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The Display
''The Display'' is an Australian ballet produced and choreographed by Robert Helpmann to music by Malcolm Williamson for The Australian Ballet. Described as the first wholly Australian ballet, ''The Display'' had an all-Australian cast, with sets and costumes by artist Sidney Nolan. The work had its world premiere on 14 March 1964 at Her Majesty's Theatre in Adelaide as part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. Background The inspiration for ''The Display'' came to Robert Helpmann in a dream in which he saw his friend, Hollywood actress Katharine Hepburn, naked on a dais surrounded by lyrebirds. Several years earlier, in 1955, Hepburn (then touring Australia with the Old Vic) took Helpmann to Sherbrooke Forest within Victoria's Dandenong Ranges to see his first lyrebirds in their natural surroundings. Helpmann was "fascinated for hours" by the birds' fanciful mating dance, referred to in ornithology as a courtship display, which Helpmann chose for the ballet's title. Helpmann eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Helpmann
Sir Robert Murray Helpmann CBE ( Helpman, 9 April 1909 – 28 September 1986) was an Australian ballet dancer, actor, director, and choreographer. After early work in Australia he moved to Britain in 1932, where he joined the Vic-Wells Ballet (now The Royal Ballet) under its creator, Ninette de Valois. He became one of the company's leading men, partnering Alicia Markova and later Margot Fonteyn. When Frederick Ashton, the company's chief choreographer, was called up for military service in the Second World War Helpmann took over from him while continuing as a principal dancer. Helpmann, from the outset of his career was an actor as well as a dancer, and in the 1940s he turned increasingly to acting in plays, at the Old Vic and in the West End. Most of his roles were in Shakespeare plays but he also appeared in works by Shaw, Coward, Sartre and others. As a director his range was wide, from Shakespeare to opera, musicals and pantomime. Helpmann became co-director of the Austra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Salter
Elizabeth Fulton Salter (2 October 1918 – 14 March 1981) was an Australian biographer and crime novelist. She was secretary to Edith Sitwell from 1957 until the latter's death in 1964. Education and career Salter was born in Angaston in the Barossa Valley and educated locally and then at the Wilderness School. She graduated from the University of Adelaide and the Elder Conservatorium of Music. She moved to England in 1952 and where she found work with the BBC, before being employed as secretary to Edith Sitwell in 1957. Although based in Hampstead, Salter retained her sense of being Australian. In reviewing Salter's memoir of Sitwell in 1967, John Whitwell wrote in ''The Canberra Times'', "As an Australian, Miss Salter was able to pierce the hierarchical etiquettes in which Dame Edith lived, to the great advantage of each. Her book sits modestly and worthily alongside such memoirs as Neville Cardus' book on Sir Thomas Beecham." Salter was granted a Commonwealth Literary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garth Welch
Garth de Burgh Welch (born 14 April 1936) is an Australian dancer and choreographer. Early life and training Welch was born in Brisbane, Queensland. He was educated at the Anglican Church Grammar School. His initial dance training took place under the guidance of the respected teacher Phyllis Danaher. Dancer and choreographer Welch began his career in ''Call Me Madam'' for the J. C. Williamson organisation. He came to the attention of Edouard Borovansky and joined the Borovansky Ballet in 1954. Welch achieved within a relatively short time the rank of Principal Dancer with the company. He also danced with Western Theatre Ballet (later Scottish Ballet) and the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas before returning to Australia at the invitation of Dame Peggy van Praagh as a Principal Dancer with the Australian Ballet in 1962. He remained in the position until he left the company in 1973. While at the Australian Ballet, Welch danced the lead in all the major classical ballets in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathleen Gorham
Kathleen Ann "Kathy" Gorham (7 September 1928 - 30 April 1983) was an Australian ballerina. Early life Born in Narrandera, New South Wales, the second of four children of Marcus Gorham, an Irish-born railway employee, and his English-born wife, Hilda Muriel Florence (née Somers), Kathy Gorham lived much of her life in Melbourne.Robin Grove, "Gorham, Kathleen Ann (Kathy) (1928–1983)"''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', National Centre of Biography, Australian National University accessed 4 April 2015. Career She began dancing at the age of fifteen with the Borovansky Ballet, continuing to dance with the Ballet until it disbanded in 1960 upon the death of Edouard Borovansky. She then danced overseas with companies in Paris and London. In 1962, Gorham became prima ballerina of the newly formed Australian Ballet. During 1952 and 1953 she danced in London with the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, and in Europe with Le Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. In 1954 she returned to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia and "the most widely-read masthead in the country." The newspaper is published in compact print form from Monday to Saturday as ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and on Sunday as its sister newspaper, '' The Sun-Herald'' and digitally as an online site and app, seven days a week. It is considered a newspaper of record for Australia. The print edition of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' is available for purchase from many retail outlets throughout the Sydney metropolitan area, most parts of regional New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland. Overview ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' publishes a variety of supplements, including the magazines ''Good Weekend'' (included in the Saturday edition of ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Library Of Australia
The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australians, Australian people", thus functioning as a national library. It is located in Parkes, Australian Capital Territory, Parkes, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, ACT. Created in 1960 by the ''National Library Act'', by the end of June 2019 its collection contained 7,717,579 items, with its manuscript material occupying of shelf space. The NLA also hosts and manages the renowned Trove cultural heritage discovery service, which includes access to the Australian Web Archive and National edeposit (NED), a large collection of digitisation, digitised newspapers, official documents, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass (liturgy), Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. ''Libretto'' (; plural ''libretti'' ), from Italian, is the diminutive of the word ''wiktionary:libro#Italian, libro'' ("book"). Sometimes other-language equivalents are used for libretti in that language, ''livret'' for French works, ''Textbuch'' for German and ''libreto'' for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word ''libretto'' to refer to the 15 to 40 page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained a ve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was a British-born Australian writer who published 12 novels, three short-story collections, and eight plays, from 1935 to 1987. White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative vantage points and stream of consciousness techniques. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature", as it says in the Swedish Academy's citation, the only Australian to have been awarded the prize.J. M. Coetzee won the award in 2003 as a South African citizen, before he became an Australian citizen in 2006. White was also the inaugural recipient of the Miles Franklin Award. Childhood and adolescence White was born in Knightsbridge, London, to Victor Martindale White and Ruth (née Withycombe), both Australians, in their apartment overlooking Hyde Park, London on 28 May 1912. His family returned to Sydney, Aust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ron Barassi
Ronald Dale Barassi Jr. (born 27 February 1936) is a former Australian rules footballer, coach and media personality. Regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the game, Barassi was the first player to be inaugurated into the Australian Football Hall of Fame as a "Legend", and is one of three Australian rules footballers to be elevated to the same status in the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. When Barassi was five years old, his father, Melbourne Football Club player Ron Barassi Sr., died in action at Tobruk during World War II. Barassi was determined to follow in his father's footsteps at Melbourne, and heavy lobbying by the club to recruit him resulted in the introduction of the father-son rule, still in use by the AFL. Barassi subsequently lived with Norm Smith, Melbourne's then-coach and a former teammate of his father. Under Smith's mentorship, Barassi pioneered the ruck rover position and appeared in six premiership-winning sides, two of which he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the game. Originally known as the Victorian Football League (VFL), it was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition from the Victorian Football Association (VFA), with its inaugural season commencing the following year. The VFL, aiming to become a national competition, began expanding beyond Victoria to other Australian states in the 1980s, and changed its name to the AFL in 1990. The league currently consists of 18 teams spread over five of Australia's six states (Tasmania being the exception). Matches have been played in all states, plus the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, as well as in New Zealand and China to expand the league's audience. The AFL season currently consists of a 23-round regular (or "home-and-away") s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Rules Football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by kicking the oval ball between the central goal posts (worth six points), or between a central and outer post (worth one point, otherwise known as a "behind"). During general play, players may position themselves anywhere on the field and use any part of their bodies to move the ball. The primary methods are kicking, handballing and running with the ball. There are rules on how the ball can be handled; for example, players running with the ball must intermittently bounce or touch it on the ground. Throwing the ball is not allowed, and players must not get caught holding the ball. A distinctive feature of the game is the mark, where players anywhere on the field who catch the ball from a kick (with specific conditions) are awarded unimped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australian Bush
"The bush" is a term mostly used in the English vernacular of Australia and New Zealand where it is largely synonymous with '' backwoods'' or ''hinterland'', referring to a natural undeveloped area. The fauna and flora contained within this area must be indigenous to the region, although exotic species will often also be present. The Australian and New Zealand usage of the word "bush" for "forest" or scrubland, probably comes from the Dutch word "bos/bosch" ("forest"), used by early Dutch settlers in South Africa, where it came to signify uncultivated country among Afrikaners. Many English-speaking early European settlers to South Africa later migrated to Australia or New Zealand and brought the term with them. Today, in South Africa Fynbos tends to refer to the heath vegetation of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. It is also widely used in Canada to refer to the large, forested portion of the country. The same usage applies in the US state of Alaska. History Indigenou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
