The Roy­al New Zea­l­and Bal­let is back for their final offer­ing this year, a trio of celes­ti­al bal­lets with­in the show Venus Rising. I’ve been wait­ing to see this show for a couple of years now, for it’s been delayed twice by COVID, so it was an abso­lute delight to finally catch it at its open­ing night last night. 

All cho­reo­graphed by women, the three bal­lets with­in Venus Rising are Aur­um (chore­graphed by Alice Topp), The Autumn Ball (Sarah Foster-Sproull) and Water­baby Baga­telles™ (Twyla Tharp), which each run at about half an hour. All three are utterly dif­fer­ent, but each fea­ture an RNZB ensemble.

Aur­um opens the piece. Based around the prin­ciple of kint­sugi, [a Japan­ese art tech­nique where broken pot­tery is repaired with gold – philo­soph­ic­ally high­light­ing and mak­ing the cracks and life of the piece import­ant] this work is an intim­ate partnered dance with heavy emotive moments, inspir­ing notes of con­tem­por­ary dance. The dan­cers grip, hold, and bal­ance with each oth­er. Golden light reflects off bare skin. They inhale, and so do we. 

Deeply power­ful, Aur­um is a show­case in strength and bal­ance, of the true lengths our bod­ies can go when giv­en the chance. I also see it as an exer­cise in trust; as the dan­cers are lif­ted and held in grav­ity-defy­ing bal­ances. Every­one has their own cracks, and every­one relies on oth­ers – it is those cracks and our endur­ing strength that makes our stor­ies worth telling. 

Under­scored by inter­mingled viol­in and piano pieces by my favour­ite com­poser, Ludovico Ein­audi, Aur­um is wholly beau­ti­ful and quite mov­ing. While it is per­haps a down­beat to open a show, it is one that inspires thought and in some moments, sheer awe. 

The Autumn Ball dances to an entirely dif­fer­ent beat. The thun­der­ous, heavy music gives the piece a more mod­ern edge, and a chal­lenge is set. The per­formers are dressed in bright, some­times-70s-style cos­tumes, and ini­tially split along gender lines as they seem to chal­lenge each oth­er to Shark-vs-Jet-like duels. 

As the piece goes on, the groups homo­gen­ise, and the dance gets more fren­et­ic. Gender roles are washed away as the groups move togeth­er, with same-sex pair­ings dan­cing togeth­er (some­thing, as a queer dan­cer myself, I really, really want to see more of in bal­let). We see notes of club dan­cing, hip thrusts and light­er moments, until we’re drawn through to the cli­max of the piece, where autumn leaves (con­fetti) fall from the ceil­ing and the dan­cers move togeth­er under­neath.

The autumn queen fin­ishes the piece alone, and we are left to rel­ish in the beauty of the scene. While I wouldn’t quite describe this piece as joy­ful, the palp­able flir­ta­tion and ten­sion under­neath is very com­pel­ling, with a warm­er bright­ness from the pre­vi­ous work.

We con­clude the night with Water­baby Baga­telles™ - a work that was first per­formed in 1994! A dance piece full of sil­li­ness and joy, this bal­let fea­tures the largest cast so far, all wear­ing cos­tumes in shades of blue, some that even resemble old timey bal­let cos­tumes. Some of the dan­cers are even dressed in what looks like vel­vet – at least from where I’m sit­ting.

The heavy fluor­es­cent light­ing above gives the aura of a pub­lic pool, as so does the music – bub­bling and foam­ing, some­times dis­son­ant pieces. The dance in this bal­let resembles closest to what we know as ‘tra­di­tion­al bal­let’, with more struc­tured move­ments and sta­ging than the oth­er two works – this jux­ta­pos­i­tion against the ridicu­lous feel of the piece (I mean that in a very good way). It is a very springy, airy piece, with lots of lifts and jumps.

This struc­tured move­ment breaks about halfway through the piece into a hil­ari­ous moment where the men in the ensemble show off to a group of the women – dan­cing, show­ing off, abso­lutely strut­ting their stuff, before it resolves, the groups form­ing togeth­er once more, like schools of fish. 

Venus Rising con­tains three very unique bal­lets, all with equally gor­geous, res­on­ant moments. It’s a per­form­ance that will have some­thing for every­one, and that makes it an utterly great night out. I’m utterly pleased that the RNZB finally got to stage this work.

Images by Steph­en A’Court.