RNZB’s Cin­derel­la is a car­ni­val of excess, packed full of joy and beau­ty and delight. It shines with queer­ness, and as a queer dancer myself, this bal­let was a rev­o­lu­tion­ary take on a well-hewn sto­ry and hit me right in the chest.

Cin­derel­la (Mayu Tani­gaito) is the same woman we all know, stuck in a house with her evil step­moth­er and step­sis­ters, but this time, she doesn’t fall in love with Prince Charm­ing (Joshua Guille­mot-Rodger­son), but rather his Roy­al Mes­sen­ger (Lau­ry­nas Vėjalis). Charm­ing, how­ev­er, doesn’t seem all that inter­est­ed in women, and finds his love in Prince Dash­ing (Shae Berney) a prince from anoth­er king­dom. The sto­ry, at least some­how in the way we know, blos­soms from there. 

Bal­let, like a lot of forms of dance with part­ners, tends to fall into strict gen­der roles. Recent­ly, we’ve seen big dance com­pe­ti­tions like Danc­ing With the Stars break the mould and allow same-sex part­ner­ships, and in Welling­ton we’ve seen School for Gift­ed Children’s The Slut­crack­er and Sap­ph­ic Lake. 

How­ev­er, it is huge for a com­pa­ny such as the RNZB to allow for such a new retelling of Cin­derel­la — where queer­ness is cel­e­brat­ed and het­ero­nor­ma­tiv­i­ty need not apply - and hon­est­ly, rather brave. It can be very sim­ple to take the easy road, but no-one is immune to crit­i­cism, no mat­ter how big the com­pa­ny might be, and it’s a great step for a show like this to be per­formed in one of Wellington’s biggest venues, to near sold-out audi­ences, who clap and cheer at the queer moments, rather than boo. 

Lough­lan Prior’s chore­og­ra­phy for this work ranges from tra­di­tion­al bal­let (both part­nered and not), through club dance, mod­ern dance and even vogu­ing. Did I ever think I’d see the cater­pil­lar on an RNZB stage? No, but in Cin­derel­la, there it is. The fresh­ness of the choreo sim­ply adds anoth­er lay­er to the delight of the world. The fabled ball Cin­derel­la attends is less ball­room, more hazy 3am club, and hon­est­ly — it works. 

In a more tra­di­tion­al­ist retelling, per­haps it wouldn’t, but I laugh and cheer along with the rest of the audi­ence as Prince Charming’s ball starts out as a parade of “eli­gi­ble maid­ens” being shown to the Prince, all dressed in for­mal wear and danc­ing with much poise; then descends rather swift­ly into the bass-drop alco­hol-fueled dance chaos of a good night out. 

The chore­og­ra­phy was bril­liant over­all, but here’s a few moments I espe­cial­ly loved — obvi­ous­ly actu­alised by a team of incred­i­ble and pro­fi­cient RNZB dancers. Prince Charm­ing danc­ing with his fenc­ing team, com­plete with épées and actu­al sword­fight­ing (choreo’d by Simon Mann) was incred­i­ble to watch, and I don’t doubt a chal­lenge to block with swords in hand. All of the moments between Cin­derel­la and the Roy­al Mes­sen­ger had a beau­ti­ful liq­uid sen­su­al­i­ty and gen­uine inti­ma­cy to them; and the Evil Step­sis­ters Made­laine (Sara Gar­bows­ki) and Nico­lette (Kir­by Sel­chow) were gen­uine­ly hilar­i­ous, often­times par­o­dy­ing cer­tain oth­er bal­lets we know well, but with a com­i­cal flair. 

My favourite moments, how­ev­er, were how Pri­or approached the dance scenes between the queer cou­ple — Princes Charm­ing and Dash­ing. It can be so easy to queer a show by sim­ply hav­ing a per­son of the same gen­der take on the oppo­site gen­der role in a het­ero­sex­u­al cou­ple (ie: one per­son “plays the girl”, com­plete with a faux-fem­i­nine vibe that some­how exists to under­mine the queer­ness of the moment), and I’ve def­i­nite­ly seen it done in queered dance before. 

How­ev­er, in Cin­derel­la, Charm­ing and Dash­ing share the stage equal­ly, and hold equal foot­ing. Their dances are unde­ni­ably mas­cu­line, but they share the lifts, the grap­ples and the holds — they’re bal­anced, rather than off-kil­ter, a lit­tle rough around the edges but unmis­tak­ably beau­ti­ful. These moments were very pre­cious, and held a lot of the hon­esty in the show for me.

It is that sense of bal­ance that under­scores the entire­ty of the show. Cin­derel­la does­n’t need to be saved in this work, and has her own foot­ing. She does­n’t exist just to be wooed, and that’s so, so refresh­ing. She even gets a sword­fight­ing scene of her own. The strength and grace in Tani­gaito’s per­for­mance is love­ly — she’s always a delight to see on stage.

I can’t talk about every­thing for fear of spoil­ers, but let me say, there were some won­der­ful new addi­tions to this piece that I didn’t expect, and will par­tic­u­lar­ly res­onate with some of you who enjoyed a cer­tain queer Net­flix series a few years back. 

Claire Cow­an is back as the com­pos­er of this show. I absolute­ly adored her work in the RNZB’s past work Hansel and Gre­tel, and thor­ough­ly enjoyed her com­po­si­tions in Cin­derel­la. Rang­ing from more tra­di­tion­al clas­si­cal pieces, through EDM, tech­no and the occa­sion­al pol­ka and tan­go, this is a sound­track that’ll stick with you. (I’m writ­ing this review the morn­ing after I saw the show, and believe me, I was dream­ing some of the sound­track last night). The col­li­sion of gen­res real­ly adds to the over­all feel of the piece — this show wan­ders through time and space in a way that’s gor­geous, and the music is the guide that leads us on our way. Major props to the orches­tra as well, this is a spicy show with a lot of fun to it, and they absolute­ly brought the ener­gy. 

Cin­derel­la is beau­ti­ful chaos. From the grace and pro­fes­sion­al­i­ty of the dancers, to the shine of the set, the cos­tumes and the dig­i­tal pro­jec­tion, time and effort has clear­ly been put into mak­ing this piece rev­o­lu­tion­ary. Art brings joy to des­per­ate times, and right now, when queer folk are in such strife in many places across the world and dis­cord is flar­ing up about our sheer right to exist, Cin­derel­la is the balm that we all need. It is a cel­e­bra­tion of love, eupho­ria, and end­less queer joy, and I cer­tain­ly felt that last night.

Besties, I am pos­i­tive­ly shooketh. Take your friends, take your lovers. This is one you’ve got­ta see.