Baz Luhrmann will debut his ‘Strictly Ballroom’ music for the world in Sydney in 2013.
The show, based on Luhrmann’s hit movie musical, has been asked for negotiated for London and New York but in the end Luhrmann and producers Carmen Pavlovic and Gerry Ryan decided to keep it in Australia, where the movie began.
“Of all of my shows, Strictly Ballroom is the most personal,” Mr Luhrmann said in a statement.
Luhrmann created ‘Strictly Ballroom’ in Sydney at NIDA.
“From escaping into the world of competitive ballroom dancing as a child, and my mother going on to be a dance teacher, through to the formative moment at the National Institute of Dramatic Art when a group of talented students and I brought together the classical myth of triumph over oppression and placed it in this world of suburban theatre, the first production of Strictly Ballroom was born,” he said.
“That little act of truth and defiance, born as a 40 minute student play, went on to win a competition in communist Czechoslovakia, was revised at my first theatre company and was extended, and finally was transformed into the little film that danced all around the world. A journey like this is likely to happen once in a creative person's lifetime, if they’re lucky.
“It's a simple show, with a simple truth, and a simple heart, that seems to have grown and grown and now completes the circle of its journey, returning to the city where it all began, Sydney, as an all-singing all-dancing musical production," Mr Luhrmann said.
The news comes within a week of Sydney also scoring the Australian premiere of ‘The Addams Family’.
‘Strictly Ballroom’ will debut in September 2013.
VIDEO: Love Never Dies will debut in Melbourne this week. Watch the Undercover interview here:
