A spirited, colourful and joyful celebration of the King of Pop, Talib Abu recaptures the music and the moves that made Michael Jackson such a mighty performer. With impressive attention to detail and an electrifying vibe, he and a four strong tribute band, along with six dancers, deliver big time. All the hits are there…
The past and the present collide in a story that involves reframing a tainted history. We are in Gippsland in the 1840s and a white woman is discovered near death, washed up on a beach. Just what happened to her remains the stuff of myths, but she is said to have been rescued by and…
What a powerhouse of a show this is. The music, the moves and magnitude of it all were certainly not lost on me. The setting is the rehearsal room in the lead up to Michael Jackson’s Dangerous world tour, which kicked off in June 1992 and finished in November 1993. Michael Jackson (Ilario Grant), ever…
What was it that first divided the world? Could the answer to that question be attributed to the parable as outlined in the Book of Genesis, whereby people simply couldn’t understand each other? I ask because while sitting, watching Gapu Ŋupan unfold, I thought how nice it would be if the world’s 8.2 billion inhabitants,…
As the countdown to Christmas fast approaches, Queensland Ballet’s stunning presentation of The Nutcracker has arrived to unwrap the festive season in style. Queensland Ballet has been dazzling audiences with this iconic festive staple by Ben Stevenson OBE since 2013, featuring all the beloved characters alongside Tchaikovsky’s timeless score. Set on Christmas Eve, The Nutcracker…
Perhaps the most anticipated opening of Queensland Ballet’s 2024 season, Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon was sold out before the curtain even went up. It is fantastic news for the arts in Brisbane, and well-deserved, as this production delivered everything a theatre-going fashionista could dream of. The ballet is a co-production between…
What you read into and see in dance is very much about interpretation. Here is a piece where the mood is constantly shifting. What starts out as beautiful, gentle, caring and nurturing, turns into something frenetic and disturbing. So, what is at play? Why do we transition from calm to calamitous? Needs, wants and desires…
An esoteric work for selective tastes, as far as I could make out An Organised Odyssey is about finding one’s true voice. According to Greek mythology, Scylla is a legendary, man-eating monster. She lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart, sea-swallowing monster Charybdis. Ancient Greek poet Homer described Scylla…
Bangarra Dance Theatre’s world premiere work Horizon shines on the main stage as their first cross-cultural collaboration, and its national tour has arrived in Brisbane where it is showing as part of Clancestry, a celebration of identity and connection providing a platform for established and emerging First Nations artists to share their stories, perspectives and…
SIX sizzles and girl power rules. It is a high-octane musical in every sense of those words. I speak of talent, production values, choreography, sound and lighting – the complete package. The concept is pitting the wives of King Henry VIII against each other in a show of strength about who was the most hard…
