An open meadow
Signature Works
The Australian Ballet
Sunday 1st March, 2026
Regent Theatre, Melbourne
La Bayadère excerpt, The Kingdom of the Shades
Choreography after Marius Petipa
Flames of Paris pas de deux
Choreography after Vasili Vainonen
This Moment
Choreography: Yuiko Masukawa
Grand Pas Classique pas de deux
Choreography after Victor Gsovsky
Morpheus’ Dream
Choreography: Marco Goecke
Grande Tarantella
Choreography: Walter Bourke
Ballet Imperial
Choreography: George Balanchine
Heartfelt moments, my response to The Australian Ballet’s Signature Works, drawn up especially for Fjord Review.
The Australian Ballet’s Signature Works, as a whole, is a compact and varied celebration of dance in the moment. Just as dancers are attuned to each moment, the Signature Works line up asks the audience to be present. Listening, as dancers do to their bodies, the audience is asked to read the dance, feel what it evokes within them, and carry forth this attention and questioning: what is being seen, what are they doing, what are we celebrating? Prowess, artistry, and a “sense of these beautiful dancers performing exactly as they are now,”[i] such things spring from a supportive foundation, where ‘where have we come from?’ answers ‘where are we going?’
And as such Jeremy Hargreaves and Amy Ronnfeldt hover before me like two dimorphic insects, in The Moment by Yuiko Masukawa. In costumes designed by Ailsa Woodyard, a transparent skirt of Ronnfeldt reads like wings, fluttering, as Hargreaves raises her lightly overhead. Just as a pas de deux requires one dancer to be in tune with another, moving in relation, connected, if not always physically, but emotionally, Masukawa seems to be inviting the audience to do the same. “To be in a moment with the dancers,”[ii] sharing what they are feeling. Set to Caroline Shaw’s Plan & Elevation[iii], Masukawa picks up this thread and weaves it further, bringing the warmth and individuality of each dancer forward. Meshing classical with contemporary, past with present, the flickering lines within both the music and unfurling upon stage read heartfelt.
Amy Ronnfeldt and Jeremy Hargreaves in Yuiko Masukawa’s This Moment, photographed by Kate Longley
All that is heartfelt embodies the feel of the opening of the Australian Ballet’s 2026 season at the Regent Theatre, for its third and final year before returning to the Arts Centre, and the Ian Potter State Theatre’s stage (formerly State Theatre) in October. Presented over three performances on a single weekend, Signature Works opens with the hypnotic Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadère, with choreography after Marius Petipa; followed by leaps of vigour in the Flames of Paris pas de deux, with choreography after Vasili Vainonen, energetically fanned by soloists Samara Merrick and Marko Juusela; detours by way of Marco Goecke’s Morpheus’ Dream; before settling into George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial, the first Balanchine work staged by the company in 1967. These giddy dips form an cumulative experience of joy, as the Grand Pas Classique pas de deux, with choreography after Victor Gsovsky, staged by David McAllister, is sewn alongside Walter Bourke’s tambourine-resplendent Grande Tarantella to make a sparkling gala night, in feel if not in name.
The scaffolding of a book and dance are not so dissimilar. From the supportive framework, the space around the reader or the audience is an open meadow. The journey, though carefully plotted, took me on unexpected turns, and it was especially wonderful to see principal artists Sharni Spencer and Joseph Caley return to the stage, from maternity leave and injury, respectively. To meet new faces to the company as well, with Precious Adams, from English National Ballet, twinkling alongside fellow senior artists Rina Nemoto and Yuumi Yamada (Trio of Shades, La Bayadère), and later soloist Katherine Sonnekus and coryphée Larissa Kiyoto-Ward (Ballet Imperial).
In 1985, Elizabeth Toohey and former artistic director David McAllister won bronze medal at the Fifth International Ballet Competition in Moscow, dancing Walter Bourke’s Grande Tarantella. A signature work of the company for many years, soloist Aya Watanabe and senior artist Cameron Holmes, leap as if skittering atop the very ivories of Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s piano, such is the work’s toe-tapping brightness, where the music takes shape before my eyes. Of which Spencer, partnered by senior artist Davi Ramos, together chime as they pay homage to Petipa and Gsovsky in the smile-inducing Grand Pas Classique. Principal Robyn Hendricks’s transformative presence upon the stage, as both temple dancer, Nikiya, at the tale’s opening, and Ballet Imperial at the close, ever evokes a sense of though the (outside) world might have slipped her moorings, all is not lost.
Of brightness and elegance, in the moment, exquisitely.
[i] Yuiko Masukawa (transcribed) in interview, ‘Signature Works — Creating This Moment with Choreographer Yuiko Masukawa’, The Australian Ballet YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxNtw4-dc3Q, accessed 2nd March, 2026.
[ii] “Being part of this program, alongside choreographers whose work I have admired for so many years, makes the experience even more meaningful. Because this opportunity holds such significance for me, I felt a strong desire … to be fully present in every moment of the process.” Yuiko Masukawa quoted by Heather Bloom, ‘Every Second Counts’, 20th February, 2026, The Australian Ballet blog, https://australianballet.com.au/blog/every-second-counts, 2nd March, 2026.
[iii] From the formal garden notes of The Herbaceous Border (III), to the “fractured shadows … as the light tries to peek through the leaves” of The Orangery (IV), before finally pausing beneath the ancient and protective knowledge of The Beech Tree (V), the world which emerges is lyrical. Just as Shaw made a world of her own, Masukawa references both the past and a place less familiar. Caroline Shaw, Plan & Elevation: The Grounds of Dumbarton Oaks, I–V, https://caroline-shaw-editions.myshopify.com/products/plan-and-elevation, accessed 2nd March, 2026.
La Bayadère excerpt, The Kingdom of the Shades
Choreography after Marius Petipa
Robyn Hendricks (Nikiya)
Davi Ramos (Solor)
Rina Nemoto (Trio)
Precious Adams (Trio)
Yuumi Yamada (Trio)
Flames of Paris pas de deux
Choreography after Vasili Vainonen
Samara Merrick
Marko Juusela
This Moment
Choreography: Yuiko Masukawa
Henry Berlin
Jeremy Hargreaves
Amy Ronnfeldt
Alexandra Walton
Grand Pas Classique pas de deux
Choreography after Victor Gsovsky
Sharni Spencer
Davi Ramos
Morpheus’ Dream
Choreography: Marco Goecke
Larissa Kiyoto-Ward
Corey Gavan
Grande Tarantella
Choreography: Walter Bourke
Aya Watanabe
Cameron Holmes
Ballet Imperial
Choreography: George Balanchine
Robyn Hendricks
Joseph Caley
Precious Adams
Katherine Sonnekus
Larissa Kiyoto-Ward
Marko Juusela
Brodie James
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Image credit: The Australian Ballet La Bayadère excerpt, The Kingdom of the Shades, presented as part of Signature Works, by Kate Longley
