The Royal New Zealand Ballet’s reputation for innovation is on full display with its new season, Home, Land & Sea, which features a first-time collab with the New Zealand Dance Company set to music by legendary Kiwi muso Shayne P. Carter.

The season takes its name from the collab, the first of the three works on the bill. ‘Home, Land & Sea’ is choreographed by New Zealand Dance Company artistic director Moss Te Ururangi Patterson and features six dancers from each company. It invites audiences to consider what it means to feel at home in this place, where we have come from, where we are going, and how we might find strength, connection and hope in one another.

Also on the bill is ‘Chrysalis’ by Royal New Zealand Ballet choreographer-in-residence Shaun James Kelly, which explores metamorphosis and personal transformation through the music of Philip Glass.

It’s another dream collab from the ballet, with Shaun teaming with fashion designer Rory William Docherty on the work’s stunning costumes.

Third on the bill is ‘The Way Alone’ by master choreographer Stephen Baynes, a deeply personal response to the music of Tchaikovsky that celebrates some of the composer’s lesser-known work. 

Isaac Theatre Royal, Fri 8 – Sat 9 August, 2025

rnzb.org.nz