The Australian Ballet has come out swinging against a scathing review of its latest show that described the company’s dancers as “unusually thin”, with its artistic director saying that remarks on dancers’ physiques are “not acceptable” in criticism.
In a coruscating one-and a-half-star review of Études/Circle Electric, Sydney Morning Herald critic Chantal Nguyen likened Circle Electric, by acclaimed choreographer Stephanie Lake, to “a banal hour of channel surfing” with “little cohesive meaning or comprehensible structure” and choreography that “seems to fall in that category of modern art that is unrelatable and confuses shock-jock tactics for actual meaning”. Her one-and-a-half-star rating was an averaged out between the two shows, writing: “Études has four stars. You do the math.”
