Dancing with Mozart shows depth of diversity

Dancing with Mozart. Royal New Zealand Ballet. Regent on Broadway, Palmerston North, Saturday, June 23.

Three different choreographers showed the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s depth of diversity as they fully explored the concept of dancing to the music of Mozart. The evening opened with George Balanchine’s Divertimento No 15, first staged in 1945, and here restaged by Francia Russell. This ballet was a delight, a sumptuous feast for every lover of classical ballet.

Technically strong and beautifully staged, the dancers’ every move captured the essence of the three spectacular chandeliers and Ballanchine’s characteristic blue cyclorama. New Zealander Corey Baker has made a name for himself taking his inventive ideas outside usual settings, and one of his recent projects involved staging a solo dance in Antarctica to highlight the massive effects of climate change. These ideas were further explored in The Last Dance, where Duncan Grimley’s soundtrack evolved from the digital manipulation of Mozart’s Requiem.

There were familiar extracts from the work. But much of this ballet featured sampled extracts that magnificently underscored the stunning work of the dancers.

Dancing with Mozart was a perfectly balanced programme around the glory that is Mozart, providing the audience with a superb variety of works that were engaging in different ways.