Debbie Allen, the celebrated American choreographer and actor, will not be appearing at this year's 2012 Brisbane Festival, as anticipated.
Allen is involved in a co-production with the Festival, called Freeze Frame. It is now expected to be presented in 2013.
"Debbie and I have been working on this for seven years," explains Noel Staunton, artistic director of the Festival. "When I got the festival job three years ago I resurrected it with her, and - look we're very close but it just needs more work.
"I'm always a great believer that works need an amount of time, and we also have to have the finances to fund it. It's such a major project for us that we don't want to do it in a hurry, we don't want to do it half baked. It will be fantastic."
Allen is a former Broadway dancer (she performed the role of Anita in West Side Story and the title role of Sweet Charity, among others). She is possibly best known now for her parts in all three incarnations of Fame. She is a director and producer and also runs the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles.
Freeze Frame is "about the stories of kids from the streets of LA", according to Staunton. While the performers are American, all the other creatives are Australian.
Staunton promises there will still be plenty of dance in the Festival. Look out for the program launch in early July.