My Name is Edward Kelly

The outstanding work on the program was Timothy Gordon’s My Name is Edward Kelly, another premiere of a new work by an Australian choreographer. This is a narrative ballet, covering a number of key events in Ned Kelly’s dubious career, but it does not attempt to imitate reality in the traditional way. Sections that might have been ham-fisted pantomime in the hands of a more traditional-style ballet choreographer are instead convincingly restrained. Like its marvellously impressionistic set by Kenneth Rowell, it manages to suggest the action rather than simply act it out. Although there are some touches of melodrama, sentimentalism is generally avoided, and Gordon invests his characters with dignity without turning them into over-blown heroes.

The ballet is a wonderful melding of all aspects of theatre. The music, Port Essington, String Quartet No. 8 and Earth Cry by Peter Sculthopre, is so perfect it could have been written especially for the ballet. Its threatening discordance builds up to repeatedly overwhelm the music’s lyrical passages, thereby increasing the sense of inevitable doom. It is echoed by the ominous shadows of the constabulary that loom behind the canvas suspensions of the set. The wiggly white branches of the set in turn echo the coiling tension of much of the choreography, in particular a winding solo for Kelly and also his final, twisting death.

The work scents to bring out the best in the dancers - Steven Heathcote had a quiet authority as Kelly, Justine Miles and Greg Horseman were touching as Aaron and Mrs Sherrit, and Marilyn Jones brought her own special, gentle artistry to her role as Ned Kelly‘s mother.

- Karen van Ulzen