Triple Bill: La Bayadère, Chaplin, and Viaje de Sueños (Journey of Dreams)
Australian Youth Ballet Concourse Theatre, Chatswood
15th June 2025
There was a lot to like about Australian Youth Ballet’s inaugural full-length production, Triple Bill: La Bayadère, Chaplin, and Viaje de Sueños (Journey of Dreams), which was performed at Chatswood’s Concourse Theatre on Sunday 15th June. Thirty-one young artists (supported by two guest principal dancers) took to the stage in a performance of three varied works that (including two intervals) lasted approximately two hours.
Almost a year ago I saw the world premiere of Australian Youth Ballet’s opening work Viaje de Sueños (Journey of Dreams) on the Concert Hall stage at the Sydney Opera House during the 2024 Sydney Eisteddfod Ballet Scholarship Finals, and it was good to see the work onstage again. Choreographed by Xanthe Geeves (who is also a Founding Director of the Australian Youth Ballet and Director of the Tanya Pearson Academy) its neoclassical choreography captures the youthful spirit and verve of the dancers performing it while also giving them opportunities to experiment with style and epaulement. Somewhere in the middle, Sophia Hudson and Tristan Penfold danced a brief duet with authority and panache. The Concourse Theatre stage felt just big enough for the largest ensemble scenes, while the auditorium’s shape and size brought the audience close enough to see the dancers’ faces and small stylistic details of their hands and upper body. Composer Daniel Rojas’ original score is the rhythmic pulse that drives the action forward and Viaje de Sueños was simply but elegantly costumed and well lit.
Act 2 Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadère is an iconic work from the classical repertoire (choreographed by Marius Petipa, staged here by Lisa-Maree Cullum) which features a corps de ballet of shades, doppelgängers of Nikiya in a dreamlike vision of Solor and Nikiya’s tragic love. The leading roles of Nikiya and Solor were danced by Guest Artists from the Queensland Ballet, Neneka Yoshida and Patricio Reve. Both principal artists demonstrated an attention to detail and quality of movement. Yoshida’s articulation of her feet as she walked and the expressive delicacy of her hands were lovely to watch and Patricio was a sensitively attuned partner. He has beautiful ballon in the air but his landings are even better, as softly cushioned as you might imagine a cloud. On the whole, the Australian Youth Ballet dancers supporting them did an excellent job. Despite the occasional wobble or loss of turnout, the shades looked appropriately dreamlike and serene with good spacing, consistently stable arabesques and beautifully placed port de bras. While running gracefully in pointe shoes remains a work in progress, that is the case for many pre-professional and even some professional dancers. The choreographed curtain call for La Bayadère was excellent and looked very polished.
The final work was an excerpt from Mario Schröder’s Chaplin. Fast-paced, with a quirky ambience, the projected backdrop of cogs and gears was reminiscent of a key scene from Chaplin’s Modern Times in which Charlie Chaplin, as a factory worker struggling to keep up with the speed and efficiency required of him, ends up getting stuck to great comedic effect. Chaplin’s gifts were so firmly rooted in his physicality and his movement that you can understand why Schröder chose to choreograph a ballet about him. This excerpt has its charm; for many admirers, the man himself and the character he played over and over again are inextricably linked together in memory. The costumes are reminiscent both of the tramp’s recognisable style as well as the black and white era of film in which Chaplin reigned.
Based on this performance, the Australian Youth Ballet may be relatively new but it certainly seems to be on the right path
-Geraldine Higginson