Always a pleas­ure to find myself at the St James here in Pōneke, and the Roy­al New Zea­l­and Bal­let’s got some­thing for every­one with their trio of short bal­lets this winter.

Sir Fre­d­er­ick Ashton’s (1904–1988) Birth­day Offer­ing is a stel­lar cel­eb­ra­tion of clas­sic­al bal­let. First per­formed in 1956, with sev­en solo vari­ations for the women in the cast to dance, this 14-per­son piece is a mas­ter­work of strength and com­plex­ity, per­formed to Alex­an­der Glazun­ov’s music. Mayu Tani­gaito and Laurynas Vejalis are stel­lar as the centre in the pas-de-deux, but all dan­cers shine in this spec­tac­u­lar ode to per­form­ance his­tory. Dance can be so tran­si­ent, lost to time, and it feels very spe­cial to see a piece by a cho­reo­graph­er that has such import with­in glob­al dance his­tory.

Sarah Foster-Sproul­l’s Ultra Folly fol­lows, a bright and con­tem­por­ary piece fea­tur­ing four dan­cers all decked out in col­our­ful skirts. Nev­er has a title been more apt in the delight­ful chaos that fol­lows; moments set to silence, then fren­et­i­cism, sass and per­son­al­ity; rela­tion­ships, each dan­cer paired with every­one else, that build and change and then fall away again. Foster-Sproul­l’s cho­reo­graph­ic skills truly know when to let a moment breathe, thus build­ing the anti­cip­a­tion, and as such I’ve nev­er found myself gig­gling so much at a piece of dance before.

The con­cluder of the pro­gramme is Andrea Scher­mo­ly’s Stand to Reas­on. Cre­ated in 2018 for the 125th anniversary of women’s suf­frage in Aotearoa, this piece is a trenchant remind­er of the rights our ancest­ors fought for, and the import­ance of con­tinu­ing to stand for these rights today. Per­formed solely by women dressed in black, we hear their breaths amongst their power­ful dance work, com­ing togeth­er with holds and bal­ances, hon­or­ing the power of those who stood for our rights in the past as they hold each oth­er in the present. Sharp golden side light­ing high­lights every muscle and every step, the strength required for a piece like this.

Staged in front of a pro­jec­tion of the the New Zea­l­and Chris­ti­an Tem­per­ance Uni­on’s Ten reas­ons why the women of New Zea­l­and should vote, this incred­ibly mov­ing piece ends on the dan­cers hold­ing us in their gaze as the pro­jec­tion behind them reads all the coun­tries in the world where women still can­’t vote.

A sober­ing end to a tri­fecta of bal­lets, all of which speak to the breadth of dance his­tory both in this coun­try and inter­na­tion­ally and the import­ance of not for­get­ting it today. A winter delight, get in before the sea­son ends!