KEY POINTS:
A romantic tutu piece, something modern, a duet and a new work or two - it's the Royal New Zealand Ballet's standard recipe for its traditional Tutus On Tour programme, guaranteed to please audiences from Whangarei to Wanaka, and 46 other centres in between.
In-house, they call it the "smalls tour". But this year the major offering in the "new work" category is way beyond tidbit status. Cameron McMillan's newly commissioned Equilibrium, set to a Philip Glass violin concerto, would be worth travelling 500km for - and here it is, on everyone's doorstep.
Incredibly frenetic, fast, physical and extreme, it is no easy work for the dancers, or for McMillan, he confesses.
"I think I set myself the biggest challenge," says the ex-RNZB dancer, now based in Britain with the Rambert Dance Company.
"I am not a huge fan of Philip Glass but the moment I heard this violin concerto I wanted to make something to it. That is always my response to music. I want to move, or to make somebody else move."
Glass wrote his violin concerto in 1987 for a close friend. McMillan is amazed at how true the composer remains to the conventional form, the most established form of a violin concerto, but still maintains his minimalist genre throughout - "using the form so accurately but for his own musical tastes and ideas".
McMillan's response is a 25-minute explosion of movement for four couples, which also takes a conventional form - classical ballet technique - in a most contemporary expression.
Its theme, balance, interests McMillan on many levels.
"Balance is what dancers play with constantly," he says. "It is physical, emotional, scientific and creative. I discovered there is something called 'punctuated equilibrium', which is part of evolution theory. There is a moment when something shifts and your direction changes.
"Equilibrium is also about how we balance our careers and our lives."
New Zealand-born McMillan trained at the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne, but joined the RNZB on graduation in 1997 and quickly rose to the rank of principal dancer, a performer equally stunning in the traditional and contemporary repertoire.
His early choreographic interest was also nurtured by the company's regular choreographic workshops, and his first commission was for the road tour in 2001.
In 2001 he moved to London and was invited to join the English National Ballet as a soloist by former RNZB artistic director Matz Skoog .
It wasn't long before McMillan began to miss the variety of work he had enjoyed with the RNZB, the mixed repertoire and creativity.
"I realised how lucky I had been in New Zealand, to have the opportunity to dance to so many different works and new works every year. The ENB's mission is different: it is to take big, classical ballet to the masses, with lots of touring and lots of repetition."
He was soon invited to join Rambert by its artistic director Mark Baldwin, another former RNZB dancer, and creator of the landmark Ihi Frenzy, and has flourished.
As well as dancing in works by the world's leading contemporary choreographers, McMillan has been able to further his choreographic talents. Verge, the most recent of three works he has made for Rambert, which premiered last November, has been taken into the company's repertoire.
Equilibrium's stunning design - all black leather and earthy red lace - is by another former RNZB dancer, Moana Nepia.
The second new work on the Tutus on Tour programme is by company dancer Andrew Simmons. Themes and Deviations is for four male dancers, casually clad in black shorts and coloured long-sleeved polo shirts.
"It's a pure movement piece, no narrative," says Simmons.
"I just want to show how male dancers can move in a relaxed environment, when the spotlight is not on the big leaps, the crazy tricks, the athleticism.
"The first and third movements are quite fast, so they are a bit sharp, and the second movement does have some physical bits, a couple of chucks and rolls.
"But what I think is really cool is when guys dance with softness, when they are not dancing 'out' for the audience.
"I have made this piece to play with the softness a guy can produce, that languid quality that you might see if you were looking in through a window at a private rehearsal. I think that can be even more interesting than the spectacular jumps."
Themes and Deviations is performed to a selection of Hummel piano trios and makes subtle reference to the programme's opening Pas de Quatre, by choreographer Jules Perrot, a romantic and old-fashioned piece for four girls in long pink tutus.
Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Concerto Pas De Deux is a stunning duet to Shostakovich, and Marius Petipa's Raymonda Variations, with a new design by Gary Harris, makes a fine finale.
What: The Royal NZ Ballet - Tutus On Tour
Where and when: Hamilton Mar 6; Manukau Telstra Clear Pacific Events Centre, Mar 7; Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Mar 9 & 10; Titirangi War Memorial Hall, Mar 11; Dargaville, Mar 13; Kaitaia, Mar 15; Kerikeri, Mar 16; Whangarei, Mar 18; Wellsford, Mar 21; Thames Mar 22
