Dancing up a storm
Jane Campion's Oscar-winning 1993 film The Piano has been given a new lease of life as the year's first production by the troubled Royal New Zealand Ballet.
Jane Campion’s Oscar-winning 1993 film The Piano has been given a new lease of life as the year’s first production by the troubled Royal New Zealand Ballet.
Held gently aloft by her partner Paul Mathews, dancer Abigail Boyle turns in the air, her black skirt billowing gently. It’s sweltering in the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB) rehearsal studio and whirring fans strain to cool the room. For the next hour, Boyle, 32, dances as Ada McGrath, the mute Scotswoman who was the main character in Jane Campion’s 1993 film The Piano, which is being given new life as a ballet. Mathews plays Alisdair Stewart, the man Ada, accompanied by her daughter Flora and her beloved piano, has been shipped to the colonies to marry.
The ballet, which has its world premiere at the New Zealand Festival this month before a national tour, opens after a rocky time for the company and its American
Headlines have detailed an exodus of dancers, workplace discontent and falling numbers of regional performances.
artistic director of six months, Patricia Barker. Headlines over the summer have detailed an exodus of dancers, workplace discontent, declining numbers of performances in the regions and criticism that the company is not providing a career path for aspiring locals, who are outnumbered by overseas recruits.
The RNZB’s board has denied the mass exodus claims and engaged former deputy State Services Commissioner Doug Craig to review employment processes. Arts Minister Jacinda Ardern has also weighed in and met the board last month to discuss her concerns.
Leaning against a door frame and watching the dancers, Barker seems unfazed by the flak. The former artistic director of Grand Rapids Ballet in Michigan, she is the RNZB’s 12th artistic director in 64 years, and its third in the past three.
“I’m excited to be here,” she says.
“The board gave me a goal, and I have a personal goal and an artistic vision for the ballet. As long as my swipe card works, I’ll be here.’’
Delivering The Piano: the ballet would seem a pretty good argument that the RNZB is catering to a wide New Zealand audience as well as encouraging young dancers – three 12-year-olds were chosen from 100 hopefuls to play Flora.
Today, attentively listening to the ballet master, all three – Hazel Couper and Bianca Lungu from Auckland and Gemma Lew from the Kapiti Coast – look like young Anna Paquins.
The role of Ada, the most physically demanding and emotionally intense in the production, is also shared between three dancers in the rotating casts.
In her past lead roles, Boyle says, she has found it tough to leave her characters behind, and she is having the same experience with Ada McGrath.
“You’re living it, so that can be intense,’’ she says. “I’m trying to do the role justice.