Los Angeles based Choreographer Janet Langer tours in July!
Touring Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and surrounding areas - July 1 to July 22 2009.
Janet choreographs for Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Miss Universe and teaches at the iconic Edge in LA!
Available for 90 minute workshops! Book Now!
For more information contact Chris at duncan99@tpg.com.au
Dance Informa’s Melbourne team enjoyed the first Melbourne Dance Industry Night last Monday, June 22nd at Forum Theatre. Here’s some fantastic pics by Dance Photographer David Wyatt.
www.redbubble.com/people/melbourneguy75
Anything Dance will be having a Half Yearly Sale of 10%-30% off selected items, from the Wednesday 24th of June – Tuesday 30th of June 2009.
They have a big variety of well known suppliers for example Bloch, Capezio, Sansha, Blockout, Running Bare, and Viva Dance shoes, just to name a few.
They also have a competition running during this week to win a $200 gift voucher to spend at Anything Dance on Capezio dancewear.
Trading hours are:
Mon, Tues, Wed & Fri 10am-6pm
Thursday 10am-8pm
Saturday 9am-4pm
Anything Dance
Shop 1/31 Byron Street, Croydon 2132
Phone: 02 9716 5581
Lynette Wills has announced her retirement from The Australian Ballet after a distinguished career spanning almost 19 years.
Lynette is one of The Australian Ballet’s most loved and dedicated dancers.
“Lindy is one of those dancers who stamps her presence all over the company,” said Artistic Director David McAllister. “Both on and off stage she is a hugely respected and loved artist, and there are roles she has danced and created that will be the benchmark for years to come. I want to congratulate her on a wonderful career on stage and wish her every success off stage,” McAllister said.
Reflecting on her career Lynette said, “Working with The Australian Ballet has not been a job, it has been a childhood dream realised.”
“In the many years I have spent with the company I have enjoyed the support, encouragement and opportunity provided me by The Australian Ballet and David McAllister, which has resulted in a career I could not have imagined.”
In 2007 Lynette became a mother to Thomas, 18 months later she and husband Tim Burke welcomed their second child Sophie. Her final performance was in the La Bayadère pas d’action, part of the Ballet Imperial programme in 2008.
Adelaide-born Lynette began her ballet training with Betsy Sawers and graduated from The Australian Ballet School in 1990. She joined The Australian Ballet in 1991 and was promoted to Senior Artist in 1996.
Lynette has toured extensively with the company to Italy, London, Paris, Taiwan, China, Japan and the United States, and was promoted to Principal Artist after her fiery and moving portrayal of Baroness von Rothbart in the Sydney premiere of Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake in 2002.
Off the stage, Lynette visited a Cambodian dance company in 2005 as The Australian Ballet’s ambassador in a joint initiative between the company and CARE Australia.
Another talent Lynette has fostered off stage is photography. A collection of Lynette’s photographs, called Step Inside The Australian Ballet, was published earlier this year.
Lynette will take her farewell bow at the opening night of Paris Match on Wednesday 24 June 2009.
Dance Informa would like to congratulate former BBO student and scholar Tim O’Donnell. Tim is the winner of the Genesis Choreographic Competition and audience award in the US!
It is fantastic to see one of our own succeeding extremely well in the States! Tim was one of three choreographers selected on an International scale to compete for the US$3500 prize money, as well as the opportunity to choreograph a new work for the Milwaukee Ballet Company in 2010!
When interviewed Tim explained “I had two very clear objectives when I started this work. The first was to create a story work. This is something that I hadn’t done before but have always wanted to. The second thing I wanted to do was to mix a very clear aesthetic, moving naturally between clean classical lines and abstract movements. The story behind this work is simply a collection of experiences I have had with a number of different people in my life, rearranged to create a more coherent storyline.”
Tom Strini of the Journal Sentinel described Tim’s piece as “intricate, challenging, athletic”, “priceless and something quite new to the Milwaukee Ballet stage.”
Tim is the son of Australian Examiner and BBO fellowship recipient Francessca O’Donnell.
From all at Dance Informa Magazine, we would like to congratulate Tim and wish him all the best in his future endeavours!
Chunky Move presents
Disagreeable Object
Chunky Move Studios - Tues 21 – Sat 25 July
111 Sturt St, South Melbourne
Bookings: m-tix.com.au or (03) 9685 5111
Choreographer & Performer: Michelle Heaven
Collaborator & Performer: Brian Lucas
Collaborator, Lighting / Set: Ben Cobham, Bluebottle
Sound: Bill McDonald
Costume Design: Louise McCarthy
Costume Maker: Julianne Jonas
Hello Again Aussie Dancers, Dance-Makers and Studio Owners!
I just wanted to take a minute (and I know this is coming late) to say thank you to all the Australian studios that had me as a guest faculty on my 2009 Workshop Tour back in FEB/MAR of this year. It takes a massive amount of effort to coordinate an international workshop tour, and this was the largest one I’ve ever attempted to date…40 workshops in 16 days, 7 cities and 18 different facilities. It was quite an undertaking for me physically and mentally and I want to thank everyone involved for their support: Sydney Dance Co (Sydney), Urban Dance Centre (Sydney), DanzFactory (Gosford), Mango Studios (Sydney), All That Jazz Dance Studio (Woolongong), ED5 (Sydney), Ministry of Dance (Melbourne), Patrick Studios (Melbourne), Romina’s Modern Dance (Melbourne), Ritz Dance (Brisbane), Australian Company of Performing Arts (Adelaide), MJ Dance (Mt. Gambier), The Performance Co. (Perth), All Star Dance (Perth), Star Factory (Perth), All That Jazz Dance (Perth), Dance City (Canberra), Dance Central (Canberra) & Kim Harvey School of Dance (Canberra).
I look forward to working with you all again in 2010!
Michael Schwandt
Hello Aussies,
I just wanted to share a few great photos from my recent workshops at Jason Coleman’s Ministry of Dance in Melbourne. These were taken during the ADV Jazz-Funk class and there are a few promo shots with some of MOD’s full-time dancers. These photos are courtesy of MOD’s resident photographer, Jon Lee www.jonleephotography.com
Michael Schwandt
Tickets for the Sydney season of the biggest theatre hit of the decade are on sale today, Monday June 15. WICKED, a breathtaking musical that manages to be comic, dramatic, moving and exhilarating, will open at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre in September. More than 600,000 theatregoers will have seen the musical in Melbourne when it takes its final curtain call on August 9.
WICKED is the untold story of the witches of Oz. Long before that girl from Kansas arrives in Munchkinland, two girls meet in the Land of Oz. One, born with emerald green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch makes for the most spellbinding new musical in years.
“WICKED is unique,” says the Australian production’s co-Producer John Frost. “It’s a phenomenon, quite unlike any other musical. It comes with all the blockbuster bells and whistles, certainly. But aside from its spectacle, wonderful lyrics and score, its wit and warmth, WICKED also touches other, unexpected, and intriguing emotions.”
When WICKED opened on Broadway, it worked its magic on critics and audiences alike winning 20 major awards including three Tony Awards® and a Grammy® Award. Today, WICKED is one of the most successful shows in theatre history with productions in New York, San Francisco, two North American tours, London’s West End, Tokyo, Stuttgart and Melbourne.
Venue
Capitol Theatre
13 Campbell Street, Haymarket
Season
From 5 September 2009
Performance Times
Tuesday – Saturday 8pm
Wednesday matinee 1pm
Saturday matinee 2pm
Sunday matinee 3pm
Bookings
1300 723 038
wickedthemusical.com.au or ticketmaster.com.au
Groups of 20 or more (02) 8512 9020
1 300 WICKED - Premium Tickets, Dining and Hotel packages
131 415 – Land and Air packages from Qantas Holidays
English National Ballet School offers new scholarship to one Australian student from NSW following nationwide search for new talent
English National Ballet School (ENBS) has awarded a new scholarship to Chloe Hitchen from Heron’s Creek in NSW to train at this, one of the world’s leading centres for professional dance training. Chloe will be 17 years this September when she joins the first year at the school in Chelsea in London.
The scholarship, worth £14,000 – 90% of one year’s fees - (Aus $29,000 at current exchange rates), was awarded to Chloe following a nationwide tour of Australia by the school last October in a search for new talent. Chloe participated in an ENBS master-class in Sydney and was selected from all the aspiring dancers who performed in front of additional selection panels in Melbourne and Brisbane. Standards were deemed to be very high throughout and Chloe is the only female first year student to receive a full scholarship for the new academic year.
Chloe says this about her success, “I am both excited and feel privileged to be offered this award from ENBS. I couldn’t quite believe that I had been chosen out of so many participants. Moving to London will be a little daunting at first and I will definitely miss my friends and family but am sure I’ll make many new friends from ENBS and the opportunity is a huge incentive to succeed. I can’t wait for September to come so I can start to work on pursuing my ballet career at a higher level.”
Students spend three years at the school, typically from 16-19 years, and join the top international ballet companies including English National Ballet, where five students were accepted last July, Leipzig Ballet (Germany), Cape Town City Ballet (South Africa), Graz Ballet (Austria) and Ballet de l’Opéra de National de Bordeaux (France)
ENBS is an international centre of excellence for all aspiring young dancers worldwide and increasingly some of the top new talent is coming from Australia. Selection is vigorous and the school takes only an average of 25 students each year, representing the best from around the world. There is currently only one student at the school from Australia, Chelsea Andrejic from Sydney, out of a total of only 75, but many previous Aussie students have graduated and have jobs with some of the best international companies.
Nathan Young from Nereng on Australia’s Gold Coast, graduated from the school in 2007 and won a highly coveted contract with English National Ballet. Alison McWhinney is another Australian success story who graduated from the school in 2005, also joining ENB.
Students from Australia are popular as they are typically hard-working and tenacious. Elisabeth Marshall - Head of Studies at ENBS explains: “We find that Australian students take their training very seriously and are not afraid to work hard. Life as a professional ballet dancer is enormously challenging and takes real commitment, and only the most committed achieve great success.”
The school’s ethos is firmly centred on the belief that socio-economic forces should not limit students with real talent. ENBS already has an impressive record of supporting students through bursaries and grants. Currently 84% of the 70 students currently in full time training receive some kind of financial assistance either towards costs of tuition or living expenses.