Touring Tutus tweak the classics

Tutus makes fun of stereotypes but in an elegant way.

The Royal New Zealand Ballet's tiki-touring programmes always have a special flavour in which the company splits in two, one contingent heading north and one south, to visit 49 centres in just two months, from Twizel to Titirangi and Balclutha to Botany Downs.

But this year's version of Tutus on Tour has a special air of festivity.

The RNZB received two nominations this year - just one would have been an unprecedented coup - for the Laurence Olivier Awards, the equivalent of the Oscars of British theatre. One of the nominations was for Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Christopher Hampson, the other for Javier Frutos' Milagros, both works performed in the company's British tour last year.

Another Hampson work, Esquisses, is a highlight of this tour and will give audiences outside the main cities a chance to sample his choreographic signature of gorgeous classical ballet given a contemporary tweak to pirouette it into the 21st century.

Hampson created Esquisses for the graduation performance of the English National Ballet School in 2002, when he was thinking about another commission, also for the English National Ballet.

"I knew this other commission [eventually the double award-winning Double Concerto] was going to be a tutu ballet on a large scale. I hadn't done that before. So I used this piece as a sketch book - looking at what a tutu does, the silhouette of a dancer in a tutu, and how I could use lots and lots of people, and the possible patterns in all that."

The title comes from the music he chose, by French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan who composed 48 different and virtuoso Esquisses - or "sketches" - in his career.

Hampson's Esquisses consists of nine segments, a collage of ideas, from 50 seconds to five minutes in length, gradually building from a pas de seul to a pas de quatre, sandwiched between an opening and a finale, and with three further solos sprinkled through.

It is elegant and exciting - and exacting for the dancers. "It also makes fun of a few things, some of the stereotypes associated with the tutu works of 19th-century classicism," Hampson confesses, "but in a reverential way. I was delighted when the audience at Wellington's opening night laughed. It is still amusing me."

Esquisses' design, by RNZB artistic director Gary Harris, consists of stunning black tutus, "simple and classy" with a contemporary nod towards the classical ballerina's bling, and a fantastic, cool midnight-blue lighting-scape by Jason Morphett.

The second cause for celebration in the touring programme is Harris' commissioning of two New Zealand works, the first to be performed by the company for some time.

RNZB ballet mistress Turid Revfiem's fiery ballet a la tango to New Zealand composer Jonathan Besser's Dance of the Zestniks, 13 Bar Tango, Friday Tango, Friday Night Alone and A Man Digs a Hole, is a juicy and passionate opener, with the dancers decked in swirls of red and form-fitting black.

Then, following the classical showpiece of the wedding pas de deux from Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty is Shona McCullagh's stunning Verge, a contemporary piece inspired by the hills of Canterbury but speaking for the entire New Zealand landscape, its strength, mystery and newness.

Originally called We Are Young when it was first performed by Christchurch's International Ballet Academy in 2003, it reflects New Zealand's relative newness, as well as the youth of its original, graduating dancers.

"New Zealand is young," says McCullagh. "We don't have a culture of antique buildings and old edifices. Instead, we have this untouched landscape of hills and valleys, bush and mountains and sea which are beautiful and fleetingly serene but also dangerous."

McCullagh was also inspired by New Zealand composer John Ritchie's Aquarius Suit. Costumes are by Elizabeth Whiting and perfectly catch the work's theme of golden rolling hills and tussock and the fresh green of new shoots.

McCullagh, a thrice-honoured artist (New Zealand Order of Merit for services to dance, New Zealand Arts Foundation Arts Laureate, and inaugural Senior Choreographic Fellow), no longer makes her own dance works because of the lack of a contemporary dance company, an ideal for which she fought long and lustily.

She now has a career in film, including two prize-winning dance films and, more recently, choreographic roles in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The Fellowship of the Ring and King Kong.

But back where she belongs - "in a theatre with dancers, living and sweating the daily success and failures" - she feels an ongoing sorrow that contemporary dance does not have the parallel provision the RNZB now enjoys. She defines this as a constant group of committed dancers, fine studios and a sound system.

Much of the kudos of the Olivier Award nominations for the RNZB goes to Gary Harris, for his commissioning skills that resulted in the creation of Milagros and the beautiful Romeo and Juliet.

It will be a quieter accolade, perhaps, but no less heartfelt from the contemporary dance community, that he has now felt free to encourage an indigenous choreographic contribution from one of our dance icons.

Performance

* What: The Royal New Zealand Ballet, Tutus on Tour

* Where and when: Founders Theatre, Hamilton, tonight; Titirangi War Memorial Hall, tomorrow; Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, Friday and Saturday; Botany Downs College Performing Arts Centre, Sunday; Hawkins Centre, Papakura, Mar 1; Far North Community Centre, Mar 3; Springbank School Hall, Kerikeri, Mar 4