Copies of it are available for purchase, with each containing a unique lumen cloud silver gelatin photograph, hand-printed by the artist. 

Yvette Hamilton, Optical Depth #4, 2026, Unique silver gelatin lumen print, digital print on glass, custom frame, 50 x 40 cm (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Yvette Hamilton, Observation Point: Rising Air, 2026, Photographic Collage: Unique C type prints, silver gelatin lumen prints, LED lights, microprocessor (Installation image by Brian Rope)

Yvette Hamilton, The Middle Air, 2026, Artist book, 48 pages, Edition of 50. (Installation image by Brian Rope) 

Overall, this is a most interesting exhibition. It achieves its purpose and is a valuable participant in the art biennial.

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

WE COME TOGETHER TO DANCE

 

We Come Together To Dance. 

Artistic Director Alice Lee Holland. Choreographers Pat hayes Cavanagh. Alice Lee Holland. Gabriel Sinclair. Isabella Stone. Rehearsal Assistant Jahna Lugnan. Lighting Design. Owen Davis and the choreographers. Sound Mastering Kimmo Vennonen. Costume Coordination Natalie Wade. Marketing Design Rob Clode – Limegreentangerine. Photography Olivia Wikner. Videography Creswick. Quantum Leap Australia. Belconnen Theatre, October 16-18 2026. Bookings belcoarts.com.au

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

The lights come up on a sea of colour. The stage is filled with yellows and greens, blues and reds, pink and orange in the t-shirts and pants that the Quantum Leap ensemble wear in a salute to the warm glow of the coming Summer. In a gesture of pure cool the young dancers don sunglasses before in a surge of explosive energy they leap into dance. Each movement ripples with joy as the stage bursts in celebration of the dance and the wonders of rhythm, motion, action and exuberant choreography.  

What is most remarkable as I watch choreographers Quantum Leap’s Artistic Director Alice Lee Holland, Isabella Stone, Pat Hayes and Gabriel Sinclair lead the ensemble through a sequence of contemporary dance performances is that We Come Together To Dance was created in just ten intensive days as a result of the school holiday 2026 Chaos Project. At Gorman House 40 young dancers from the early ages to the late teenage years work with the choreographers to explore their bodies in time to the musical impulses of such pieces as Alore on Danse, Stromae, Jam Fam – Maxi Version, Planning to Rock, Parting Ways,Max Cooper/ Superstylin’, Groove Armada, Gabriel Sinclair’s We dance to Conme Togteher , Windor Toccata (Symphony No. 5) -Ripon Cathedral Pipe Organ, Jonathan Scott/Magic, Inigo Vontier/ Girl Nap, Brian McBride/ I feel Love (Acapella)/Donna Summer Cover), Devastation and finally in Alice Lee Holland’s closing piece in collaboration with the cast Gold by Spandau Ballet. I mention all musical items as an indication of the wonderful diversity of contemporary dance movements and physical separation and gesture that typify the sheer variations of Quantum Leap’s celebration of the dance.

Each work celebrates togetherness, the power and the beauty of the unifying wonder of the dance while allowing the individuality of each dancer to emerge through hip hop, break dance, cartwheels, gymnastic, the splits and free expression of the body in motion. A sequence salutes separation of the parts of the body while another celebrates identity. The programme is a kaleidoscope of joyfulness, tightly choreographed in uniform collaboration while still exuding a liberating impulse of individual freedom. Every moment is uplifting, every sequence offering surprise and pleasure

The older cast members under Sinclair’s choreography depict the dull conformity of life as a public servant in grey jackets and stooped movements, huddled together until the spirit of the dance that is in each and every one of us breaks free from the group to discover the freedom of self-expression. There are echoes of a Shaun Tan illustration in its nod to the approach of adulthood and the loss of that joyous delight that is in Holland’s We Come Together To Be Who We Are. It is a theme espoused in the other pieces that explain that we come together to dance, to grow, to belong and to collaborate. In a triumphant moment of celebration the full company put on their dark glasses in a gesture of togetherness, coolness and a performance of We Come Together To Dance that is a joy to watch.

THE INDEPENDENTS: FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS - Week 2

The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) - Little Dove Theatre Art - Photo by Andrew Sirkorski

Canberra Theatre Centre Courtyard Studio October 14 -16^th, 2026

Opening Night performance reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

The festival’s second week showcased works created and performed by female artists.

The Fool (or Francesca Giselle)

The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) - Photo Mathew Miceli

Created and directed by Chenoeh Miller for Little Dove Theatre Art.

Performed by Alicia Melonie Jones and Noa Rotem (co-choreographers), and Monica Engel (musician and musical arranger).

Music and sound: Reuben Ingall – Lighting design: Theo Carroll

In her program notes, award-winning theatre-maker Chenoeh Miller explains that The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) has been more than eight years in development.

This deeply personal, harrowing work explores how the body retains memories of trauma.

Combining dance, Butoh, spoken word, and live and recorded music, Miller creates a surreal, unsettling world. The three skilled performers draw the audience in, even when the meaning of their actions remains elusive.

Noa Rotem in "The Fool ( or Francesca Giselle) - Photo: Andrew Sikorski

As the audience enters the dark, haze-filled theatre, Noa Rotem dances energetically to loud party music. Her conversations with arriving patrons suggest a light-hearted performance ahead.

That impression fades as the lights dim further and Rotem begins an extended, deeply personal monologue.

A lavishly costumed figure emerges from the gloom, miming an address whose words are unintelligible. Another appears from beneath the costume. Their purpose remains obscure in the low light, but the sequence establishes the production’s distinctly unconventional character.

A series of episodes follows, with the trio changing costumes and hairstyles, coating their hands and feet in black paint, running on the spot, rolling on the floor and contorting their faces.

Reuben Ingall’s unsettling recorded soundtrack and Monica Engel’s live singing deepens the work’s disturbing atmosphere. A confronting ensemble sequence on a raised platform in which all three mime physical abuse, reinforces its exploration of trauma.

Frumpus Landed

Frumpus in "Frumpus Landed"

Created and performed by Cheryle Moore (artistic director), Stephanie Hart (costume design) and Lenny Ann Low (projections). Audio production: Guy Freer.

Beyond their three-person casts of co-creators, the week’s two productions have little in common.

Sydney-based Frumpus gleefully defies categorisation, revelling in its reputation as one of Australia’s most distinctive performance ensembles.

The show opens on a nearly bare stage: three chairs, a small table to one side and a white screen at the back.

Wearing frumpy red tracksuits and dark glasses, the trio prowls the stage with yo-yos, apparently preparing to make a film in which all three will appear.

FRUMPUS in Frumpus Landed.

Water sounds and projected footage of a deserted mansion introduce the first scene. Now playing maids in white nightdresses, the three sit absorbed in embroidery.

A phone rings. Each answer in turn, but no one speaks at the other end. When one maid pricks her finger and treats it by pushing it into a bread roll, the show plunges into a gleeful slapstick parody of period films.

Cardboard boxes fly onto the stage, household chores descend into mischief, and feathers fill the air as the maids prepare a feast.

They bring in a huge table and race to pile it with delicacies, including an endless supply of fruit and vegetables.

Brilliant deadpan clowning sustains the escalating absurdity. Ridiculous, unpredictable and irreverent, the show is uproariously funny, ending in glorious chaos with the stage strewn with debris and the performers visibly spent.

Together, these contrasting productions demonstrate the range of the festival’s second week. The Fool (or Francesca Giselle) offers an unsettling exploration of trauma, compelling in its physicality even when its meaning remains elusive. Frumpus Landed turns domestic routines into exuberant absurdity, delivering uproarious comedy through precise deadpan clowning. One disturbs, the other delights; neither settles for conventional theatre. 

                                                     Frumpus photos supplied.

                            This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW.Link Here