March 8, 2005
UCSB Arts & Lectures presents the local debut of the acclaimed Australian Dance Theatre in Birdbrain, its witty reinterpretation of Swan Lake at the Lobero Theatre
Summary Facts:
- Australian Dance Theatre
- Birdbrain
- ADT is acclaimed for its physicality, sensuality, energy and humor
- The company’s Santa Barbara debut is Birdbrain, its worldwide smash deconstruction of Swan Lake
- Tuesday & Wednesday, April 12 & 13
- 8 pm / Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St.
- General public: $40 / UCSB students: $20
- Tickets & Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535
Australian Dance Theatre, one of the most exciting and innovative dance companies in the world, makes its Santa Barbara debut on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 12 & 13 at 8 pm at the Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido Street, Santa Barbara. Acclaimed for vigorous, demanding dance fraught with risk and charged with urgency, Australian Dance Theatre is riveting. ADT’s no-compromise athleticism, breakneck speed, wit and total lack of sentimentality—combined with dramatic visuals and a pulsating score—have transformed the classic ballet Swan Lake into Birdbrain, an altogether new virtuoso work that has delighted audiences from Singapore to Galway, Scotland. The BBC hailed the work as “a heart-stopping, eye-popping hour and 15 minutes of pure genius....A must for any lover of dance.”
Gary Stewart, the brilliant and iconoclastic artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre explains the genesis of the work: “When I was first planning Birdbrain a couple of years ago, a number of colleagues asked me why I wanted to have anything to do with Swan Lake given its current re-emergence into the popular domain. But this was precisely why I was drawn to it. I wanted to examine its status in the canon of classical ballet. I was fascinated by the fact that this work continues to hold pre-eminence in the art form of dance. Birdbrain is, therefore, a cultural investigation into an historical icon.
“This is not a version of Swan Lake. I haven’t been concerned with the representation of a linear narrative but more so with the unhinging of the narrative; looking between the crevices of the characters, the structure of the story and the examination of the culture of classical ballet itself.”
Australian Dance Theatre is one of the most influential dance companies in Australia, and has been consistently producing great repertoire since it was formed in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1965. Over its 40 year history the company has seen a wide range of styles and directors, but has always led the way in giving dancers new avenues of expression and audiences new experiences. ADT’s dancers train in a number of distinct physical disciplines. As well as classical ballet and contemporary dance techniques, the dancers are also coached intensively in gymnastics, breakdance and martial arts. The result is a fusion of forms, which constitutes a totally unique choreographic palette, for which there is no equivalent in Australia.
Artistic Director Gary Stewart trained at the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne, and began his career dancing with a number of companies, including Australian Dance Theatre, Queensland Ballet and One Extra Company. From 1990-1998 Stewart operated as a freelance choreographer making works on some of Australia’s major contemporary dance companies, such as Chunky Move and Sydney Dance Company.
In 1998 he set up the Sydney-based company Thwack!, creating two dance works: Plastic Space, which premiered at the Melbourne Festival and subsequently toured Australia; and the first stage of Birdbrain, a deconstruction of Swan Lake. Upon his appointment in 1999 as Artistic Director of ADT he created Housedance. Commissioned for the International Millennium Broadcast, this stunning work was performed on the outside of the main sail of the Sydney Opera House on New Year’s Eve 1999 to an estimated television audience of two billion.
His first full length work with ADT was the hugely successful Birdbrain, which premiered in the Adelaide Festival 2000 as a work in progress and has since toured extensively both nationally and internationally, including dates at the Joyce Theatre in New York, the Sydney Opera House, the Holland Dance Festival, as well as other major touring throughout the North America, Asia and Europe. His other works for the company include Plastic Space, Monstrosity, The Age of Unbeauty (which won three Australian Dance Awards in 2002) and Nothing, created for WOMADelaide 2003.
His most recent work HELD, which premiered at the 2004 Adelaide Festival, is a unique collaboration with renowned U.S. dance photographer Lois Greenfield. This work is already set to tour to the Sydney Opera House, the Monaco Dance Festival, Anchorage Arts Centre and to the Joyce Theatre in New York City.
The Times (London) wrote the following about Birdbrain: “Australian Dance Theatre is an amazing troupe. The barefoot dancers are just at home with the beautiful high extensions and whipping fouettés of ballet as they are with the alarming pops and rolls of breakdancing.
These men and women may look like fashion models but they have no qualms about leaping into the air one minute and hurling themselves at the floor the next. Nothing seems to faze them, not even the possibility of bruising. The end of Birdbrain, a flying suicidal arc over the lake, is one of the most hazardous explosions of movement seen in London in years.”
The performances by Australian Dance Theatre are presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and sponsored by the Santa Barbara News-Press, Central Coast Printing and Grant Burge Winery. Additional support is provided by the Towbes Foundation. Tickets are $40 for the general public and $20 for UCSB students.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2098.