A simply delightful evening with princess Aurora!

On Saturday (12th December 2015) yours truly experienced a delightful evening at the Australia Ballet’s production of Sleeping Beauty – the finale to the 2015 season - “A year of Beauty”.
From the very outset, I should make it clear that although I have enjoyed ballet from my childhood ranging from the few lessons I had and the old black and white movies at the British council, to periodically attending performances, I could only profess to be a lover of the art form and in no way an expert on the subject.

If a picture painted a thousand words then a performance paints a million!

This was a new production by David McAllister. Everything apart from the music and Choreography was started from a blank canvass.
As someone who made a modest donation to the production, the Australian Ballet pleasantly provided continuous updates over the 2 or so years of it’s production. The creation of the costumes from some of the initial draft drawings were mesmerising and indicative of the strength of the creative team. Beauty was splashed all over the production.
However, bringing this to reality on stage, is a far greater challenge and in the few spare moments when I might have thought of it, it did create a sense of anticipation.

The Australia Ballet's new production of Sleeping Beauty.

From the moment one sat in the auditorium, it was hard but to be engulfed in the grandeur and creativity starting from the curtains, enticing you back into the time and place of the fairy tale.
There were many surprises along the way – the costumes were spectacular the sets including the chandeliers were brilliant, the rose bed fit for a princess and the dancing was, although never the strength of the Australian Ballets productions, was good too.
But the most delightful surprise was princess Aurora herself – played by Benedicte Bemet.
I do not remember when I first noticed her presence on stage, but it must have been pretty close to when she join the company (which I believe was 3 years ago). When I first noticed her, she didn’t appear to have the best technique nor was she in any role of significance, but her enthusiasm and involvement in the moment made her shine. One could almost follow the whole story by simply watching the expressions on her face. It had become a practice to find her amongst the Corps de Ballet. For one who as a child, had eyes for only the male dancers – the likes of Nureyev and Baryshnikov - this was quite a change.
I have always thought she was a touch (dare I say it!!) bottom heavy to really become a technician of the art form. But then a few months ago, at a performance of 20:21, I remember thinking to myself that she had “toned” her legs and I thought of it no further!
As usual, even this evening, I tried spotting her with the Coryphées and and Corps de Ballet (sometime over the last 3 years, she must have been promoted to the Coryphées) but did not spot her. And then she made her appearance as princess Aurora! It took me a couple of seconds to recognise that it was in fact her and my reaction was WOW!! (As usual the opera house had run out of the production information sheets just at our door of entry, so we had no idea who was in the cast).
To add to this, Amber Scott – my favourite principal, was dancing the role of the Lilac fairy. The other dancer I love watching is Chengwu Guo. He had not made an appearance in the first Act. Could it be that he was the Prince?!!! Now that would be absolutely puuuuurfect!! My favourite three Australian Ballet dancers playing the three key roles!

Amber Scott and Chengwu Guo

Alas, it was not to be - Chengwu played the blue bird and displayed his technical skills brilliantly.
But let’s get back to the star of the evening -  Benedicte. Being as young as she is, fitted the role in every way. When the first famous balancing sequence approached, I could feel myself tense up for her. She managed to get through it unscathed! But when the second sequence arrived, she absolutely “nailed it”(pardon the technical term) and as she swapped her partner for the final time, she even held the balancing pose for longer than required, almost as a display of her prowess, which had the younger members of the audience simply burst out uncontrollably with applause. She was able to draw this applause again during the pas de deux during the ball for the wedding.
The Australian Ballet used Benedicte as Clara in the poster for the Nutcracker in the 2014 season.  But it turned out that she performed the role in Melbourne (I’m a little confused about this as one of the Sydney reviews seem to suggest she played Clara). In Sydney (at least in the performance I was at), it was played by the new Principal Ako Kondo. A bit of a disappointment for me, not a reflection of Kondo – who is arguably a better dancer, but more due to the anticipation I had built up prior to that performance.
But maybe in the end, the reaction of “WOW” was due to all of this happening – missing out her performance as Clara, the opera house not having the information sheets (it might not have been the same if I knew she was playing the role). The delightful surprise was all worth it!
What’s best is that I can look forward to seeing Benedicte, Amber and Chengwu continue to perform key roles in the Australia Ballet productions until one of them decides to stuff it all up by either retiring or moving to another company!

Put together, the feeling of deja vu when the music for Carabosse and her rats sent shivers down my spine as it had done when I was a little 8 year old kid engendering nightmarish images in my mind (music that I had probably not heard for a couple of decades), the sheer beauty of the sets and costumes and the happiness of witnessing a young ballerina blossom – the ingredients for a simply delightful evening!

Is Bishop the quintessential Blonde Bitch . . . ummm, I mean Bimbo?!!

Sorry, just using her own parlance! Maybe it’s acceptable for a woman to call another a bitch in parliament, but people do get their knickers in a knot when a guy uses the term on a woman. So, let’s leave aside the Bitch and focus on the Bimbo!

The Bishop and the Bitch!

There are a few of aspects relating to Blonde Bimbos that are undisputed.

1. Most of them, aren’t blonde
2. They are blonde, because when viewing through Western societies’ lenses, Blonde is sexy and sexy is good - gets you further in life!
3. As they are usually operating at a level of incompetence, they are susceptible to many a gaffe!

OK, I’m no expert on hair colour, but she sure does have dark roots(pardon the pun!!) and that is as far as I will take that part of the discussion.
Bishop has undoubtedly had a privileged upbringing and has clearly leveraged her sex appeal (and possible blondeness) to good use – a classic case of “nice from far, but far from nice”! Through-out her life she has been the show-pony, at Clayton Utz, even attending Harvard (do they select on sex appeal?!)! Apart from being the blonde show-pony, she had all the tick boxes checked!
Despite all of this, this is a woman that the “Fiberal” party never see as leading them. Yes, she’s great to have as the side-show glamour chic, but not the the front and centre leader. To her credit, she has clung on to many a court tail, swapping beds as required to maintain her role as the show pony.
When the PM was away in Paris, recently, the Bimbo was in charge! There were just two matters that the Bimbo had to address and in true neo-con, Liberal style, the Bimbo simply gave inaccurate facts (Aussie media is incapable of holding our politicians accountable, they simply pass on the drivel that the politician excrete.).

1. The contribution to the Climate fund
2. The phone call she was involved in with Morrison and Turnbull

On the former, Australia burdened by Climate change sceptics and introverted selfish drivers,  has been dragged along kicking and screaming in to the conference in Paris. Turnbull has shown circus like skills in juggling the various Looney views of his party and still presenting a half-respectable front at the conference (although continually being shown-up as a spoilt, selfish, climate change pariah, in all the papers being presented). Being the largest Island in the world, it’s going to be awhile before Australia is under water, so Australians are completely inept in their ability to understand all the fuss!
When pointed out that Australia’s commitment to the Climate fund was a re-allocation from the Aid budget rather than new funding, Bishop towed the party line of admitting that (somewhat a surprise as the “Fibs” usually simply lie and move on -  Malcolm obvious decided not to lie on this matter). But rather than stop at that, Julie could not help, but add some farcical lies about how “that is what the leaders of the island nations wanted”!!!
Unfortunately, once again, we were in Bimbo territory. Which pacific nation would say to Australia that they should not add more funds, but simply divert the aid budget to climate change?! What is worse is that the Aussie media simply listened and broadcast this drivel – no questioning or even more appropriately ridicule, what-so-ever!
The second matter was in relation to her “Lady Macbeth” like role in the leadership shenanigans. Clearly Abbotts and Bishop’s recollection of the events are poles apart. At least one of them is fabricating stories and most probably they are both. The Australian public almost expect this of their Fiberal politicians. Strangely enough, not so from their Labor party representative – remember the Gillard big lie – Carbon Tax?!

The Bishop knives the Abbott.

Some of Ms Bimbo’s explanations for her conduct between February 2015 and the spill were simply torturous to listen to. Every other word was a fabrication.

Bed hopping deputy.

More recently we had the hilarity of the swapped missing islands!

Another Julie Bishop Bimbo moment!!

Even then, Ms Bimbo had the audacity to blame that insensitive stuff up on the Labor party!!! On the direct competition front between the bimbo and her Nemesis, Plyberseck, it’s 2 to zip on my count!
Of course, We are well versed with the “Fiberals” attitude to the endangered pacific Islands.

We love our Islander neighbours!
Bishop was the beneficiary of the missile attack on MH370. This was the puuurfect opportunity for Abbott and Bishop to gain some popularity back home through some sabre rattling on the global stage. The dreary black suited politicians just loved having the spunky blonde amongst them. So whilst Australia may have lost a few lives, they did the most sabre rattling. Accusing Putin and threatening to “Shirt front” (I must admit, it was not purely the Russians that dived into that Oxford dictionaries attempting to understand the exact meaning of the phrase, yours truly was quite mystified too!) another global leader for what was clearly an error, whether it be by the Russians or any other party. This was one instance where the term collateral damage was possibly excusable.
Abbott had his 15 minutes of glory and Bishop, maybe 25. But pretty much everything Australia did during that period was a complete stuff-up – either a bit pre-mature or based on completely wrong information. The world leaders to it for what it was – a marketing spiel targeted at domestic politics.
Aussies love their blonde chics. So, it’s not surprising that the media has not shown-up Bishop for what she is. Bitch? Bimbo? both? – that is for each of us to decide. Blonde? – that is for each us to guess – Yours truly thinks not!