Australia Dancing - Corroboree [Dance work made to the score of John Antill] (1950

Corroboree [Dance work made to the score of John Antill] (1950 - )

Sohl, Marty: Justine Summers and Steven Heathcote in Stanton Welch's 'Corroboree', 1995

Composer John Antill completed his monumental music score, Corroboree, in the mid 1940s. Antill based the piece on Aboriginal rhythms written down on visits to Aboriginal communities at La Perouse in Sydney. He always intended the work to be used for a ballet and annotations on the score indicate that he had a clear and well developed framework in mind for this ballet. The manuscript contains detailed bar by bar instructions for the unfolding of the storyline and even lists 'characteristic movements' that might be used.

In the 1940s Dorothy Helmrich of the Arts Council of Australia approached two choreographers then working in Australia, Gertrud Bodenwieser and Edouard Borovansky, and asked them to stage the work. Both declined. The score was first used for a ballet by Rex Reid who made his version of Corroboree for the Melbourne-based National Theatre Ballet in 1950. With a set by William Constable and costumes by Robin Lovejoy the Reid Corroboree premiered at Sydney's Empire Theatre on 3 July 1950. It featured John (Jack) Manuel as the Medicine Man. Others in the original world premiere cast included Margaret Scott, Alison Lee, Bruce Morrow, Marilyn Burr and Mary Duchesne. Reid's Corroboree toured Australia in 1951 under the auspices of the Arts Council of Australia as part of the Commonwealth Jubilee Celebrations. It was seen in Melbourne, Sydney, Launceston, Hobart, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Broken Hill.

A second version of Corroboree was made by Beth Dean in 1954. Her version was performed for the first time in Sydney by the Arts Council Ballet at a gala event in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II. Dean claimed anthropological authenticity for her version and she and her husband, Victor Carell, spent several months in Arnhem Land researching Aboriginal movement patterns, which she later incorporated into her work. Dean also added a narrative line that went beyond Antill's descriptions of the music and in the 1954 staging Dean herself danced the leading role of the Initiate. The Dean version was remounted during the 1970s, specifically for the Captain Cook Bicentennary, and for this staging the Initiate was danced by Ronne Arnold. Dean's Corroboree was taught to students of the Australian Ballet School in the 1990s when it was also notated in both Benesh and Laban notations.

A third dance work using a suite from the Antill score was made in 1995 by Stanton Welch on dancers of the Australian Ballet. Performed as part of UNited We Dance, a festival held in San Francisco to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the United Nations charter, Welch's Corroboree is a generalised ritual and, unlike the Reid and Dean versions, has no passages that attempt to imitate culturally specific aspects of Australian Aboriginal dance or life. His program notes state:

With the blazing Australian sun and a pride of ten painted dancers, a series of movements becomes a dance of life, of energy for all mankind.

A disclaimer on the program read: 'This piece is not a literal interpretation of an Australian Aboriginal corroboree.' Welch's production had a set designed by Kenneth Rowell and costumes designed by Welch. It was lit by Frank Croese and featured eleven dancers: Miranda Coney, Steven Heathcote, Justine Summers, Marc Cassidy, Geon van der Wyst, Nicole Rhodes, Jane Finnie, Felicia Palanca and Matthew Trent. In 2001 Welch restaged his production for Atlanta Ballet giving it the new name Wild Life.

Further information, including online resources, about the Reid production of Corroboree is contained in the National Library of Australia's online exhibition Dance people dance. See 'Australian vision' and follow the 'More' link. For more about all the various dance productions of Corroboree see 'Corroboree' in National Library of Australia News, March 2004.

Bibliography:

Candice Bruce & Anita Callaway, 'Dancing in the Dark: Black Corroboree or White Spectacle?', Australian Journal of Art, 9 (1991), pp. 79-104; Amanda Card, 'From 'Aboriginal Dance' to Aboriginals Dancing: The Appropriation of the 'Primitive' in Australian Dance, 1950 to 1963', Heritage and Heresy: Green Mill Papers 1997 (Canberra: Australian Dance Council, c1998), pp. 40-46; Michelle Potter, 'Making Australian Dance: Themes and Variations', Voices, Winter 1996, pp. 10-20

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