It could be said that, through the prism of ballet, the visual experience of its physical movement and the infinite possibilities yielded by its permutations refract through our being to produce a spectrum of responses and emotional colour. That’s one way of looking at The Australian Ballet’s spring season triple bill opener, entitled Prism.
The program features the work of three world class choreographers – the legendary late American Jerome Robbins, American William Forsythe and Resident Choreographer of The Australian Ballet, Stephanie Lake. From melting escapism to challenging uneasiness, a broad range of responses are guaranteed for its audience.
In the first part, it’s a double helping of superlative art, headed by Robbins’ Glass Pieces – a work from 1983 in its Australian premiere – followed by Lake’s world premiere, Seven Days. Both works, each around 30 minutes in duration, share a mesmerising synchronicity of dance and music.
The pleasure of basking in their choreographic beauty and sophistication, sometimes achieved with simple, pedestrian gestures – even ordinary folk like myself might even be capable of executing – is thoroughly rewarding and strikingly timeless. And the company of dancers excel.
Danced to the spellbinding music of Philip Glass, Robbins’ abstraction of New York City’s urban kinetics in Glass Pieces might bring to mind the dynamic rhythms achieved in Dutch artist Piet Mondrian’s rectilinear, circuit-like rendition of New York in his iconic 1943 work, Broadway Boogie Woogie.
In the ballet’s opening sequence, Rubric, and like Mondrian’s work, Ronald Bates and Robbins’ set design acts much like an artist’s canvas while dancers stream in and out in Ben Benson’s mostly body-hugging costumes of varying solid colours under Jennifer Tipton’s attuned lighting.
Robbins’ modern dance style comes with a neoclassical approach in a narrative of dynamic interactions. Groups of corps dancers are contrasted with three featured couples who weave and dart through the crowd, splitting and re-pairing in graceful fluidity.
In the subdued light of Facades, a conveyor-like background of silhouetted dancers progress across the stage before two dancers (principal artist Robyn Hendricks and soloist Maxim Zenin) enter for a dynamically charged duet to create a stunningly ethereal experience.
In its clever combination of separated background repetition and foreground flourishes, the total result becomes a profoundly effective mechanism for equalising humankind’s value. It concludes with the highly energetic Akhnaten with its more flamboyant and agitatedly danced sequence in what could be considered a celebration of urban movement.
Lake’s world premiere piece, Seven Days, is an intoxicating, spirited joy from start to finish. Whereas the repetitive structure of Glass’s score drives the choreography, in which the dance reflects the music’s intricate rhythms, Lake’s collaboration with composer Peter Brikmanis and his pulsating interpretations of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations creates a synchronicity in which dance appears to manipulate the music as much as music is used to guide the dance.
Made up of a small ensemble of seven, it opens with the dancers huddled in a circle before they peel off to create formations that seductively morph from one to the other.
Characterised by sharp changes of movement and split-second timing differences from one dancer to the next, a variety of images are conjured, including that of hammers striking the strings of a piano and the coiling of a spring under changing forces.
The detail in Lake’s mechanical-like work is enhanced markedly by the dancers’ expressive delight in revealing the inbuilt wittiness and amusement, particularly so when things go momentarily (and intentionally) awry.
In a work that continually engages, the later incorporation of dance and movement with seven chairs has the audience in laughs as one dancer sustains an incredible zigzagging upside down pose while the others respond in a WTF look before another becomes chair-less as the remaining six shift in either direction.
Across its seven variations, in which the dancers return to their huddle at the start of each, the music builds to great depth and intensity. Visual clarity is achieved by Lake’s minimalist open stage design, Bosco Shaw’s focused lighting and Kate Davis’ unfussy fire-flame-orange hued costumes.
Seven Days is as much an exposé of unity as it is of accommodating change. It’s also deserving to mention the impeccably danced performances by Adam Elmes, Benjamin Garrett, Callum Linnane, Elijah Trevitt, Yara Xu, Lilla Harvey and Samara Merrick.
Robbins and Lake’s work could not have been better elevated than having the sensational musicianship of Orchestra Victoria (OV) at hand under the baton of Charles Barker.
But then the spell of synchronicity and cushioned comfort was broken when – after OV signed off by 9pm at the end of the first part – English singer and songwriter James Blake’s twanging, clanky, harsh electronic music accompanied William Forsythe’s Blake Works V (The Barre Project) making it somewhat near impossible to feel moved.
Similarly in its Australian premiere, Forsythe’s powerful fusion of classical and contemporary influences integrate the demand for superb athleticism with exceptional control. The 10 dancers – 5 male and 5 female – are faultless in their performances.
In a work born of the influences of the worldwide lockdowns during COVID-19, the choreographic composition is both structurally formulated yet pleasantly organic in its form for solo dancer or duets as well as trios, quartets and full ensemble.
Intended or not, however, the sense of individualist self-promotion prevails with dancers competing rather than working with each other.
It also doesn’t help that the entire journey seems to be danced to a completely different score and neither by Forsythe’s uninspiring black costumes and mono-tonal design that incorporates a lengthy projected interlude of hand work at the barre. A strangely abrupt conclusion only adds to the disappointment.
Nevertheless, the artists of The Australian Ballet demonstrate the depth of their artistic talents and feeling their energy in live performance is something to behold. Prism affords that opportunity in spades.
PRISM
Regent Theatre, Collins Street, Melbourne
Performance: Thursday 25 September 2025
Season continues to 4 October 2025
Information and Bookings: www.australianballet.com.au
Joan Sutherland Theatre – Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point, Sydney
Season: 7 – 15 November 2025
Information and Bookings: www.australianballet.com.au
Images: Robyn Hendricks and Maxim Zenin in Glass Pieces (Robbins) – photo by Kate Longley | Artists of The Australian Ballet in Glass Pieces (Robbins) – photo by Kate Longley | Artists of The Australian Ballet in Seven Days (Lake) – photo by Kate Longley | Callum Linnane and Benjamin Garrett in Seven Days (Lake) – photo by Kate Longley | Lilla Harvey in Blake Works V (The Barre Project) (Forsythe) – photo by Kate Longley |
Review: Paul Selar