Don Quixote
The Duprada Dance Company is bringing Top End and Centralian dancers together for a one-off performance of Don Quixote in Darwin.
It’s the first time since 2014 that the dancers have had the opportunity to join forces. Assistant Director Leisa Jackson spoke with Off The Leash about the show and the challenges of putting on a performance with so much distance between artists.
How do the two groups rehearse for a joint show, 1500km apart?For this performance all the main characters are in Alice Springs, so our girls in Darwin are doing the peripheral quarter ballet work, so they’re learning to react to something they can’t see yet. The touring company arrive one week prior to the performance and we then rehearse together in the studio, knitting together the story, learning each other’s staging and placements.
Sounds like a challenge!
It is challenging but we’ve been able to work out ways we can make it happen pretty quickly, and the dancers learn how quickly they can pull something together. For a couple of days it looks like a complete and utter mess, but they work together very quickly and figure out where everyone is going.
Why Don Quixote?
The biggest pull is because it hasn’t been staged in Darwin before. It’s a complicated story and it’s nice for our girls to do new ballets.
What sets Duprada apart from other companies in the country?
Our ballet company works because we constantly have up and coming dancers, and they have the freedom to be able to perform. Most schools around the country don’t have the freedom to perform as regularly as us. Alice Springs does four or five performances a year.
Sat 23 Jun | 7pm | Darwin Entertainment Centre | See the event listing
