Dancers do a quick shuffle

Press, 20 April 1982, Page 12

Dancers do a quick shuffle

Members of the New Zealand Ballet company will temporarily put aside their dancing shoes during the performances on their South Island tour to concentrate on the shuffle and the buck-and-wing. ■ These are archaic dance steps from the turn of the century which are featured in Gray Veredon’s “Ragtime Dance Company,” one of the three ballets on the tour programme. The company will appear in the Theatre Royal on April 23 and 24. Gray Veredon was born in Tauranga in 1943, educated in Wellington, and studied dance with Walter Trevor before joining the New Zealand Ballet. Later Gray went to London for further training at the Royal Ballet School, after which he joined the Ballet of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. . Later he danced with John Cranko’s Stuttgart Ballet before being appointed artistic director of Tanzforum, the dance company of the Cologne Opera House and one of Europe’s foremost modern dance companies. For Tanzforum he created more than twenty ballets, which toured Europe, North and South America, and Asia. In 1978, Gray resigned from Tanzforum to accept choreographic commissions. Since then he has created ballets for the Jeffrey Ballet and Metropolitan Opera in New York, The Washington, San Antonio and Maryland Ballets, The Joyce Trisler Dance Company, and companies in Lyon and Manilla. Last year the dancers of the New Zealand Ballet put aside their shoes after their daily classical class to take instruction in the shuffle, and

the buck-and-wing, from Veredon and his assistant, Rita Lussi, who put them through their paces to. the syncopated rhythms of Scott Joplin on which the "Ragtime Dance Company” ballet was originally choreographed for Tanzforum.

The ballet is set backstage in a seedy music hall at the tum of the century. It had its first New Zealand. performance in Wellington last June. Veredon has returned to the Washington Ballet to mount his version of “The Rite of Spring." Later he will direct “Lysistrata” for Ballet de I’Opera de Lyon, and “Papillon” and “Gaiete Parisienne”. for the State Opera of Munich.

“Witchboy” is the work of Jack Carter, one of Britain’s leading choreographers. “Witchboy” was created in the Netherlands in 1956 and later entered the repertory of London Festival Ballet, with whose audience it. has remained a favourite. It is based on the old folk ballad, “Barbara Allen,” which tells of witches and a blind, semihuman .. “Conjurman” who : creates them. Since he mounted “Witchboy” for the New Zealand Ballet, Carter has choreographed a new work for the Scottish Ballet. Recently he accepted invitations to produce ballets in Hong Kong and Japan’. “La Ventana,” the other work on the touring programme, is one of the nine-teenth-century ballets by August Bournonville which have been preserved for posterity by the Royal Danish Ballet. Bournonville was ballet master in Copenhagen from 1830 to 1877 and formulated the style of teaching and dancing 'with emphasis

on virile male dancing which has become the hallmark of the Danish Ballet.

Harry Haythorne learned “La Ventana” from Hans Brenaa, who is an expert on the Bournonville ballets and is responsible for all which remain in the Royal Danish Ballet’s repertoire. "La Ventana" was performed by the Scottish -Ballet when it toured New Zealand in 1974' with, Dame Morgot Fonteyn.

Cartoon show , Original drawings fon-dar-' toons by Murray Ball, NevileLodge, Mirihinnick, Tom Scott, and othefdeading New Zealand cartoonists will go on display to the public in ‘the CSA gallery tomorrow. : The exhibition, entitled “The 'National Cartoon Show ’82,” is a travelling display arranged by the Manawatu. Art Gallery. The 38 cartoons and comic strips will remain bn display in ; the gallery until May 2. In other exhibitions in the gallery until May 2, Michael Smither is showing paintings in his series on the theme of music, and the Nelson weaver, John Hadwen, has combined with the Auckland ceramicist, John Parker, in a joint exhibition. . Six large hanging canvasses on polyphonic chords, colorgrapic polyphonic structures, from “Dolphin Dances,” and recently completed assemblages of the spectrum, with its four harmonic positions, are shown in Smithers’ exhibition, alongside his drawings and photographs. Slides will be shown at the preview tonight, and those attending have been asked to wear black clothing.

John Hadwen will show work completed since his recent overseas study tour.' Also in the gallery, John Dean, a graduate of the School of Fine Arts of Canterbury University, is exhibiting sculptural reliefs, and Adrienne Grkovic, in her first solo exhibition, is showing painted canvas wall hangings. Anarchic comedy The Court Theatre’s main production for May will be Dario Fo’s comedy-farce, “Accidental Death of an Anarchist." The play, brash and slapstick in the tradition of Italian comedy, tells the story of an anarchist railway worker, Guiseppe Pinelli, who was arrested by the police to “assist with their inquiries” into Milan bomb massacres in 1969. Pinelli allegedly “fell” to his death from’the police headquarters in Milan in late December of that year. He was said to have eluded seven policemen in a small room, to jump through a window which had

been left open — on a freezing winter night. Fo’s play was part of a widespread ’ campaign ' to bring the perpetrators of the Milan bombings to justice. “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” has since become an international success, and has done much to popularise the work of Fo throughout the world. Fo uses all the tricks of popular farce in turning a real story into a hysterically funny play. The tension in the', piece lies in the contradictions of the savage reality ’ of the situation and the bizzare and comic behaviour of the characters. The central character will be played by David Copeland, who. starred in “The Elephant Man” last year. A New Zealander recently • returned home, Richard Poore, plays the police superintendent. Poore has worked extensively in Britain, notably as the lead in the West End success, “Otherwise Engaged,” a role which he took over from Alan Bates. Susan Curnow plays the reporter who is bent on exposing the truth of the “accidential death.” Dario Fo, born in Lombardy to working-class parents, is one of the most popular comedians in Italy. He is a writer, director, comedian, producer, mime artist, and actor. His appearances on Italian television had an audience of more than 20M. The programmes included attacks on the Catholic Church, industrialists, and the Mafia. This proved too much for the State-owned network, and rather than submit to censorship Fo quit the mass media amid a storm of publicity. He worked under the auspices of the Italian Communist Party until the criticism by his company of reformist tendencies forced the party to denounce and finally boycott Fo. His present company, La Commune, receives no funding from the State or from any major Left-wing party. But with small, mobile ' shows such as “Accidential Death of an Anarchist,” the company has a regular audience of half a million.

Art lecture Professor Karl Ruhrberg, director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, will give a free public lecture in the Robert McDougall Art Gallery on Monday, April 26, at 8 p.m. His topic will be contemporary developments in European, and particularly West German, art. The gallery says the lecture is expected to be of considerable interest to students and teachers of art and of German studies. Ad-

mission is free: Those attending are asked to use . the night entrance, between Christ’s College and the Museum.

• Professor Ruhrberg’s lecture has ' been arranged jointly by the gallery and the Goethe Institute: Another verbal event in the gallery this week will be a poetry reading at lunchtime on Friday. Starting at 12.15 p.m.. two Auckland poets, John Pule and Paul Lucker, will read from their own works. Early music Geoffrey Coker (countertenor) and William Bower (lute) who are touring the South Island, will give a concert in Christchurch next Tuesday. The two performers are travelling in New Zealand Railways ferries, trains, and buses under the Queen Elizabeth II Arts CouncilNZR Touring Artists Scheme. Their Christchurch concert will be under the auspices of the Early Music Society of Canterbury. It will begin at 8 p.m., in the Centre Gallery at the Arts Centre. The programme will include lute solos, songs from Shakespeare, Elizabethan songs, Purcell songs and French and Spanish music from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Dance workshops Public workshops on international folk-dancing will be presented in Christchurch on Sunday and next Tuesday by the Farandol Folk-dancers, a local group which specialises in ethnic dance forms. The guest tutor will be Atanas Kolarovski, of Skopje, who will teach Macedonian and Yugoslavian dances. Kolarovski, who is making his first New Zealand tour, is a choreographer and soloist with the Macedonian State Dance Ensemble, and has taught folk-dancing in many countries.' 1 •

Fusae Senzaki, of Tokyo, will also be a tutor at the Sunday workshop. He will teach dances from Japan. Both workshops will be held in the ’ cafeteria of the Christchurch Polytechnic.

Rural G and S “HMS Pinafore,” by Gilbert and Sullivan, is the choice ,of the Dunsandel Players for their annual production this year. The light opera will be performed in the Dunsandel Hall from April 27 to May 1.

Craft survey The .Crafts Council and the Vocatiohal .Training-Council' would co-operate on a major survey of craftspeople, to assess their training needs and how best to satisfy these,

said the president of the Craft Council (Carin Wilson).

“We are concerned that there are very few opportunities for advanced training in the crafts, and that people who aspire to become professional craftspeople have little chance outside hobby classes to learn a craf(. This survey will provide the information base for planning for a comprehensive education programme in the crafts.” Mr Wilson said.

The Crafts Council's magazine, “Crafts Council News,” will be improved to make it an effective and lively organ of communication among the craft workers.

Priority would be given also to the development of the council's resource centre information service, said Mr Wilson. “It is building up a wealth of material on the crafts in New Zealand and overseas and answers inquiries from a very wide range of people on all aspects of the crafts.” These moves were announced as a result of a three-day policy meeting held in Marlborough by the council’s executive.

“The crafts are undergoing a period of tremendous growth, as more and more people are realising the im-

portance of creating their own jobs.” said Mr Wilson. “The Crafts Council has found that there is a great demand for its services and it has paused to reflect on what its priorities are and how its extremely limited resources can best be used.”

Mr Wilson said the council had decided to adopt a “facilitative role.” Rather than undertake projects itself, it would work with groups and individuals to help them achieve their activities and initiatives.

“We will remain a strong lobby group, monitoring the effects of central apd local government policies on the craftspeople of New Zealand and working for change where it is needed," he said.

The development programme includes promoting craft activities, facilitating visits to New Zealand by overseas crafts teachers, promoting the image of crafts to tourists, and working with other agencies to help craft workers. “We expect that these activities will help us achieve better communication and co-operation among the craftspeople of New Zealand,” said Mr Wilson.