Cityscape cuts a rug with the Royal New Zealand Ballet ahead of their boundary-pushing production Dancing With Mozart in June, which melds classic, contemporary, and climate change – all set to a thrilling Mozart-penned score – in an en-pointe tetralogy of one world and three New Zealand premieres.

In a continuation of their tireless commitment to producing ground-breaking work, Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Dancing With Mozart offers four works from outstanding choreographers set to the music of the beloved composer, in a case of epic music inspiring provocative dance. With a programme that offers three New Zealand premieres and one world premiere, and the dance performance accompanied live by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, it’s a production that needs to be on the radar of any ballet and dance fan.

The exquisite showcase includes 20th Century dance legend and master choreographer George Balanchine’s 1956 work Divertimento No. 15. Balanchine considered Mozart’s work in B flat to be the finest divertimento ever written, and created a work that speaks to that inspiration and admiration in a celebration of his outstanding musicality. Permission to stage this historically-significant piece is granted to very few elite ballet companies worldwide, so it’s testament to the quality of the RNZB’s output that they will stage the work in New Zealand for the first time, assisted by celebrated Balanchine repetiteur Francia Russell, who has more than 60 years’ experience in performing and staging his works.

Image (plus top): Ross Brown

Renowned Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián, who is doing double-barrel duties in the programme, cites Balanchine as one of his own greatest influences. Works by this prolific modern master are in great demand all over the world, and Petite Mort and Sechs Tänze will both be seen for the first time in New Zealand as part of Dancing With Mozart. Created in 1991 to mark the second centenary of Mozart’s death and including both the composer’s Piano Concerto in A Major – Adagio and Piano Concerto in C Major – Andante, Petite Mort is one of Kylián’s most celebrated works, and includes mesmerising choreography based around fencing foils. The light-hearted Sechs Tänze (Six Dances) meanwhile is a witty and whimsical work that Kylián himself has referred to as “choreographic doodling”. Set to some of Mozart’s German dances, it shows off the Czech choreographer’s sense of humour and invention to full effect.

The chain of inspiration continues, with New Zealand-born, UK-based choreographer Corey Baker having been inspired by Jiří Kylián more than by any other artist, and having performed Petite Mort himself while dancing in Europe. In a first for the ballet world, Baker travelled to Antarctica in February with RNZB dancer Madeleine Graham, where together they created a dance film to highlight climate change. This piece – the only ballet ever created on the frozen continent – has become the basis for Baker’s new work The Last Dance, which feature’s Mozart’s unfinished Requiem, and receives its world premiere in Dancing With Mozart.

With both all-time ballet classics and a world premiere work on the programme, all linked through the genius of Mozart’s music – itself played to perfection by the CSO – and plenty of talent up on stage as well, this promises to be a very special performance.

Stepping Up

Cityscape profiles the masters of dance behind Dancing With Mozart.

George Balanchine

Image: Balanchine Trust

Born in Russia in 1904, George Balanchine trained at the Imperial State Ballet and from the age of 11 danced on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, entering the company proper in 1921. After working as a choreographer and ballet master around Europe, he emigrated to the United States in his 30s and established both the School of American Ballet, and the New York City Ballet in 1948. Creating 465 works in his lifetime, he is one of the 20th Century’s best-known choreographers and a leading figure in the modern history of dance, and his style – a fresh and uniquely musical interpretation of classical ballet – is one of the most distinctive and influential languages in ballet, leading to him often being referred to as “the father of American ballet”.

Jiří Kylián

Image: Anton Corbijn

Born in Prague in 1947, Jiří Kylián started his dance training when he was 9 years old at the School of the National Ballet Prague. In 1967 he went to the Royal Ballet School in London with a scholarship from the British Council, where he came into contact with some of the most important developments in choreography. In 1973, he began a long-running artistic relationship with his first choreography for Nederlands Dans Theater, which has brought about the creation of almost 50 dance productions for this group. His major international breakthrough came in 1978 with Sinfonietta, a piece set to the music of compatriot Leoš Janáček. In the following years he established his reputation as an ingenious choreographer with works such as Symphony of Psalms, Forgotten Land, Overgrown Path, Svadebka, Stamping Ground, and L'Enfant et les Sortileges, before moving his artistic view and style towards abstraction and surrealistic images from the mid-80s, with examples including this programme’s Petite Mort.

Corey Baker

Image: Jacob Bryant

Born in Christchurch, Corey Baker snuck out of high school at age 14 to join the ballet world, schooling at the city’s International Ballet Academy before heading overseas to train further in Australia and Switzerland, and then landing a job at the UK’s BalletBoyz company in 2008. He’s since gone on to retire from performance and become an award-winning choreographer and filmmaker, starting Corey Baker Dance in the UK in 2008 to create and produce his own work, and is celebrated for his innovation and commitment to driving dance into the 21st Century. With a firm belief that dance is for everyone, his pieces take the form out of traditional settings to put it into parks, playgrounds, stadiums, shopping centres, rugby fields, on TV and film, and even into Antarctica, where with RNZB dancer Madeleine Graham he created the continent’s first ballet work.