Vanguard at Sydney Opera House

To celebrate the centenary of the magnificent Ballets Russes, I have embarked upon generating a diptych: two contrasting yet complementary ideas produced on two sides of the world – Dyad 1909 (London) and Dyad 1929 (Melbourne).

The maverick impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, had a creative vision that served to challenge the social norms of the day. His work seduced the rest of the world with productions that not only redefined ballet but set a fresh agenda for the process of art. The Ballets Russes was very much a product of its time. From a scientific, social, political and technological perspective, the period of 1909 – 1929 was rich with discovery and experimentation; the world was changing and fast.

For this Dyad diptych, I have been inspired by a fascinating example of the period’s rapid evolution, illustrated brilliantly in its preoccupation with Antarctica. In January 1909, the Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton embarked upon his seminal Antarctic expedition, the Nimrod. He was the first to successfully reach the magnetic South Pole. By 1929, aviator Richard Evelyn Byrd – the pioneering American polar explorer – was the first to actually fly over the South Pole in a Ford Trimotor. In a mere 20 years the technological revolution had given man the enduring power of flight and with it a renewed energy for expedition. Literally now able to ‘discover’ more of the globe, it was a new dawn in possibility. Although Dyad 1929 is not a narrative ‘about’ Antarctica the dance, design and music contain its traces of the Ballets Russes spirit, made visible for our time.

Dyad 1929 is dedicated to the memory of Merce Cunningham (1919-2009), a choreographer whose curiosity, sense of adventure and seamless collaboration knew no bounds.