Artistic vibrancy – Dance sector

  

THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL: The Australia Council for the Arts this month launches a series of commissioned essays to promote debate about the artistic vibrancy of our major performing arts companies. In this essay, Lee Christofis, Curator of Dance at the National Library of Australia, weighs in on the cost of innovation as he reflects on artistic vibrancy in the dance sector.

The five Major Performing Arts (MPA) dance companies have long, proud histories and there is a sense about them that are here to stay. They have been remarkably resilient in the ever-challenging arts environment that has evolved since the first of them, West Australian Ballet (WAB), opened in 1952. Since its early days, each company has enjoyed acclaim for its performances, innovation, risk taking and training new talent; in addition, the ballet companies have striven to maintain their cultural heritage and create new, Australian ballets.

All have been through turbulent times; artistic directors have come and gone, some have left in dismay or been fired; but the initial impulse to create these companies still rings true with the public. All have employed some of the finest dancers in their genres, attracted some of the best guest choreographers, although less frequently in choreographer-led companies, and been companies to be proud of. That they once varied greatly from each other was one of the strengths of this sector, when each contributed something different to what is often called the dance ecology, now bigger and more diverse than when the MPA companies began. But it is fair to say, despite a number of sensational new works and great seasons with consistently high production values in recent years, the sector has lost its reputation for the drive for innovation, experimentation and, with rare exceptions, renewing the 19th century repertoire in entirely convincing ways. The sector seems narrower in its enterprise, and this chapter sets out to address some of the factors behind this slippage from the higher end of the Australian dance spectrum. Key amongst these factors is the focus on financial management and the risk-aversion that seems to have limited innovation, even when revisiting heritage works.

Indeed, as The Australian Ballet’s Ballets Russes Centenary celebrations demonstrated, revisiting the birthplace of modern ballet freed up the company to commission new choreographies, music and designs, to restage lost works and so reintroduce its dancers and its audiences to their heritage.

Where do the MAP dance companies stand today? Bangarra Dance Theatre (BDT) stands alone after 21 years as the only Indigenous continuing dance company on Australia’s main stages. Sydney Dance Company (SDC), for 31 years was a vibrant, contemporary neoclassical company, and the most prolific, led by Graeme Murphy, whose ideas were ever-inventive and occasionally stretched to the point of collapse. Now, under Rafael Bonachela, its fifth artistic director since it was founded as Dancers and Athletes in 1965, SDC enters a new phase. Today the three ballet companies, although operating at quite different levels of excellence and from different resource bases, are beginning to look alike as the Queensland Ballet (QB) and WAB emulate the repertoire and artistic programming of TAB, the national flagship.

And any cooperative activities, such as those that have emerged in the contemporary dance and opera sectors, remain rare in this group. There have been five exceptions over the past thirty or so years. First was Murphy’s Vast (1988), the centrepiece of an Australian bicentennial collaboration between SDC, TAB, QB and Australian Dance Theatre (ADT). Next came four elaborate co-productions with TAB: Stephen Page’s Rites (1997) created on TAB and BDT dancers, and Awakenings (2006), and in the same way, Murphy’s Tivoli (2001) with SDC. The fifth was a joint season of TAB and WAB in a season called United! (2002). However, diverging aesthetics, creative agendas and funding, as well as the tyranny of distance, make authentic collaborations and touring extremely challenging.

In an era of increased scrutiny across all government funded activity, criticism for perceived failures of taste and for sometimes (or repeatedly) operating over their budgets, has become a stock in trade for arts journalists. Repertoire has often garnered accolades and, just as equally received, cool critical and audience response. Yet, they have built communities of interest around them to support their work and are here today as testament to the commitment of successive artistic directors, staff and boards, creating new dance works and employing dancers full-time and for audiences who want to see them. One of the outstanding gains for this group has been a raised profile amongst younger audiences and their ability to engage them consistently as can be seen at any performance these companies give. That they also are able to engage with young choreographers, join local dance community events, share panels and podiums at festivals, is an indication of significant change. For instance since David McAllister became director at TAB, and Ivan Cavallari at WAB, their sense of openness and curiosity about dance outside the ballet world has changed how their local contemporary dance communities perceive and relate to them.

Today these five companies are, collectively, well governed organisationally; they are exceptionally well marketed, committed (on the whole) to growing and enhancing outreach and education programs, and contributing to a dance community that is more dynamic than it has ever been. How well they are governed artistically is another matter, and there seems to be some confusion as to who is responsible for artistic governance, and the role of artistic directors in husbanding commissioned works to the stage. What is the role of a company board in artistic matters, or of the marketing department? In other words, it is unclear from an outsider’s viewpoint if a board indulges or limits an artistic director’s vision; if the artistic director is able or independent enough to invest in greater innovation, to step beyond what audiences have come to expect; or is inhibited from doing so by organisational governance and marketing personnel. This theme is explored below.

In terms of international standing, the MPA dance companies have had successful international relationships with presenters and audiences for a long time, and it is worth noting that BDT, SDC and TAB made their first international tours very soon after they opened. These three companies continue to do good business in Asia, the Americas and Europe. An example of the glamour international touring brings, and a great morale boost to dancers, is TAB’s 2009 European tour of Stephen Page’s Rites, his 1997 co-production with BDT and TAB, Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake (2002) and Massine’s Les Presages (1939). Of course there are many other examples of overseas success, but overseas reviews need to be read in context; cultural attitudes, taste and occasional chauvinism can lead to negative or perplexing reviews, which may not be very useful to the companies or their followers(i). WAB made several Asian tours including a notable five weeks in China during Barry Moreland’s directorship from 1983 to 1997. Its first tour under current director Ivan Cavallari took place in Seoul in 2010 at an international gala season. QB has made three European tours since Francois Klaus became artistic director in 1997.

The last, in 2009, took in seven cities in Germany, Denmark and Switzerland with a bill of Australian works. The tour highlight was Klaus’s Timeless Dances for which Indigenous composer William Barton created music and played the didgeridoo and guitar. The other Brisbane-based choreographers were Natalie Weir and Kim McCarthy.

On the incoming side of international standing, it is valuable to recall how TAB’s first two directors Peggy van Praagh and Robert Helpmann used their networks of ‘who’s who’ in international dance to stimulate local dancers and let the public feast on some ‘world’s best’ ballets. Over almost fifty years many choreographers including Frederick Ashton, Kenneth McMillan, Maurice Bejart, Jiri Kylian, William Forsyth and Christopher Wheeldon happily worked with TAB. So have the latest Wunderkinder, the scientifically-minded postmodernist Wayne McGregor and the archeologically-minded Alexei Ratmansky, who is obsessed with the lost steps and embellishments which have slowly disappeared from ballet over the last century.

In much the same way, QB and WAB attract international guest artists to choreograph, restage works or dance with them, partly because Klaus and Cavallari come out of the European opera house tradition where they have long standing connections. Hence their repertoire includes ballets that are more than serviceable, often quite fine and engaging, and unlikely to be imported by TAB. This importation is a healthy thing, as too few local choreographers are keen or able to deliver distinctive and mature works for ballet companies. It also acts as a European counterpoint to the obsession with Balanchine and his many imitators whose works have become something of a plague around the world. A bonus for QB audiences and dancers alike is its annual international gala which brings dancers from across Europe in very contemporary choreography. In fact, the diffidence of local contemporary choreographers with regard to the ballet companies is a cause for concern, because it does not reflect what is happening in the northern hemisphere, and reminds me of the 1960s stand off between modern dance and ballet; surely it deserves to be put to rest. So it is very interesting to watch Bonachella, another European now working in Australia, reveal his approach – a fusion of ballet and the technique of the great American modernist, Merce Cunningham – and add another aesthetic to Australian dance.

All this activity requires constant reflection and evaluation. TAB has long been at the forefront of self-reflection, and personal and career development with its dancers, stemming from now historical industrial issues. And its leadership in safe dance practice, body conditioning and rehabilitation has set international bench marks in dance medicine and science. The evaluation mechanisms of productions and technical standards of its dancers are well laid out.(ii) Appropriately, TAB assesses its activities in relation to international standards and relies on trusted international and local peers who work with the company (at least ten each year), its music director and artistic staff. It uses reviews to identify common critical trends which may help the company plan future programs, although it is unclear how local peers and friends outside TAB are or might be engaged in these reflections. BDT’s artistic self-assessment process includes a long-standing return to country in Yirrkala, home of the Munyurrayan family, in particular, the charismatic Djakapurra Munyurrayun, the company’s spiritual centre and icon for many years.

Also central is feedback from Indigenous elders who verify that any traditional content in BDT productions is presented with integrity. Like BDT and TAB, SDC draws on its own peers, of which it has many, and international feedback. Its reputation for being one of the best prepared touring companies in the world signifies years of constant re-evaluation of its strong interdisciplinary creative practice with leading local composers, designers and film makers, and its creative management. WAB uses familiar self-assessment tools too, and has established a small artistic advisory panel of outsiders to act as a sounding board and provide a wider context for artistic director Cavallari and general manager Steven Roth. Similarly QB’s self-assessment process involves its artistic director Klaus and staff, as well as teaching staff of the Queensland Dance School of Excellence (QDSE) which is the company’s feeder school.

In the digital age, social networking media have proved a boon to dance, and three companies have blogs for feedback, as well as providing information on education and outreach programs. Education has traditionally been an aspect of ballet company activities since the 1970s when TAB under Peggy van Praagh established the first national summer schools on dance in the early 1970s, three national dance festivals with prizes for new choreography, and regular choreographic workshops for her dancers. Today TAB’s scale and resources have allowed it to create a radically new model based on kinetic sensory study which incorporates contemporary dance exploration principles with children in schools. The program has been designed by dance curriculum specialist Helen Cameron and funded by a clutch of sponsors and donors.

It is an unpretentious but sophisticated program of workshops and whole-of-school residencies presented by young dancer-choreographers whom Cameron coaches. The target audience is children disadvantaged by isolation and otherwise unlikely to experience live dance. The state ballet companies too have invested in education too, such as QB’s new partnership with West Australian contemporary dance company Buzz Dance, which has a good reputation for dance in schools, an innovative choreographic approach and professional development programs for teachers. WAB is still experimenting with its programs, usually presented by company dancers, and children’s classes led by Cavallari. Travelling as much at home and overseas as it does, BDT took up the CDROM to use in schools and remote communities. Its benefits were as a preparatory device for workshops on tour and as a teaching resource for teachers in locations the company is unlikely to visit. However BDT has its sights set on fresh approaches, echoing the great success achieved by the dance community – courtesy of Ausdance, the national advocacy body – of promoting the place of dance in the new national arts curriculum in schools.

These broad areas attesting to healthy community engagement and artistic vibrancy in the public eye appear to be relatively strong across this sector. However, the effectiveness of each company’s artistic governance and its openness to creative feedback is best found by experiencing its productions and deciding how well artistic matters of significance or concern are raised and resolved. There is always lively discourse about this sector amongst the dance community and the companies’ constituencies. This is not new, of course, and not all negative criticism is warranted all of the time; indeed it is sometimes over-inflated. However, unsettling as it might be, a recent surge in debate is something the companies should see as a valuable opportunity for genuine exchange of views with their constituencies. At the personal level, artistic directors’ tendency appears to be self-reliance and privacy, reflecting the understandable need to safe-guard reputation, dignity and ongoing courtesy, which well meaning advice or unsettling criticism can jeopardise. Two younger contemporary dance companies, Chunky Move and Lucy Guerin Inc, provide an alternative to isolation and the lack of exchange.

Artistic directors Gideon Obarzanek and Lucy Guerin actively engage with their constituents and invite feedback from peers, audiences, the media, arts academics and other art form practitioners.(iii) Negative criticism aside, vulnerability at the box office remains constant for all kinds of productions, be they short contemporary dance works, evening-long productions, double or triple bills. And where the risks are greatest – challenging audiences with radically new ideas, combating repertoire fatigue in choreographer-led companies or staging expensive, ill-conceived productions that generate poor press and peer consternation – companies have to work hard to ensure audience loyalty and brand recognition.

Another area of discussion is that of authenticity in terms of aesthetics and production values that pertain to the ballet companies and BDT. (It would be inappropriate at this time to comment on SDC, given that artistic director Bonachela, has created only two new works since he joined the company in 2009.) A consistent criticism of TAB is that it does not present the classics in authentic ways. This is very delicate ground, highly subjective and open to accusations of only wanting to relive the past. What may underpin this kind of criticism is TAB’s tendency to select a contemporary, neoclassical choreographer to re-imagine a classic, such as Graeme Murphy’s most successful Nutcracker about a retired Russian ballerina living in 1950s Australia.

It may also be criticism about ‘tinkering’ with famous 19th century ballets, or decisions to produce new versions of old works where the new concept might have been fatally flawed at the outset. Other questions focus on how or how better TAB might present individual dancers, how artists are coached and what dramaturgy is brought to play when reviving the classics in the 21st century. How well the company dances the style of the 19th century canon is a moot point; all ballet appears to have been overtaken by a ubiquitous neoclassical look. This is the bete noir of Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times’s famous critic who takes companies across the northern hemisphere to task for failing to keep to the original styles of the ballets and of the traditions they come from. Macaulay also applies this level of criticism to 20th century repertoire, from Balanchine to the iconic Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, established by the legendary black dancer who brought jazz, spirituals and modern black dance to the American theatre.

In this context then it was something of a revelation for me to see a bigger sampling of 19th century ballet vocabulary reintroduced to TAB in Ratmansky’s Scuola di ballo (The Dance School) in 2009, a perfect counterpoint to Wayne McGregor’s Dyad 1929, the most contemporary ballet choreography to be seen on any ballet stage here since William Forsythe introduced his radical aesthetic to audiences at the Adelaide Festival in the 1990s. Curiously, it tends to be younger choreographers, tyros with a stunning technique under their belt, who are keen to try out the old vocabulary in smart, sharp-edged ways, and still keep it balletic. This is something few Australian ballet choreographers seem to want to explore.

The mushrooming of full-length narrative ballets, old and new, at WAB and QB over the past decade has perplexed serious observers. WAB under Ted Brandsen and Judy Maelor-Thomas from 1998 to 2002 was a chic, neoclassical company which brought in ballets by modernist Dutch master Hans van Manen as well as commissioning new works from contemporary Australian artists Gideon Obarzanek, Stephen Page and Natalie Weir. The following five years were dominated by Simon Dow’s grandiose, feature length ballets (to borrow from the cinema) based on such famous films as Dangerous Liaisons and The Red Shoes. Dow’s La Bohème (after Puccini) did well in Perth but suffered badly in Melbourne the following year, proving the truism that what works in a smaller capital city is less likely to work in Sydney and Melbourne where TAB, SDC and BDT’s repertoires and production standards set very high benchmarks. Clearly the trend suggests that companies are responding to audience demand. Narrative ballet is the genre most audiences think they know or like best, the closest thing to an evening of theatre.

Ironically, it is also the form that is the hardest to create, and equally hard to produce at a consistently high level. Nor can one equate success at the box office of these productions, by any company, with artistic vibrancy if they are not excellent in every regard, not just dancing, sets and costumes, lighting and design, but principally in concept and choreography. It is and always will be this aspect of dance that is the three-act ballet’s Achilles’ heel.
Bangarra Dance Theatre stands at the end of a 35 year-long project of educating Indigenous students in American modern technique and Indigenous traditional dance and music, the basis of the curriculum at National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association Dance College (NAISDA). NAISDA was established by Carole Johnson, an African American dancer who stayed in Australia after appearing with the Eleo Pomare Dance Company in 1972 and BDT’s artistic director Page is a NAISDA graduate. BDT is a uniquely Australian organisation, predated only by Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre (1976 – c. 1995); Johnson founded them both.

The BDT 20th anniversary program which toured the country was a collage of excerpts from across the company’s many seasons and while it was exciting to attend the performances, the afterglow was shadowed by the question, ‘Where to from here?’ BDT is a site of contention amongst diverse commentators and dance artists. Nicholas Rothwell writing in The Australian (2008)(iv) in an article celebrating traditional ceremonial dance while lamenting its loss in large parts of northern Australia, asked, “Can external influences save the dance? Can ceremonial songs, with all their hieratic force and splendour, make a journey into the commercial market place and not lose their souls?’ Clearly he was sceptical. He also described how ‘echoes’ of complex ceremonies, ‘tightly ordered, mostly danced by young men and sung by old… have been intruding into Western performance culture.’ And in this context, he identified the importance of holding to tradition and BDT as ‘anchored by the presence of ceremonial dancer Djakapurra Munyurrayan from northeast Arnhem Land.

The charismatic Munyurrayun had been the company’s cultural adviser and icon for many years and without him, Rothwell’s question call up new questions about BDT’s evolution and future. (In recent productions, another Yirrkala presence has been provided by Kathy Balngaygnu Marik, BDT’s special guest artist.) Academics, critics and other Indigenous artists ask if the current BDT aesthetic can be sustained. Can it represent the country’s myriad Indigenous dance traditions? From a creative development viewpoint, can BDT be refreshed by engagement with elders from other Australian Indigenous communities and, perhaps, dance leaders of neighbouring countries? And what potential do Page, his management and board imagine coming from cultural exchange or intercultural co-creations? These are complex but genuine questions, often supported by concern for Page who has born the brunt of leading this company since 1992 when he created the company's first full-length work, Praying Mantis Dreaming. Page’s collaborators are few: two composers, his composer-actor brother David and Steve Francis, choreographer Francis Rings, BDT’s second resident choreographer and before her Bernadette Walong. Young BDT dancer Daniel Riley McKinley makes his choreographic debut in the Earth and Sky season in mid 2010.

BDT’s virtually lone journey since the mid 1990s has been fruitful but not always easy. Meanwhile, new developments have emerged in dance training at NAISDA College, led by director Kim Walker, and research by Monica Stevens on dances from North Queensland may well lead to new ways of working with young children, and in turn increase numbers of students for NAISDA. Both are NAISDA alumni. And in Broome in autumn, Marrugeku, our leading intercultural performance company and Critical Path, Sydney’s dance research centre, created a dynamic experience for Indigenous dancers from WA and PNG in the second International Indigenous Cultural Laboratory (IICL). Also in WA a new Indigenous contemporary dance company is on the drawing board and may enliven the scene in the next three to five years. These and other initiatives augur well for Bangarra, its artists and contemporary Indigenous dance more broadly.

To return now to the notion of innovation, one of the central rubrics of dance funding and still the most problematic question for all boards and managements. Choreographic innovation – creating new dance styles and ways of presenting dance – has long been the domain of contemporary and independent choreographers who, it may be argued, have more freedom to experiment. And they produce work for audiences who have high expectations for the new and a greater tolerance for exciting ideas that may not come off. It was noted earlier that Rafael Bonachella has just made his first two works for SDC. Recently he invited Adam Linder, winner of the 2009 Place Prize for choreography in London, to share the stage by presenting his first, home-based work in 2010. Linder was virtually unknown here as a choreographer, and his prize winning was not without contention in London. But his new creation, are we that we are, while not genre breaking, was refreshing and different from Bonachela’s 6 breaths and the two works made for a good program. And of course commissioning Linder’s work was risky, but the decision was informed and well supported.

Risk is a hallmark of creative endeavour and artistic vibrancy, but innovation does not occur without risk; and from the companies’ point of view the margin for risk is very small. So how might we imagine artistic governance to deliver more than it currently does without whole-of-company participation in this core business area? Currently, organisational governance models may ensure financial stability, but they can be unsympathetic, even hostile to consistent choreographic development. How do companies imagine their responsibilities for creative development, for creating contexts for vibrant exploration of choreographic and thematic ideas? I believe that managing creative activities – not just the predictable, technical aspects of production and stage management – deserve wider research and intellectual investment by designated personnel, from the board to the executive and hands-on staff. That they need to be more than superficially educated in and engaged with art making goes without saying. This is not a new concept but one, which, as I was finishing this chapter, turned up in a new book profiled in the June 2010 edition of The Arts Marketing Newsletter from Germany .(v) It is Creative Strategy: Reconnecting Business and Innovation, by Chris Bilton and Stephen Cummings. The authors deconstruct what they see as false dichotomies between strategy (business) and innovation (creativity) and suggest an alterative view of business strategy as a creative process.

Drawing on research across theatre, fashion and sport, media and the military they describe the paradoxical relationship between strategic and creative activity, and offer analytical approaches which may redress the imbalance that exists, in my mind at least, in the current frameworks in which the MPA dance companies operate.(vi) A parallel analysis of the funding models which the Australia Council and state arts offices employ may lead to new ways of privileging innovation in order to meet commonly expressed government aspirations about excellence and innovation. Marketing departments, too, can be overly confident about their predictions (never an exact science) of what will and won’t sell, as TAB’s recent financial reports for the year 2009 demonstrates. The Ballets Russes repertoire which was dismissed by many inside and outside TAB provided some of its great successes of the past ten years. The four-year Ballets Russes celebration was a marketer’s dream and, despite reservations, generated new interest and excitement for audiences. The 1933 ballet Les Presages was at the top of public appeal with Murphy’s Firebird and McGregor’s Dyad 1929, both made in 2009. A question too about marketing budgets: how much is devoted to risky, innovative work compared to big long-term, pre-planned campaigns for productions, like the classics, which virtually sell themselves?

To conclude, here are several challenges to the MAP dance companies, which may lead to ongoing mechanisms for reconceiving choreographic and other innovation. First is to build a talent pool of truly innovative choreographers who are sophisticated enough to challenge a company’s ethos and preferred styles of productions. This means consistently looking away from the familiar names, specific aesthetics or training bases, or styles of production. Second is to reconceptualise budgets and corporate practices to privilege a continuous strand of new choreography and its on-going development, and determine ways in which companies can dedicate more time for creation that is commensurate with the time given to production of costumes, decors and marketing collateral. Third is to create new ways of marketing innovation as an adventure audiences would want to be part of in tandem with outreach activities which engage audiences in a direct way with the creative activity. Fourth is to examine the impacts of touring, both positive and negative, in order to find ways to provide better context and time frames for creative practice. Fifth is to champion new choreography to venue managements, artists’ agents, serious outsiders and wise thinkers who are committed to these companies, and to invite them to join them in open dialogue about their work and their visions for the future. As hoofer Velma Kelly sings in the musical Chicago about doing a double act with her sister, ‘”But I can’t do it alone.”

If the MPA dance sector is to be more innovative, regain its status as a driver of creative activity and change how Australian audiences see dance, it will need to look at and collaborate with the contemporary, experimental and historically imaginative sectors of the dance ecology. They have done it before, now they need now kinds of contexts and assistance to do it again.

This essay is on the website: http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/artisticvibrancy together with case studies in artistic self-assessment and a review of commentary around the world on measuring artistic best practice.

FOOTNOTES

i.The Australian Ballet profile in “Tell me honestly…” p. 68
ii.“Tell me honestly…” p. 70, The Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, 2010
iii. “Tell me honestly… p. 10 The Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, 2010
iv. Nicholas Rothwell, ‘Rhythm sticks’, The Australian, October 25, 2008 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/rhythm-sticks/story-e6frg8n6-1111117814465 accessed 14 June 2010
v. Arts Management Network http://www.artsmanagement.net/index.php?module=books&func=display&bkid=809
vi. Chris Bilton and Stephen Cummings, Creati(ve Strategy: Reconnecting Business and Innovation, (Wiley-Blackman, 26 2010,ISBN: 1405180196), published by Wiley-Blackman, April 26 2010)