Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

This triple bill features The Display, Sir Robert Helpmann’s first work on the fledgling Australian Ballet, to the music by Malcolm Williamson. Inspired by a dream in which he saw a naked Katharine Hepburn on a dais surrounded by lyrebirds, and informed by his and Hepburn’s observation of the birds in Victoria’s Sherbrooke Forest, The Display slyly relates mating rituals to the behaviour of men fighting over a woman at an Aussie picnic.

Gemini, created on The Australian Ballet in 1973, is a blazingly original work that still looks contemporary today. Glen Tetley was a pioneer of a style that synthesised classical movement and a modern vocabulary. Set to Hans Werner Henze’s challenging score, this ballet stretches its dancers to the limit.

Graeme Murphy’s Beyond Twelve, commissioned by Artistic Director Marilyn Jones in 1980, is a moving look at a dancer’s life, from larky, football-mad boyhood to young love and early success through to a hard-earnt, lonely maturity.

This trio of Australian classics looks back to our history and forward to our future.

The Display (1964)
Choreography Robert Helpmann
Music Malcolm Williamson
Production design Sidney Nolan
Original lighting design William Akers

Recreation and restaging of The Display made possible with the support of
The Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation’s Eldon & Anne Foote Trust

Gemini (1973)
Choreography Glen Tetley
Music Hans Werner Henze “Symphony No. 3”
Costume and set design Nadine Baylis
Original lighting design William Akers

Beyond Twelve (1980)
Choreography Graeme Murphy
Music Maurice Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major
Costume and set design Alan Oldfield
Original lighting design Christopher Maver

Lighting reproduced by Francis Croese

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website

Featured artists

• Music of Malcolm Williamson