DanceX: Festival of Dance
Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
Reviewed Wednesday October 8, 2025
Week 1 Program:
Royal New Zealand Ballet, Te Ao Mārama
Restless Dance Theatre, Seeing Through Darkness
The Australian Ballet and The Australian Ballet School, Allegro Brillante
The Australian Ballet and Lucy Guerin, Ground Control
Dancenorth Australia, Wayfinder (excerpt)
The Australian Ballet’s curated programme of high-calibre Australasian dance, “DanceX” was the perfect amusebouche of diverse dance works, dance histories, and dance cultures.
Opening the evening was Te Ao Mārama (2023), a work made by Maori man Moss Te Ururangi Patterson for the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s 70th anniversary and performed by the men of RNZB. This was a powerfully exciting presentation of Aetorea’s cultural history re-interpreted through the structure of concert dance. With a score by Shayne Carter and Ariana Tikao and original lighting design by Jon Buswell, this work brought the richness of the haka as a movement language to the fore. The men of RNZB were staunchly committed in their use of dynamic extension, deep sustained lunges, and vocal work, shifting away from the demands of classical ballet to spotlight the importance of placing localised cultural histories in conversation with new dance creations.
Following, and at the other end of the dance spectrum, was George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante (1956). Performed by the Australian Ballet’s Samara Merrick and Henry Berlin as the principal couple and with dancers of the Australian Ballet School as the corps de ballet, this was a beautifully condensed touchstone of the Balanchine style. Merrick and Berlin were impressive in their execution of very challenging choreography, moving seamlessly between indulgent extensions and crisp battus, though perhaps a little too controlled for the likes of Balanchine’s typical risky provocations. The ABS dancers equally rose to the task of the Balanchine style, though I would encourage them to trust their technique and really embody the music as they become more confident in the work. With Allegro Brillante’s accompaniment of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 75, this work exemplifies the Balanchine approach to “seeing the music, and hearing the dance”, and it is this motto that we should see the Australian Ballet dancers strive to embody in their restaging of the grand maestro’s works.
With Seeing Through Darkness (2020), the artists of Restless Dance Theatre provided a stunning piece of connection, embodiment, and musical expression. Choreographed by the company’s artistic director Michelle Ryan, Seeing Through Darkness took inspiration from the wild figuration of early-20th century expressionist painter George Rouault’s. Under the creative motion lighting by Geoff Cobham, the artists of Restless Dance Theatre used heightened emotion, intense colour, and abstracted form to transform the stage into a canvas, fusing dance technique with fauvist expression to form a work of vibrant poetry. Through intricate solo choreography and collaborative weight-bearing movements, the artists captured the essential power of dance: presence, connection, and expression of the inexpressible, presenting a moving and earnest work of dance theatre.
Lucy Guerin’s new work for the Australian Ballet, Ground Control (2025), was a fiercely sexy and evocative piece of contemporary ballet. Featuring four dancers from the Australian Ballet, Ground Control explored the tension of the central driving distinction between classical and contemporary technique: classical ballet approaches gravity by way of opposition, striving for lift and lightness despite gravity’s pull towards the earth. Contemporary dance, by contrast, embraces gravity’s pull, using its organic effect as an animating force for the body to find softness, flow, release, and collapse. Guerin’s exploration of the contrasts between these two modes, in her stylised minimalist angularity, provided rich choreographic terrain. Accompanied sonically by Daniel Avery and James Greenwood’s Sensation (Rrose Remix) performed by Avery and Rrose; Rrose and Lucy’s Inverted Limb; and Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Choir, Movement IV; and featuring exquisitely strange costuming by Kate Davis, Ground Control presented a sublime universe of classical codes made fresh by contemporary interventions. Go for the bucolic ménage à trois tableau, stay for Schnittke’s haunting melodies: I’m still swept up by them while writing this morning.
The excerpt of Wayfinder (2022) by Townsville-based Dancenorth provided the perfect high to finish the show. Choreographed by Dancenorth’s director and associate director Kyle Page and Amber Haines, Wayfinder opened with the group of dance artists, comprising Sabine Crompton-Ward, Tiana Lung, Aleeya McFadyen-Rew, Damian Meredith, Darci O'Rourke, Felix Sampson, Michael Smith and Latisha Sparks, wearing what looked to be colourful retro fitness gear in the washed out lighting. Accompanied by the groovy vocals of Melbourne-based band Hiatus Kaiyote, the dancer’s movements were synchronised but bouncy, reminiscent of a high school aerobics class. A deluge of thick colourful confetti, almost like giant ‘killer python’ candy, fell from the sky, signalling a vibe shift. Suddenly costumes looked modern, juicy, and bright under new lighting, and movement textures became gummy, with breakbeats and breakdance, energetic drumming and energetic gyrating, filled the stage. Dancers performed impressive yet whimsical pyrotechnics, threading in between each other, over and under. Use of strobe lighting was excellent, adding moments of suspension and party atmosphere. Dancenorth’s use of a polyrhythm consultant in this work, Naomi Jean, was evident and undoubtedly took the work to the next level - the complex rhythms of Hiatus Kaiyote’s music score brought to life by dynamic dancing was hypnotising. No notes, Wayfinder is a great show, and the perfect dessert to finish the “DanceX” buffet.
DanceX runs at the Arts Centre Melbourne until October 19, 2025.
Tickets available here.
-Belle Beasley