Ballet Guild

• The project of creating Australian ballet is not a new one.
• In 1964, Robert Helpmann claimed his ballet The Display was the first Australian ballet, because it was the first with an Australian score, designer, story and choreographer.
• Since then, Australian ballet has radically transformed the way that it includes First Nations identity in its construction of what it means to be Australian.
• The 1989 founding of Bangarra Dance Theatre was key to this new Australian identity in dance.
• Both works demonstrate an approach to creating an Australian ballet that, as the program suggests, “explores the community of the stage”.

THE HUM

• THE HUM has a powerful First Nations presence including choreographer Riley, composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, costume designer Annette Sax and dancer Karra Nam, and engages a conversation not only with white settler Australia but also between contemporary dance and ballet.
• THE HUM shows a community where members are finally facing each other but haven’t yet worked out who they are together – although they know where to begin.

Paragon

• In Paragon, Topp shows us who The Australian Ballet has been in footage, images, dance styles and in the returning dancers who carry the company’s history in their bodies.
• Topp also shows us who we might be into the future in the bodies of the company’s young dancers.
• Much like THE HUM, Paragon is a result of this community, an honouring of ancestors and a revelation of ever-present history.