Tag Archives: In The Upper Room

Australian Ballet, Melbourne Reviews

Standing Ovations

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In The Upper Room

Miranda Caney & Tim Harbour, Photograph by Jeff Busby
Miranda Caney & Tim Harbour, Photograph by Jeff Busby

The Australian Ballet’s 20:21 wowed audiences with a Triple Bill of modern and contemporary dance, that moved the audience to their feet. The costumes and the sets were minimal so the production relied heavily on the skill of the dancers and the talent of the choreographers.

If the dancers felt exposed by their limited artifice, they did not show it, in fact, they embraced it.The dancers were un-caged flying freely though the score and exploring modern motifs. The zeal of the dancers slapped the audience awake as they were witnessing their living time and their Art. It was beyond fable, it was flesh and blood, it embraced our moment.

The third and final ballet of the triple bill was Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room, it was reminiscent of ‘The Red Shoes’ but with a twist. Those that dance beyond a dalliance, are not outcasts, doomed to roam alone, but rather the front-runners of fashion. The audience may have been on the bench but they had gone to the party.

Costume designer Norma Kamall has to be congratulated for telling it all, by disclosing less.

Australian Ballet, Melbourne Reviews

Tim Harbours ‘Filigree and Shadow’ is a Turbulent Shrill

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Curtains parted for the opening of 20:21, Melbourne Press attended the dress rehearsal of Filigree and Shadow.

To triumph over fear, when mere mortals run and hide.

A wild festival of sound and performance, ignited by Tim Harbours vision and the troops intuitive expression, creates a dramatic dance, executed with precision whist appearing to be passionate and spontaneous.IMG_4516

The artists burst through the turbulent score with a shrill that showcases their skill. They are in their natural habitat and the forces that challenge them, invigorate them. Harbour’s choreography has lit a fire in the dancers and they are intoxicated in a cult of Art.

Kelvin Ho, the Set Architect, has created a theatre within a theatre.The clean minimal design effortlessly divides the space, allowing shafts of light and a wall for the shadows. It seems as though the audience is spying an event, like a natural phenomena ; birds in a hurricane, steering into its calm eye or dolphins in a storm that are performing tricks on crashing waves.

“I’ve gone to that vicious, angry,frustrated place – what better place to exorcise yourself” Harbour explains.

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There are no dull moments, it is absorbing and riveting, from beginning to end.

Filigree and Shadow are one of the three performances of 20:21 which also include Symphony In Three Movements (1946) by Choreographer George Balanchine and In The Upper Room (1986) by Twyla Tharp

Article by A Forward