Enter the Colonies

Colonies

Enter the Colonies Dancing.

By Edward Pask. Published by Oxford University Press. 1979. 5A19.95.

This excellent new book cre ates a kaleidoscope of colour ful early dance and dancers seen in Australia from 1853 to 1940. The sketches and litho graphs of theatres, the steel

engravings and tintype photos

bring to life such classic dance

performances as Les Sylphides

in 1845 and such glowing per formers as the Irish adven turess, Lola Montez. ‘She had nothing Andalusian about her except a magnificent pair of dark eyes.’ She charmed the gold rush camps at Ballarat and Bendigo, and had been the

mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria who created her Baroness de Rosenthal and Countess of Lansfield before she was banished from the kingdom in 1848.

She captured audiences in the USA with her Spider Dance before her Australian notoriety about it in 1855-56 began. In this item she wildly escaped from a spider’s clinging web and shook spiders from her voluminous petticoats.

Later there were perform

ances by highly trained, truly

great stars seen in some rare photos. These dancers include the Danish Adeline Genee in 1913, the Russians such as Anna Pavlova in 1929 and, in the 1930-40 era, the three Bal lets Russes companies under Colonel de Basil which toured with such artists as Irina Baronova, Tamara Toum anova, Tatiana Riabouchinska, David Lichine and the great

choreographer, Michael

Fokine who travelled with the 1938-39 tour. That company called itself the Covent Garden Russian Ballet.

Of special interest was the

Polynesian based production

of Tapu to music by Alfred Hill, with story by Arthur Adams and J. C. Williamson.

In 1904 the performance was given in Sydney and Mel bourne. Included were a poi dance and a haka by a group of Maori people known as The Duke’s Own who had perfor med before the Duke and Duchess of York during their visit to New Zealand en route from their 1901 Australian tour which celebrated Federation.

The book has over 90 black and white illustrations. Beth Dean

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