Pointe: Dancing on a Knife’s Edge | Dir: Dawn Jackson | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Alan Alder and Lucette Aldous were ballet legends, not just in Australia, but around the world. Raised in Perth, Aldous who was prima ballerina at the Australian Ballet, achieved icon status when she performed with Rudolph Nureyev in his famous production of Don Quixote.
Alan and Lucette married in 1972, and worked together a decade later at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). By this time they had a daughter, Floeur, who eventually trained and just about lived at the prestigious ballet school.
Producer and director Dawn Jackson trained as a dancer at WAAPA while Alan and Lucette were teaching and she even remembers babysitting Floeur. When she ventured into filmmaking, Dawn realised that Floeur had a phenomenal story to tell.
The documentary opens with 22 year-old Floeur, having graduated from WAAPA, returning to Perth after from a four month tour of Europe where she auditioned for several companies.
Floeur narrates the moment in 2000 when she was walking towards her Highgate home, full of hope for her future, when her world completely changed by someone who came out of the darkness for a split second and then disappeared.
The stranger had punched her in the face and stabbed her in the neck, narrowly missing her jugular. With blood spurting from her neck, she managed to get to the nearby Greek restaurant where the owner called an ambulance.
Six hours of surgery and two blood transfusions saved her life, but she was left with nerve damage and the mental scar of what had happened. Making the documentary has been a huge part of Floeur’s recovery.
Taking a decade to make, and depending largely on crowd-funding to finance getting all the archival footage, the film is a potent testament to Floeur’s perseverance and the power of dance to heal.
Floeur’s parents were interviewed for the film, but they both died before its completion. It is such a pleasure seeing her aging parents dance Floeur’s contemporary choreography – Rare Earth. And also seeing Floeur taking over the stage at His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth and receiving a standing ovation.
Lezly Herbert
