“Caring for tradition, daring to be different” is The Australian Ballet’s vision, and in 2012 the company celebrates 50 years of bringing that vision to the world. Infinity presents three highlights from the company’s repertoire – and three glimpses into ballet’s boundless possibilities.
Wayne McGregor created Dyad 1929 on The Australian Ballet in 2009 as a tribute to the innovative spirit of the Ballets Russes. The work was an instant classic, hailed as “fabulously complex”, “endlessly fascinating”, and “far beyond the usual limits of ‘ballet”. Set to Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet and staged in stark black and white, this is dance at its most dangerous and exhilarating.
Warumuk – in the dark night is the newest collaboration between The Australian Ballet and Bangarra Dance Theatre, the country’s leading Indigenous dance group. It tells the story of the shifting night skies in Arnhem Land, beginning with the first evening star. Choreographer Stephen Page worked closely with Australia’s traditional Indigenous communities to create this piece, which fuses classical and contemporary dance vocabularies into a new language.
Completing the bill is Luminous, a collection of The Australian Ballet’s most-loved divertissements performed against a rich multimedia backdrop.
The Australian Ballet has wowed audiences in Paris, London, Toyko and Shanghai. Join their 50th birthday celebrations in this New York exclusive.
June 12–13, 2012
2 performances
with New York City Ballet Orchestra
VENUE
David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center,
Broadway and 63rd Street, New York
PRICE
$29–$149
There is a $2 facility fee per ticket and a $7 convenience fee per ticket for web and phone transactions
TICKETS
Online
By phone: 212-496-0600
In person: David H. Koch Theater Box Office
20 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023
SYNOPSIS
Dyad 1929
To celebrate the centenary of the magnificent Ballets Russes, I have embarked upon generating a diptych: two contrasting yet complementary ideas produced on two sides of the world – Dyad 1909 (London) and Dyad 1929 (Melbourne).
The maverick impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, had a creative vision that served to challenge the social norms of the day. His work seduced the rest of the world with productions that not only redefined ballet but set a fresh agenda for the process of art. The Ballets Russes was very much a product of its time. From a scientific, social, political and technological perspective, the period of 1909 – 1929 was rich with discovery and experimentation; the world was changing and fast.
For this Dyad diptych, I have been inspired by a fascinating example of the period’s rapid evolution, illustrated brilliantly in its preoccupation with Antarctica. In January 1909, the Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton embarked upon his seminal Antarctic expedition, the Nimrod. He was the first to successfully reach the magnetic South Pole. By 1929, aviator Richard Evelyn Byrd – the pioneering American polar explorer – was the first to actually fly over the South Pole in a Ford Trimotor. In a mere 20 years the technological revolution had given man the enduring power of flight and with it a renewed energy for expedition. Literally now able to ‘discover’ more of the globe, it was a new dawn in possibility. Although Dyad 1929 is not a narrative ‘about’ Antarctica the dance, design and music contain its traces of the Ballets Russes spirit, made visible for our time.
Dyad 1929 is dedicated to the memory of Merce Cunningham (1919-2009), a choreographer whose curiosity, sense of adventure and seamless collaboration knew no bounds.
Wayne McGregor
Dyad 1929 (2009)
Choreography Wayne McGregor
Music Steve Reich’s Double Sextet
Costume design Moritz Junge
Stage concept Wayne McGregor and Lucy Carter
Lighting design Lucy Carter
Warumuk − in the dark night with Bangarra Dance Theatre (2012)
Choreography Stephen Page
Music David Page*
orchestrated by Jessica Wells
Costume design Jennifer Irwin
Set design Jacob Nash
Lighting Design Padraig O Suilleabhain
Sound design Bob Scott
*featuring Dhuwa and Yirritja songs and stories from North East Arnhem Land vocals by Jamie Wanambi, Banula Marika and Janet Guypunguna Munyarryun
David Page’s music used with permission of Sony/ATV Music Publishing (Australia) Pty Limited
Made possible with the support of The Ross Trust
