In a rare solo performance, he saved his confession until the end of the show

Together, they revisited tunes they’d recorded and performed with Browne over the years, featuring arrangements that were as multi-faceted as Browne himself. There were passages of graceful lyricism, poetic angularity, surreal abstraction and profound sorrow leavened by beauty. Each piece was suffused with the players’ affection and deep respect for Browne and his legacy, making this a truly heartfelt homage.

On Sunday, percussionist and Kamilaroi artist Adam Manning (First Nations artist-in-residence at the festival) presented a new commissioned work, First Rhythms. Performing alongside members of the Australian Art Orchestra, Manning was clearly moved by the empathy and sensitivity of the AAO musicians he had worked with over the past year to create this meditative work.

Clapsticks served as the beating heart of First Rhythms, but in Manning’s hands their pulse was organic and unpredictable, as in nature. Quivering string instruments conjured buzzing insects or the shimmer of a desert mirage; rolling drums evoked ocean waves or clouds in a turbulent sky.

In the exquisite final movement, Manning sat cross-legged on the floor and leant forward as if listening to Mother Earth, echoing her subtle vibrations with his clapsticks and gently inviting us to connect with Country, ourselves and one another.
Reviewed by Jessica Nicholas
The Melbourne International Jazz Festival continues until Sunday, October 26
NOTE: No star rating has been applied

OPERA
Katya Kabanova ★★★★★
Victorian Opera, Palais Theatre, until October 16

Czech composer Leos Janacek suffered a long obsession with a four-decades-younger married woman. His passion was entirely unrequited, but music lovers got incalculable benefits, as Kamila Stosslova inspired a string of compositions, including Katya Kabanova – one of the great but rarely performed operas of the 20th century.

It is the story of a young wife who endures a bullying mother-in-law and a weak husband under the thumb of his mother.

Victorian Opera’s production scored at every turn, with a splendid Australian cast, ingenious and creative production, and daring and clever use of live black and white video throughout on a full-stage screen. Not least was the Australian National Academy of Music orchestra’s extraordinary playing, sensitively and effectively led by Alexander Briger (nephew of Charles Mackerras, one of the finest Janacek conductors).

The singers had to act superbly because they were near-constantly several times life-size on the screen. Soprano Desiree Frahn was simply stellar in every respect as Katya, while Antoinette Halloran as the malevolent mother looked as though she were born to the role (if that is, in fact, a compliment!), in a mesmeric presence. Emily Edmonds was a delightful Varvara and all the men were accomplished – especially Andrew Goodwin as Boris and Adrian Tamburini as Dikoj – although this opera is really a vehicle for the women.

The staging was occasionally obscure – for example, there were sometimes up to six other silent Katyas on stage. I’ve no idea what this signified – possibly the incoherent thoughts rushing through her brain as her mental state unravelled.

Director Heather Fairbairn was adventurous, courageous and persuasive. Credit too to set and costume designer Savanna Wegman and video designer Robert Brown, whose video, with two camera operators on stage, was mostly highly effective. Amusingly, when Katya was having sex offstage, the video briefly turned to colour.

This Katya deserves five stars for its energy, originality and general excellence, not to mention Victorian Opera’s vision in staging it.
Reviewed by Barney Zwartz

DANCE
The Other Side of Me ★★★
Fairfax Studio, until October 19

Larrakia choreographer and teacher Gary Lang is a welcome addition to the DanceX festival. His NT Dance Company – known for its cross-over collaborations with companies such as West Australian Ballet – is not seen often enough in Melbourne.

The Other Side of Me is well worth experiencing for its own sake. It’s based on the true story of an Indigenous boy who was adopted when he was five and taken to England, where he had an obscure and troubled life. In a letter, he confessed to feeling torn between two selves – the one he knew and the one he left behind.

Lang’s piece explores the emotional dimensions of this divided self – the melancholy, the rage and finally a fragile sense of the possibility of reunion. It suggests the desire for a return, not necessarily to a geographical place, but to a deeper sense of belonging.

It’s performed by two dancers, Alexander Abbot and Chandler Connell, who embody the young man’s twin souls. Early scenes evoke restraint – bodies and gestures held back. Projected images of weathered natural forms, shells and skeletal leaves, extend this mood: damaged, suspended, touched by grief.

Then comes violence. The spirit turns upon itself. There’s real intensity here, collisions and counterforces, a kind of self-wrestling. The blows are powerful but loose: the youth is ungrounded, fighting to locate himself in his own body.

The work is very open and might resonate with anyone displaced or divided between worlds. It paints in moods rather than concrete images or situations, and at times it feels a little slippery, fleeting in its description of emotional states.

Nonetheless, the finale is satisfying. The projected images are more specific: forests, rugged coastlines, a place that feels out of reach. And the two dancers, both robust but articulate movers, bring it home as a more ritualised vocabulary is asserted.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

DANCE
DanceX festival week 2 ★★★
Playhouse, until October 19

Stephanie Lake’s Auto Cannibal is an apt work to open the second week of Dance X because its concept – recycling fragments of earlier work — echoes the festival’s own logic of revival and renewal. Lake’s choreography turns self-quotation into an aesthetic argument: old material takes on fresh meaning when performed in a changed context.

Now more than five years old, it was first created for a cross-cultural collaboration between companies in Beijing and Brisbane. Here, it is restaged for Melbourne-based dancers with connections to Lake’s other projects. The ensemble includes many distinctive presences – big dance personalities, bold movers – which gives the work a somewhat eclectic vibe.

It’s full of large gestures with a bright communal energy: a very different sensibility to her most recent commission for the Australian Ballet, Seven Days, which used exaggerated expressions and playful, clown-like movement seemingly influenced by the company’s recent engagement with contemporary European dance.

Next, West Australian Ballet presents Extension to Boom by English choreographer George Williamson. It was created for Perth’s picturesque outdoor Quarry Amphitheatre, a much larger stage than the subterranean Playhouse. It’s inventive but perhaps over-choreographed, with a propulsive Copeland-eque score by Bryce Dessner.

After the interval, the Australian Ballet performs a brand-new work by Tim Harbour, but one that still fits the program’s theme of recycling. Set in a restaurant, with a suitcase containing something mysterious, The Delivery is a throwback to an earlier age of narrative ballet. Adam Elmes is persuasive as the stranger, while Hugo Dumapit and Riley Lapham round out the trio.

The evening closes with an excerpt from Bangarra Dance Theatre’s Yuldea. It culminates with a single dancer, alone in a column of ash and light, convulsing as fallout drifts over Anangu country. A powerful scene by a company still finding new ways to retell – and to renew – the oldest stories.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

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