Aviary is a new work currently being developed by BalletLab in association with The Australian Ballet for premiere in 2011. Aviary draws inspiration from the music and interests of French composer Oliver Messiaen.
To support BalletLab and the Aviary project please download a donation form or visit our online donation site.
Synopsis
Aviary is a work for the caged bird, both real and metaphoric, that uses the focal figure of the dandy - the self created hero/celebrity, to explore the outsider in society and the desire to 'flock' versus the pull of the individual.
With a nod to 80s music, fashion and art, Aviary will be presented in a riot of colour with its giant hand-painted scenic backdrops and brightly coloured sentry boxes. Aviary will be an ovation to ballet traditions and a revival of the classical staged fantasy, injected with a dose of contemporaneity and BalletLab sensibilities.
Aviary's first stage, undertaken in 2009, sought to establish a choreographic basis for the work through cross-pollination across classical C20th balletic and contemporary dance techniques by Adams working with BalletLab's dancers and classically trained Australian Ballet dancers. The final result dramatized and contemporised themes of war, masculinity, birds and royalty - common subjects of historical ballet.
In the 2nd stage (held April 12- May 7 2010), the focus has been on developing the figure of the dandy, inspired by Beau Brummell (1778-1840), an arbiter of men's fashion in Regency England, the UK celebrity and contemporary version, Sebastian Horsley, the short stories of H.H. Munro- a British writer whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirized Edwardian society and culture, and British art stars Gilbert and George - all as examples of dandyism. Working with six dancers (five contemporary and one classical) and renowned milliner and Melbourne dandy, Richard Nylon, Phillip has pursued a vision of absurdist traditions laid bare.
BalletLab intends to progress the work through three further developmental stages in 2010-2011. Aviary will be available to tour 2012-2014.
Aviary has been supported by ArtsVictoria, the Australia Council through the Interconnections program and our generous individual patrons. In 2010-2011, Aviary will be further developed with the assistance of the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust.
Please contact Amelia Bartak at BalletLab for information about presenting or investing in this exciting new work. A full range of marketing materials and a value-adding program of lectures and workshops is being developed to support Aviary's presentation in Australia and internationally.