25jan08 FBA 017 -...

FBA 017

The Sydney Morning Herald smh.com.au Friday, January 25, 2008 17

Arts&Entertainment

Be part of the environmental initiative that’s sweeping the worldby advertising in the official 2008 Earth Hour magazine, to be

published in The Sydney Morning Herald on March 17and in The Age on March 18, 2008.

Booking deadline: Friday, February 15, 2008

To advertise please contact 02 9282 2035

FREE GUIDE TO RETIREMENT VILLAGESSponsored by Aveo

To order your free copy call 1300 763 437 or visit www.smh.com.au/freeguidesMonday-Friday, 9am-5pm. While stocks last.

Hickoxconfirmshe willkeep batonBryce Hallett

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

THE British conductor RichardHickox will remain Opera Aust-ralia’s music director until 2012.

The five-year renewal of themaestro’s contract was an-nounced at the Opera House afterlast night’s opening of the com-pany’s new production of Car-men, conducted by Hickox anddirected by Francesca Zambello.

Hickox’s re-appointment, re-vealed by the Herald on Tuesday,has been welcomed by a numberof conductors, singers, composersand directors, including RichardBonynge, Brett Dean, Jim Shar-man and Bruce Beresford, whorecently directed A StreetcarNamed Desire for the company.

Opera Australia’s chairman,Gordon Fell, said the board wasdelighted to extend his musicalleadership. ‘‘Opera Australia isenjoying great success throughthe close collaboration of our ar-tistic leadership team . . . We an-ticipate they will lead us to evengreater heights in future.’’

The chief executive, AdrianCollette, said the company’s rep-ertoire had been extended sinceHickox’s appointment in 2005.‘‘We have developed our musicalstandards significantly. He is agreat collaborator, both withinthe rehearsal room and in takingresponsibility for our company.’’

Despite the demands of an in-ternational career, Hickox, whosucceeded Simone Young afterher premature and contro-versial departure, had no hesi-tation remaining in the post.‘‘We are continuing to build ourensemble with singers ofgreater and greater ability andour chorus, led by MichaelBlack, and the Australian Operaand Ballet Orchestra, led byAubrey Murphy, are going fromstrength to strength.’’

The composer Brett Dean, whois working on the new operaBliss, based on the Peter Careynovel, said Hickox had been apassionate supporter of the proj-ect. ‘‘The commissioning of newworks such as ours, and a firmbelief in the importance of theirplace in the repertoire, is vital forthe continued vibrancy of operaas an art form.’’

Teacher’senduringyearningfor danceThe great Nureyev inspired Cynthia Harvey tokeep learning, and now she is passing on thatlegacy, writesValerie Lawson.

Search for purity ... formerAmericanBallet Theatre andRoyalBallet principal CynthiaHarvey atTheMcDonaldCollege summer school inNorthStrathfield. Photo: Kate Geraghty

‘If you don’t have fun, reconsider. You have tohave a feeling of joy. You have to be passionateabout dancing, because it’s so difficult.’CYNTHIA HARVEY’S advice to students

By the time she retiredas a ballerina a dec-ade ago, CynthiaHarvey had workedwith Rudolf Nureyev,

Erik Bruhn, Anthony Dowell andMikhail Baryshnikov on thegreat stages of the world.

She could have turned her backon the gruelling world of balletwith a roomful of scrapbooks anda head full of memories.

But Harvey stayed true to herfirst love and the qualities shehad as a child. Growing up inthe small Californian city ofNovato she was blessed withinnate physical co-ordinationand a love of jumping – just forthe sake of it.

Her fascination with balletwas sparked when she sawMargot Fonteyn and RudolfNureyev dance on The EdSullivan Show. She mimickedtheir movements.

In the words of a dancer’s songfrom A Chorus Line, she thoughtto herself ‘‘I can do that . . . ’’

For the past 12 years Harveyhas been coaching at schools anddance companies around theworld and has spent the past twoweeks in Sydney teaching morethan 300 young dancers at aninternational summer school. OnSunday she will fly to Melbourneto spend a week with the Aus-tralian Ballet.

Harvey was invited to coachat the summer school of theSydney performing arts school

The McDonald College by a for-mer Royal Ballet School col-league, Jacqui Dumont.

In Sydney, and wherever sheteaches pre-professional classes,she tells her students, ‘‘If youdon’t have fun, reconsider. Youhave to have a feeling of joy. Youhave to be passionate aboutdancing, because it’s so diffi-cult,’’ – even more difficult ‘‘ifyou don’t love coming into thestudio’’ to practise each day.

Harvey teaches at AmericanBallet Theatre in New York, LaScala in Milan, the NorwegianNational Ballet in Oslo and theRoyal Ballet School in London.

From April, she will work withthe new Spanish ballet companydirected by Angel Corella, theSpanish-born dance star nowbased in New York.

When she stood on pointes,the fine-boned Harvey was asmidgin taller than her mostfamous dance partner, Barysh-nikov, with whom she thrilledaudiences in Don Quixote. Hecompensated for his relativelack of height with jumps thatate up the stage and turns thathad audiences cheering.

Best known now for his role inSex AndThe City, Baryshnikov fol-lowed in Nureyev’s footstepswhen he defected from the thenSoviet Union and took over hismantle as ballet’s sexiest andmostcharismatic male dancer.

Harvey recalled: ‘‘By nature, Idon’t think that working in a stu-

dio is his thing, whereas forme, itis, definitely. I’ve always enjoyedthe process almost more thanI’ve enjoyed the actual perform-ance, which is strange.

‘‘I was a very nervous per-former to the point that I wasshaking. I had that feeling youhad to be as good as your lastperformance and sometimes inmy mind it [her performance]was a fluke . . .

‘‘The thing that got me aheadwas being a quick learner. It’salso the yearning to be on topof things.’’

At 16, Harvey moved to NewYork where, a year later, shebecame the youngest member ofAmerican Ballet Theatre’s corpsde ballet. Her career blossomedwhen Nureyev staged his versionof Raymonda for that company.‘‘He stayed for six days, just watch-ing,’’ before he suggested she

learn a part usually danced byprincipals or soloists.

Did this cause anguish in theranks? ‘‘I always hadmy blinderson. I never stopped working. Iwas a like a maniac. I wouldn’tbe able to tell you if there were

people, at that stage, who werejealous or upset.’’

As for Nureyev, ‘‘if you listenedto him and paid attention, he hadtime, he noticed. We were likepuppies, sponging, eager to listento what he had to offer. Therewas his musicality and just thishunger for learning somuch. The

knowledge that someone likeNureyev had the desire to keeplearning made me feel if he’s likethat, it’s something I should as-pire to be.’’

She was also coached byNureyev’s former lover, Erik

Bruhn, and remembers the classi-cally perfect Dane as ‘‘the god ofthe dance. He picked me to do LaSylphide and there was [the prin-cipal dancers] Martine van Hameland Gelsey Kirkland and me [inthe studio], and he said, ‘Now it’syour turn,’ and I couldn’t . . . Hecame up to me quietly and said, ‘I

would never have picked you if Ididn’t think you could do it.’

‘‘I tell these kids the samething when I see the stiffness intheir bodies. I remember Eriksaying, ‘We’re here to learn,you’re allowed to make yourmistakes in the room here.’ ’’

A principal artist at AmericanBallet Theatre by the age of25, Harvey became a principalguest artist with the Royal Balletat Covent Garden four years later.

In 1990 she married theEnglishmanChristopherMurphy,who was the chief designer forLotus formula one and is now thetechnical director for a Spanishracing team.

She miscarried when she wasseven months’ pregnant, thendecided to return to training.But at the first class back, inLondon, Harvey sprained a liga-ment when another dancer ran

into her by mistake. ‘‘I wasn’teven moving at the time. Ithought this is not meant to be.’’

In her late 30s, Harvey retiredin San Francisco after ‘‘the bestcareer. I did what I wanted to doand I had fun.’’

Two years after her farewellperformance she gave birth toher son, Conal, now 9.

In her two weeks in Sydney,‘‘I’m attempting to get thestudents to understand that danc-ing is not just a series of poseslinked together, but that the linksare just as important. I want themto dance in an honestmanner. Forme, less is more.

‘ ‘Because you’re sweatingbuckets doesn’t mean you’reworking properly. It’s how youuse the effort that’s important.’’

Mostly, it’s ‘‘just about work-ing correctly and purely, andto have a joy in it’’.

Gravity-bending performancegets the mind working, too

Acrobatic action ... two of the performers in a terrific showwhich lives up to its name. Photo: Edwina Pickles

" DANCE

THIS SHOW ISABOUT PEOPLEDramaTheatre,SydneyOperaHouse

AETHERPlayhouse,SydneyOperaHouseBothJanuary23 to26ReviewedbyJill Sykes! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

SHAUN PARKER has a deft,original touch in creatingtheatre. Along with his love ofdance and music, it turns hisideas into something audiencescan laugh at, sympathise with,and generally have a good timewhile they are watching – thenleave something for the mentaldoggie bag to take away andthink about afterwards.

This Show Is About People isfilled with humanity’s prob-lems: anything from the atomic

bomb, or a more local andequally deadly explosion forthose nearby, to the break-up ofa relationship. Or a vendingmachine that delivers people inplace of the snack you paid for.It is full of jokes.

The most immediatediscomfort for the characters isthe other people sharing an uglypublic transport waiting room –though it would have to be thebest-equipped musically, withexhilarating performances ofearly music and Bulgarian songsby Tobias Cole, Mara Kiek, LlewKiek, Silvia Entcheva, JarnieBirmingham and NickWales.

They may be singing aboutdying when something hilariousis going on, but the mix of stylesdraws you in, and eventuallypoints up underlying meaningsthat might have gone unnoticedin the heady acrobatic action ofthe piece.

As fans of his earlier work,Blue Love, would know, Parker

likes the speed and gravity-bending activity of performershurtling around the stage anddiving on to it, rolling back up ontheir feet and doing it all again.Anton puts his own engaging, attimes dazzling, spin on this.Matt Cornell adds an excitingbreakdance element. Guy Ryanplays it quite off the air – disarm-ingly at first, disturbingly at theend. Marnie Palomares, a strongperformer, doesn’t get as manyindividual opportunities butmakes the most of what she has.

There are some flaws. Theaction is repetitive, and by theend you have seen the same con-trived fall too often. The writtenmessages are great, but stretchesof unamplified spoken wordsneed better projection for theircomplexity. Overall, though, thisis a terrific show about people.

Aether approaches the worldaround us in a far more stylisedway. Lucy Guerin’s crisp chor-eography at first sets the dancers

in a robotic, mindless dance thatis propelled by competingsources of information. Starting,as the audience files in, withdelicate patterns of newspaperscraps being assembled on thefloor by the dancers, it buildsslowly with layers of words andimagery on a screen, on movingbodies – anywhere it can land.

Those first paper patterns are

quickly kicked to rubbish by thedancers’ feet. Technology hastaken over. Its overwhelming,often confusing effect can beread in body language that getsfaster and more jagged.

Then there is a second part,exploring communicationbetween individuals, and theperformer and audience inparticular. This gives Antony

Hamilton a virtuoso solo in hisdistinctive style, evocative andvulnerable. It is a highlight in acollectively impressive ensemble– also featuring Byron Perry,Kirstie McCracken, KyleKremerskothen and Lee Serle –for a work that is interesting butnot as strong as Guerin’s Struc-ture And Sadness, shown at lastyear’s Sydney Festival.

Oompah, death metaland that voice: perfect

REVIEWS

Musical bowerbird ... Bjork at theOperaHouse. Photo: Edwina Pickles

" MUSIC

BJORKOperaHouse forecourt, January23ReviewedbyBernardZuel

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

AS MY bum went numb on thehardly accommodating steps ofthe Opera House, it occurred to methere was something both crazyand appropriate about Bjork beinga star attraction at a mainstreamarts festival.

On any objective criteria youwould be perfectly within yourrights to say that the woman is anIcelandic whack job. Let’s look at theevidence on this night alone: theshow features a marching brassband introduction to the stage; athunderous opening of EarthIntruders coming across like astampeding herd; the way her musiccan veer fromwarped Spanish turnsand German oompah to somethingalmost Chinese and then a bit ofIceland via Pakistan; the absence ofany of her ‘‘hits’’; a climax wheredeath metal and techno coalesce; asong likeHunter, where skitteringdrum patterns inspire a dance thatseems to turn her and her ruffleddress into a golden catherine-wheel.

And that’s without mentioningher soaring, vaulting, childlike-one-moment, operatic-the-next voice,which at times seemed to be beingbeamed from across the water, poss-ibly carried out of the OverseasPassenger Terminal by one of thosefruit bats swooping above us.

But it all made sense. First whenwe danced, and kept dancing. Thenwhen we sank luxuriously into theoddly shaped ballads that took upthe middle of the set. And finallywhen she told us in Cover Me:‘‘While I crawl into the unknown,cover me/ I’m going hunting formysteries/ I’m going to prove theimpossible really exists.’’

That’s what you want at a festival,isn’t it? Especially a festival wherethe contemporary music program,working on the fault line of folkintersecting with pop and artmusic, has been consistently fasci-nating, without ever sinking intoobscurity. Mysteries have beenhunted, and enjoyed.

In that sense Bjork – mad, funny, amusical bowerbird, a deceptivelypop-savvy writer, a fearless chal-lenger of norms – fits right in. Crazyand appropriate.

Bjork plays at the Big Day Out today.