Performance: Nationwide Road Tour, Royal New Zealand Ballet

Bruce Mason Theatre

Reviewer: Bernadette Rae

The Ballet on tour has obviously got to be portable, prepared to fit a frightening variety of stages to be encountered the length and breadth of New Zealand. The company is also divided in two, enabling it to be at 46 venues in a six-week touring period.

It is an enormous tribute to the organisation that they can not only cover this sort of ground logistically, but artistically turn up on the night looking not half bad.

There is a little something for everyone, from the strictly classical Flower Festival Pas de Deux, choreographed by August Bournonville in 1858, and Marius Petipa's Raymonda Divertissement, to three contemporary works by young New Zealand choreographers: Shannon Dawson's energetic celebration of love, Mahahrahja; Raewyn Hill's beautiful Ocean of Tears and Cameron McMillan's ravishing tango, Unsuspecting View.

With the new commission from English wunderkind Christopher Hampson it is an evening of considerable range and substance.

Hampson's Saltarello is a sexy and highly significant addition to the Ballet's repertoire, a marvellously modern explosion of movement set to ancient music that manages to sound Indian, Celtic and Italian all at once. Dramatically costumed in slinky little swooshes of black, pierced with dramatic silver, it embodies a sharp, 21st-century originality in perfect, classical technique.

It was almost perfect at the Bruce Mason Theatre on Friday night. The girls were great. Pieter Symonds, Jane Turner, Nadine Tyson, Yo Otaki and Satsuki Sejima all met the drama of the music and Hampson's concept, based on The Decameron, with the fire, energy and vibrant personality required and with awesome speed and precision.

The boys tried hard, with Alex Wagner making a pretty good fist of it. But somehow, with that one exception, they remained "boys," never quite goaded into full testosterone territory. It matters, because the piece counts on the chemical flash generated by pairs of dancers.

Another month on the road might be just what is needed to toughen - and tauten - them up a bit.