Balletlab’s Aviary, a Suite for the Bird, opens tonight at the Melbourne Festival.
The company’s artistic director and the choreographer of the ballet, Phillip Adams, will also perform in the work, as a dancer and improvising on the piano.
Described as “a fusion of feathers, flight and fantasy", Aviary was developed in association with the Australian Ballet and incorporates a “fascination with the classical genre”. The costumes are by acclaimed Australian fashion designer Toni Maticevski, with plumage designed by iconic Melbourne milliner Richard Nylon.
In creating the ballet, Adams was inspired by Olivier Messiaen’s joyful explorations of birdsong, Catalogue d’Oiseaux (1958). In one part of the work, the floor of the stage is strewn with twigs and branches in which the dancers forage. But this is not just a “bird ballet": Aviary “explores the synergy between nature and culture, from nest building to the flamboyant English dandy, juxtaposing avian courtship rituals with preening, dressing up, and the erotically-charged worlds of art, theatre and dance”.
Where: Arts House North Melbourne Town Hall
Wed 19–Sat 23 October