{Collaborative collage featured in It's the Dusty Hour with Hila Shachar.}
Anticipation, that fantastically skin-prickly sense of looking forward to something, why, it is a wonderful sensation to feel coursing through the body and tickling the skin. Last night, Louise and I were lucky enough to be invited to The Australian Ballet’s opening night performance of Icons which submerges the willing in three one-act ballets from three different periods: Robert Helpmann’s The Display (1964); Glen Tetley's Gemini (1973); and Graeme Murphy's Beyond Twelve (1980). There is something rather wonderful about seeing in sequential order ballets times three that hail from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. In each ballet, there were elements that spoke of the time they were created, and I thought how especially spectacular that was to see. It is a tremendous skill to be able, in any medium, to comment on what you see around you. From Helpmann’s “first work for the fledgling Australian Ballet, in 1964, ... inspired by a dream in which he saw a naked Katharine Hepburn on a dais surrounded by lyrebirds” by way of lycra-clad, make-it-yellow 70s to footy guernseys in the 80s (in colours that would make my Brown and Gold fixated Dad most proud), the ride was as sensory as you’d expect. However, to this I will all soon come. We are still at the beginning.
One of my favourite sounds is that of an orchestra tuning their instruments, be it in the orchestra pit or on stage, and to sit in the theatre or auditorium or somewhere that similar houses, and wait. Wait for it to fill with bodies also in a somewhat heightened state of anticipation. And excitement. And expectation. And tipsiness. What will I see? What will unfold? What will happen when the curtain lifts or draws aside and reveals a stage set? I love watching the theatre fill, though particularly the State Theatre, and I could happily sit in the stalls watching it all for a long time, drinking in the beautiful beforehand-ness of it all. One of the most beguiling scenes in Michael Haneke’s beautifully composed film Amour features at its opening the crowd, the bubbling audience, shown filmed from the area of the stage. The camera, we learn, is on the audience before a concert pianist takes to the stage. This is anticipation. In the audience, we spy Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emanuelle Riva). They are there to hear one of Anne’s former students play. It, too, I recall (or is that project?), is a red and gold warm theatre setting, the type that always feels so inviting and puts you physically in an aware state, a state of wondering what will come. And at ease too, those ordered, welcoming row after row, red covered, alphabetised and numbered seats. And those luminous gold details that for all their impressiveness also serve as welcoming in the expecting-of-great-things glittering ambience they create. Makes you realise how great architecture and its interior clothing can be, doesn’t it, when you think of its mood-altering transformative powers? And so, it is this scene in the film Amour I recalled as I sat last night watching the State Theatre fill for the opening night of the Australian Ballet’s Icons triple bill. It is fascinating to watch the crowd a-bustle with excitement, in a parade of finery, like foxes with their tails brushed or horses in an Epstein silent film with tinsel woven into their manes. It is intriguing to see what faces they wear. To hear fragments of conversations. This is true of both my evening and in Haneke’s film. Of Amour, it is also the only time we see Anne and Georges outside of their Parisian apartment. We see them living a full, creative life on the evening of her birthday, before illness and age begins to lay claim to them. It is curious how various film scenes come to mind later on, some many weeks later. The same is also true of dance. Perhaps it stems, just a little, from the devotion and focus we give them, as well as the mastery of what we see. As Louise commented recently, during a performance or film, one thinks only of what is playing out before the eyes. One thinks about what one is seeing not of the washing still to do, or a painting that will not come, or an overdue email to send, or tax receipts to sort.
Helpmann's The Display begins as an ornithologist's dream, with a lyrebird dance that more than mimics but is the actual dance the male performs to woo the female. Set against a breathtaking backdrop by Sidney Nolan reinterpreted by Paul Kathner, it creates the sensation of the dancers being actually within a painting. With original lighting design by William Akers reproduced by Francis Croese, I loved every bit of this transportation to the 1960s with its playfulness, football picnic antics, flirtations, bird-like head tilts, and real darkness. But of details, I will not share. Instead, I urge you to pop along and with own eyes see what unfolds. See what it is like to step inside a painting. Or remain outside looking in, and simply let it wash over you. Either way, be prepared to see a section of the world, as you know it. It’s a mirror, after all.
From here to the 70s we head, and, as with the previous ballet, it is one I know of by reputation but have never had the pleasure of seeing before. I am enthralled by Tetley's Gemini, and I love how the coloured ribbon-like bands in the background read almost, to me, like a charmed science fiction style boxing ring. It is awe-inspiringly physical, intimate, lyrical, and strong. One twenty minute intermission later, and we find ourselves in the 80s and Murphy's Beyond Twelve that tells beautifully and truthfully how creativity feels and works and is. It reads like a self-portrait, to me, for it feels in parts so intimate to watch that I almost blush. As with Gemini, it is an intimate adventure I’ve subscribed to, and as with The Display, a dark one. Not for the faint hearted, a well-worn expression I happily trot out. The dance between the 12-year-old self with the 18-year-old self and the 30-year-old self was heartbreaking. Afterwards, I am reminded of the film I saw recently, Violeta Went to Heaven, which also looks at the creative process of an individual artist, from aspiration and dreams to dizzying heights before and the final inevitable decent down the mountain (to something new and different, sometimes). I found the ending so beautiful and it is a treat, as an audience, to see the back of the stage laid suitably bare. If, for me, there is one thing that links these three ballets from three different decades it is this stripped bareness. They make a revealing raw trio. What could be better than that?
Opening nights have their own special buzz and excited air, and I
enjoyed at evening’s close hearing one woman say to another, “...and your
son was marvellous on stage too!” The bristle and excitement, like the
feeling of static electricity when you rub the soles of your shoes on
the carpet and give shock to your nearest companion. Anticipation before a performance and the actual performance itself can feel like
that to me, one pleasing electric shock. Where recently I described
myself as a mouse, perhaps in the theatre I am, by own
rule-breaking imaginary metamorphosis, a hare, ears alert. With ears
like two tall dictaphones recording the sound for later playback. Why
not?
I look forward to seeing The Display, Gemini, and Beyond Twelve next week with my Mum and to hearing what she sees, and to readjusting my thoughts on all of the above ballets for nothing is ever fixed.
Thank-you for a marvellous night, all involved.
+ The Australian Ballet's Icons runs until the 8th of September.