For the first time in fifty years, the Scot­tish Bal­let vis­its Aotearoa for a dream col­lab­or­a­tion. This Fri­day and Sat­urday in Pōneke only, the RNZB and the Scot­tish Bal­let will share the stage to present four gor­geous works.

Dex­tera (Scot­tish Bal­let) com­mis­sioned to cel­eb­rate the Scot­tish Bal­let’s 50th Anniversary in 2019, is cre­ated by Franco-Brit­ish cho­reo­graph­er Soph­ie Laplane. Set to the music of Moz­art, Laplane says of the work, “I was loosely inspired by the Pyg­malion myth and the idea that once the cre­ation has been made it takes on a life of its own – a bit like cho­reo­graphy.’”

Per­formed across a giant chess­board, Schach­matt (Check­mate!) (Scot­tish Bal­let) is the work of inter­na­tion­ally renowned cho­reo­graph­er Cayetano Soto and is inspired by the words of Joan Rivers, the films of Pedro Alm­od­o­var and the cho­reo­graphy of Bob Fosse. In con­ver­sa­tion with x, Soto says of the work, “It’s very joy­ful and play­ful and has a sense of humour, but it’s also fast and
tech­nic­al. As a cre­at­or I don’t like to preach a nar­rat­ive to the audience;I hope it can inspire audi­ences and give them the space to reflect on the time we are liv­ing in.”

The RNZB presents two works of its own as a part of this inter­na­tion­al col­lab­or­a­tion.

Annaliese Macdonald’s Limer­ence, a work for four dan­cers as per­formed to the work of Franz Schubert; and Shaun James Kelly’s Pris­mat­ic – a cel­eb­ra­tion of the RNZB’s past and present, to a ver­sion of Johannes Brahms’ Vari­ations – round out the pro­gramme.

Cel­eb­rate these won­der­ful loc­al and inter­na­tion­al works in this very lim­ited series of bal­let this week­end at the St James Theatre. Tick­ets are still avail­able here.