Imagery by Stephen A’Court.

The Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let is back with anoth­er series of four bal­lets to warm you up this win­ter. Cel­e­brat­ing the pow­er and pos­si­bil­i­ty of dance, these four bal­lets range from the clas­sic to the exper­i­men­tal, a won­der­ful tableau that accu­rate­ly sums up the RZN­B’s 70th anniver­sary.

Open­ing the show is George Bal­anchine’s Ser­e­nade, staged by Rebec­ca Met­zger. 89 years after it was first staged, this icon­ic bal­let is per­formed to Tchaikovsky’s Ser­e­nade, and is a quin­tes­sen­tial exam­ple of Bal­an­chine bal­let with long lines, strong and struc­tured per­for­mance and beau­ti­ful stage pat­terns. Though plot­less, this large cast bal­let (20+ per­form­ers) floats between duos, triplets and larg­er group pieces; an admirable show of tim­ing and com­po­si­tion.

The pre­miere of Moss Te Uru­ran­gi Pat­ter­son­’s Te Ao Māra­ma is a tri­umph in per­for­mance and a deeply pow­er­ful work, imbued with implic­it Māori iden­ti­ty — it’s the first Māori bal­let I’ve ever seen but I sin­cere­ly hope not my last. A solo shirt­less per­former on stage moves to the sound of taon­ga pūoro (Ari­ana Tikao), along­side a under­cur­rent thrum of elec­tric son­ic gui­tar (Shayne Carter), before being joined by four­teen oth­er male per­form­ers for a group work that folds and unfolds through iden­ti­ty, gen­der and con­scious­ness. This work is spec­tac­u­lar; with a full seg­ment with no music, only the sounds of the per­form­ers’ foot­falls and breath­ing, and cul­mi­nat­ing in a full haka.

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Requiem for a Rose opens with a sin­gle dancer onstage (Soloist Kir­by Sel­chow), dressed entire­ly in nude fab­ric, hold­ing a rose in her mouth. Her angu­lar, sharp danc­ing draws in the oth­er per­form­ers, both male and female alike, all wear­ing bright red skirts that flut­ter about them like flower petals. The romance is inter­wo­ven through­out the piece as the dancers cou­ple up and fall apart again — 1000 love sto­ries all at once. With all per­form­ers wear­ing the same things (nude shirts on the women), gen­der slips away, decou­pling this dance from the het­ero­topic bal­let we all know so well, to a world where roles are shared and peo­ple of all gen­ders are part­nered togeth­er.

The night clos­es with a mon­u­men­tal piece of stag­ing in Alice Top­p’s Logos. Set to the works of my favourite com­pos­er, Ludovi­co Ein­au­di, this series of trios and duets explore heavy emo­tions and bru­tal inti­ma­cy; with dar­ing holds, leaps and bal­ances — as smoke builds up behind a plas­tic cur­tain at the back of the stage every­thing feels on a knife’s edge. Until, there is a release — the plas­tic cur­tain drops to the stage, smoke bil­low­ing out towards the audi­ence and around the final pair of dancers (Ana Gal­lar­do Lobaina & Matthew Slat­tery), like ragged storm clouds in the sky. Rain falls from the ceil­ing, drench­ing the two per­form­ers, and they move togeth­er, deeply inti­mate, a heav­ier pas­tiche of a scene from a rom-com. This moment is a mas­ter­work of an end­ing to a very strong pro­gramme.

As we move through the RNZB’s 70th year, I con­tin­ue to enjoy the com­pa­ny pulling away from bal­let’s very het­ero­sex­u­al Euro­cen­tric roots to some­thing that’s much more inter­est­ing and far more rem­i­nis­cent of the human expe­ri­ence — queer­ing dance, decou­pling the works from their colo­nial­ist ideals in pas­sion­ate, mov­ing ways — it’s very wel­come, and I hope it con­tin­ues.