Recently landed: Bright Lights and Bach
Gracia’s written response written response to Capriccio by François-Eloi Lavignac, performed by Benedicte Bemet for The Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque.Digital, for Fjord Review.
It begins in a place I know well. In the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria. Benedicte Bemet, who was promoted to coryphée in 2013, to soloist in 2016, to senior artist in 2018, and to principal artist in 2019 with The Australian Ballet, is seated at the far end of the hall. Beneath the prismatic revelation of Leonard French’s Great Hall ceiling (1963–67), Bemet is alone.
The Great Hall has always felt like an invitation: lie down, look up, feel the bright coloured light, see a sun, and turtles too. But this is not the Great Hall as experienced by someone visiting the gallery, though it does perhaps call upon the familiarity that comes with a common space, it is a stage set for François-Eloi Lavignac’s Capriccio.
Capriccio is the first of five works presented as part of Bodytorque, which this year, like many things created in varying states of isolation, quarantine, and lockdown, is digital. Bodytorque.Digital is a light on the “endurance of creativity”, which, also like the Great Hall, is an invitation to “watch the next wave of ballet and the future of movement”. Works by Mason Lovegrove (Work Two) with dancers Serena Graham and Joseph Romancewicz; Jill Ogai (Work Three) performing to Telemann and Bach; Tim Coleman (Work Four) featuring a new composition by Georgia Scott; and Amelia Drummond (Work Five) with dancers Belle Urwin and Adam Elmes will follow. The dates for their screen reveal, not yet announced. For that one needs to calendar-sink and await a hopeful ping-ping.
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7th of August, 2020
Benedicte Bemet in Capriccio for The Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque.Digital
