Here are two sumptuously produced keepsakes serving very different purposes. Beyond 40 describes itself as ‘Forty Years of Dreams’, but actually offers one year’s worth of images that the Australian Ballet want to project. A Collector’s Book of Australian Dance, on the other hand, for all its unintoxicating title, comes much closer to being a book of dreamings.
The Australian Ballet’s f ... (read more)
Robin Grove
Robin Grove (1941-2012) was ‘a man for whom words, music and movement were a lifelong passion’. Robin won the ABC orchestral composition prize in 1957, and his two-act ballet score was presented at Her Majesty's, Ballarat in 1958. First training as a musician, Robin worked for Ballet Victoria for many years and both choreographed for that company and served on its board of directors. Robin worked as an English lecturer at the University of Melbourne from 1964–2006 and he is published widely on both dance and English literature.
There were seven of them, as in a folk tale. The family was too poor to put shoes on their feet. They lived in a village called New. Hard though life was, they knew it would be worse without Kindly Leader, who was carrying the land into prosperity and joy. At present, however, the seven sons had little to eat. So wretched was the village that coal was mixed with dirt to help it last longer; they p ... (read more)