Reviews

THE ONGALS are an ensemble of four South Korean physical comedians who have been popular on the international comedy circuit and are a fantastic part of this year’s wonderful OzAsia Festival in Adelaide.

The show I saw was in front of a relatively full house that was essentially made up of families, parents and children, who were simply wooed and wowed by the brilliant virtuosity, skill, and sheer fun of The Ongals.

Simon Stone, in another of his rewrites (this one more radical) lifts Garcia Lorca’s peasant characters from rural Spain and transforms them into ‘aspirational’ middle-class people in contemporary London.  In an interview before the NTL screening, Mr Stone says, yes, he’s changed the source material, ‘but not the myth’.  I’m not sure what he means by the myth, nor what, really, is the motive behind the exercise.  Whatever he means and whatever the motive, this production was received in London with mostly rapturous reviews (there were

If it wasn’t enough to have the audience in tears once, Qld Pops had to do it twice in their Broadway and Beyond concert yesterday at QPAC’s Concert Hall. With Patrick Pickett conducting and special guest-artist Teddy Tahu-Rhodes leading the whole faculty of Griffith University’s Musical Theatre Students (90), singing “One Day More” from Les Misérables, the sound was incredibly thrilling. The song, one of six from the musical closed the first half.

Aakash Odedra Company was formed in 2011 as a vehicle for commissioning solos and to develop contemporary dancer Odedra’s own choreographic work. His latest endeavour is comprised of four vignettes, each piece devised by a different choreographer, but all performed by Odedra himself.

The first piece, Nritta (Kathak), is a love story of sorts. Searching for his beloved and finding balance, Odedra uses space and rhythm to explore the effects energy has within a relationship. The dance is commanding in its execution.