Friday, April 18, 2025
It’s been known for some time that Queensland Ballet is in financial difficulty. This week we discovered it is in the process of cutting staff from behind the scenes and within its company…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 05:20AMSaturday, March 29, 2025
It’s all change at Queensland Ballet. Again. The company is far from being the only arts organisation experiencing some turmoil – here’s looking at you, Opera Australia – but every c…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 08:54PMSaturday, February 8, 2025
The stars were out and so was the moon. The audience gathered, as always, on the terraces at City Beach’s Quarry Amphitheatre with the traditional picnic baskets and wine to hand. The danc…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:43AMTuesday, February 4, 2025
If you want to sum up the thrust of Karen Pearlman’s witty new short film in one piece of advice it’s this: women, whatever you do, do not gaze wistfully through a window. This passive…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 07:30PMThursday, January 30, 2025
Queensland Ballet has chosen Ivan Gil-Ortega to be its next artistic director. The Spanish-born international artist will be the company’s seventh AD. He will start in February after a per…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 07:09PMMonday, January 20, 2025
Obviously we’re not precisely at the opera. If so, the doors would have been shut against all-comers at the scheduled start time and there wouldn’t be all these people standing around in…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:52AMTuesday, December 31, 2024
It’s been a few years since I’ve done a year’s-best list. Everyone loves a list, including me, and it’s fun to see what others found memorable. But while I’m always happy to share …
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 09:04PMSunday, November 17, 2024
Can something be simultaneously too much and not enough? That was the case for Oscar Wilde in his tumultuous, ill-fated, on-off relationship with the mercurial Lord Alfred Douglas and it’s…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 08:54PMWednesday, November 6, 2024
Is there anyone, anywhere, ever, who hasn’t kept shtum about something not precisely true when put under pressure? Mostly it doesn’t matter but in the earnest chamber musical Dear Evan …
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 04:14AMTuesday, October 15, 2024
The unwieldy name of Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s bio-ballet carries the intimation that not everyone will know who Chanel was. Tell that to Brisbane, where Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion …
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:40AMTuesday, October 8, 2024
Francesco Ventriglia became artistic director of Alberta Ballet in January 2024. Now 46, he has worked as a dancer, artistic director and choreographer in Italy, New Zealand, Uruguay, Austra…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:06AMTuesday, October 1, 2024
Andrew Lloyd Webber is rarely absent from a stage somewhere and it’s safe to say his work will outlive the scoffers, of whom there are many. Oh well, he can always cry all the way to the b…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 10:02PMFriday, September 20, 2024
We have Opera Australia’s 2025 program in front of us now, launched this week without the presence of its key architect, former artistic director Jo Davies. As all opera-lovers know, Davie…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 02:04AMWednesday, September 4, 2024
When announcing her 2023 season for Royal New Zealand Ballet, then-artistic director Patricia Barker described the returning Romeo & Juliet as “a glorious production made for the St…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 03:58AMFriday, August 30, 2024
Opera Australia chose an unusual day on which to announce it had parted ways with its artistic director, Jo Davies. Tomorrow – Saturday, August 31 – is the Sydney opening night for Suns…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 03:18AMWednesday, August 28, 2024
In what will be David Hallberg’s fifth year as artistic director of The Australian Ballet, the company’s 2025 program offers new works by William Forsythe and Stephanie Lake, the return …
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 08:24PMSunday, August 18, 2024
Solace is a beautiful, onomatopoeic word. It sits softly in the mouth and the taste of its meaning lingers. It promises comfort, although has little to do with being comfortable. This is com…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 09:03PMWednesday, July 31, 2024
Former Royal Ballet superstar Leanne Benjamin arrived at Queensland Ballet in mid-January as the company’s sixth artistic director. On August 2 she leaves the building. In a statement rele…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 10:28PMSaturday, July 27, 2024
Queensland Ballet’s commitment to its Bespoke program is important and necessary for the company, for choreographers and for the QB dancers. Bespoke isn’t the only place where new work h…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 05:19AMMonday, July 22, 2024
How on earth do you keep a bunch of toddlers and babies quiet for more than half an hour? (Well, as quiet as toddlers and babies can be.) Club Origami seems to have the answer. This origam…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 08:36PMMonday, July 15, 2024
George Balanchine’s Jewels was premiered by the Australian Ballet as part of the company’s 60th anniversary celebrations last year and very welcome it was too. It’s unlike anything…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 03:58AMThursday, June 20, 2024
When Bangarra Dance Theatre takes to the stage it is, without fail, in a spirit of generosity. That was true under the long-standing leadership of Stephen Page and feels true with Frances Ri…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:52AMMonday, June 10, 2024
Love is love. If you want just three words to sum up Romeo and Juliet Suite, they’re the ones. Benjamin Millepied’s thrilling dance work, set to selections from Prokofiev’s mighty ba…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 02:50AMWednesday, June 5, 2024
The name BIG Live doesn’t exactly scream ballet but that’s what the organisation does. BIG stands for Ballet International Gala, the arena in which BIG Live started operations in 2022. T…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 02:31AMSunday, May 19, 2024
Ty King-Wall finished his ballet career at the top, retiring from The Australian Ballet as a principal artist. By the time he stopped dancing in 2022 he had two young children, one born just…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 11:56PMWednesday, May 8, 2024
Thomas E.S. Kelly’s SILENCE has been well travelled since its premiere at the Brisbane Festival in 2020. That’s a measure of how well it’s been received, which is excellent, and the …
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 06:23PMTuesday, May 7, 2024
It was a memorable few days for Royal New Zealand Ballet dancers Ana Gallardo Lobaina and Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson. When they made their debuts as Odette/Odile and Siegfried at the May 2…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 08:39PMWednesday, April 17, 2024
There is a great deal of joy in Liam Scarlett’s deliciously funny, sensual A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And – always – a great deal of sadness that his life was so short. Yesterday, A…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:36AMMonday, April 15, 2024
Johan Inger sees Carmen as a nightmare, which it is. In his darker-than-dark version of a story that just won’t go away, the Swedish choreographer gets inside the head of the woman’s mur…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 09:08PMIn 2018 Greg Horsman choreographed a version of La Bayadère for a trio of commissioners, Queensland Ballet, West Australian Ballet and Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet. His setting was mi…
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 03:13AMMonday, April 1, 2024
Speaking in 1985 at a symposium about the creation of West Side Story, Jerome Robbins said he had wanted to see how far he, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents could go in bringing their …
SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:41AM 
