32 BOOKS DECEMBER 5-6, 2009 The Sydney Morning Herald

Fancy footwork ... Kenneth MacMillan demonstrates a new step to in 1963. Dances of Photo: Bettmann/Corbis

Percival and Clive darkness Barnes, who led an anti- MacMillan push. The latter once wrote: “Personally, I think a Agreatchoreographerbattledhis firing squad would be the kindest thing for his own fears as well as real enemies. new [production of] Anastasia.” consulted both psychia- Another occasional trists and psycho- obstacle was the former BIOGRAPHY analysts for most of his artistic director of the adult life, sometimes Royal Ballet, Ninette de making daily visits. Valois, who stalks Different Drummer: The Parry explains how through the biography on Life of Kenneth MacMillan his neuroses fuelled his clattering heels, offering By Jann Parry ballets, not just the MacMillan what Parry Faber & Faber, 758pp, $75 full-length, ballet hits describes as “somewhat such as Romeo & Juliet, conditional loyalty”. Reviewed by Valerie Lawson Manon, Anastasia and There was a strong Mayerling,buttheone- Australian element in act works concerning MacMillan’s life. Sidney KENNETH MacMILLAN was 12 subjects once con- Nolan designed his when he returned home from sidered too daring for version of Rite of Spring, boarding school to see his moth- the ballet stage. while Kenneth Rowell er’s corpse. His father instructed There were plenty of designed his Le Baiser de the boy to kiss his mother’s cold them in MacMillan’s la f´ee.MacMillan’smost lips. But, he added, you mustn’t armoury – rape, favoured Australian cry. From that moment, MacMil- betrayal, incest, guilt, collaborators were Ian lan wrote, “a darkness settled on death and the afterlife, Spurling and Barry Kay, me like a cloak”. and unbearable grief – the latter designing nine The cloak never fell from his but he also created of his ballets, including shoulders. Although he was one ballets that were light- Anastasia. of the 20th century’s most hearted, witty, sophist- But the strongest successful choreographers, icated or simply comic. Australian connection is MacMillan was the Eeyore of the The biography is his widow. Queensland- theatre world, forever in a stew long and as detailed as born Deborah Williams of anxiety about the future. the crochet works that attended the National The British dance critic Jann MacMillan created to help keep directorship of mistrusted ballet, and the cold- Art School in Sydney before Parry has spent a decade dissect- his mind at rest. There’s a touch (1970-77), elements of the reper- ness of their brothers. performing in a drag show at the ing and analysing the life of too much detail about the toire were in alignment with both Little wonder that MacMillan Purple Onion in Kings Cross and MacMillan, who died at 62, alone, creation of his ballets but MacMil- the Royal Court Theatre at the grew up to be an outsider, hiding moving to . Lady MacMil- backstage during a performance, lan comes into sharp focus as a time of Look Back in Anger and behind dark glasses and a mous- lan, as she is now, commissioned at House in man who bravely fought both his with the Theatre of the Absurd. tache and, in the words of the this biography. She is ‘‘a vigilant , of one of his most own demons and the considerable Both Ionesco and MacMillan’s critic Alexander Bland, resembling power widow in the manner of successful ballets, Manon. force of his enemies. His legacy ballets are concerned with “an outsize mollusc driven by fate Cosima Wagner and Alma If he had lived, MacMillan was to haul ballet across a mid- archetypes – in the choreograph- to live a few places from its shell”. Mahler’’, in the words of the would have been 80 on December 20th-century bridge, taking the er’s case, the damsel in distress, MacMillan was a dancer before dance writer Robert Gottlieb. It 11. His works have been cele- art form from the mythical ballet the outsider and death. crippling stage fright drew him to must have been tricky for Parry to brated in Britain with themes and establishment links of Parry skilfully illuminates choreography and Parry writes work with her for a decade – how retrospectives, this biography and his predecessor, Sir Frederick MacMillan’s difficult childhood, perceptively of the necessary much negotiation was there, one amajorsymposium,heldinasso- Ashton (he liked to knock back a one similar to the fictional Billy corps d’esprit within a corps de wonders – yet the book is ciation with the Institute of gin or two with his friend, the Elliot’s, in that both were attrac- ballet as well as the reverse of balanced and fair, a testament to Psychoanalysts, where the speak- Queen Mother), to the age of ted to the haven of the ballet that camaraderie, competition the author in the way she follows ers examined such topics such as anxiety, alienation and angry studio after suffering from the and disappointment. Thoreau’s directions in Different “creativity in spite of adversity”. young men. early deaths of their mothers, the He had fierce opponents, Drummer:“Lethimsteptothe As Parry reveals, MacMillan Under MacMillan’s artistic opposition of distant fathers, who among them such critics as John music he hears ... ” TOP 10 The Sydney Morning Herald

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