The Royal New Zealand Ballet 2024 season begins with the annual Tutus on Tour program which will highlight popular sections of Russell Kerr’s production of Swan Lake.
World premieres by Alice Topp and Sarah Foster-Sproull, the New Zealand premiere of Wayne McGregor’s Infra, and the return of Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream round out the year.
Royal New Zealand Ballet 2024 Season Trailer
Royal New Zealand Ballet 2024 Season Schedule
February 23 – March 16, 2024 | Various Locations
As a prelude to 2024’s major revival, Tutus on Tour will feature excerpts from Russell Kerr’s beautiful production of Swan Lake. Performances will include the “Black Swan pas de deux“, the famous “Cygnets’ quartet“, the graceful Pas de Trois from Act I and the grand Hungarian and Spanish dances from Act III.
Choreographer in Residence Shaun James Kelly’s Prismatic, inspired by Kerr’s landmark Prismatic Variations, is set to the music of Johannes Brahms. Commissioned to mark the RNZB’s 70th birthday in 2023, Prismatic will include all the hallmarks of Kelly’s confident choreographic style, grounded in traditional ballet technique and inspired by the rhythmic and melodics arc of the soaring score.
Rounding out the program is Clay by Alice Topp, the mesmerising, emotionally charged pas de deux which opens her acclimed Logos, first seen in Aotearoa in 2023.
May 1 – June 2, 2024 | Various Locations
With Tchaikovsky’s sweeping score – lush, romantic, instantly recognizable – and Kristian Fredrikson’s opulent designs, gorgeously lit by Jon Buswell, Russell Kerrs Swan Lake transports the audience from the palace ballroom to the lakeside in wave upon wave of beauty and emotion.
“We are thrilled to be able to present this beautiful production, not seen in Aotearoa since 2013, with the support of colleagues from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Wellington, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra in Ōtautahi, and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in Tāmaki Makaurau, all under the baton of Principal Conductor Hamish McKeich.
Swan Lake is a ballet that all dancers aspire to perform and there is a huge excitement in the company to be performing this iconic production again, following in the footsteps of so many of the RNZB’s former stars.”
– David McAllister, Acting Artistic Director of RNZB
August 1-17, 2024 | Various Locations
The New Zealand premiere of his Infra, created for London’s Royal Ballet in 2008 by Wayne McGregor, represents an artistic coup for the RNZB. Choreographed for an ensemble of twelve uniquely gifted dancers at the height of their powers, and set to a slowly drifting, soulful score by Max Richter, Infra is a profoundly moving meditation on the loneliness, connections and consolations that lie beneath the teeming surface of the city.
Choreographer in Residence Foster-Sproull creates To Hold, her fifth work for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, collaborating closely with the dancers to create a ballet that takes a new look at the astonishing machine that is the human body: shape shifting, endlessly inventive and always greater than the sum of its parts.
RNZB alumna and Resident Choreographer at The Australian Ballet Alice Topp creates High Tide, her first original work for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, inspired by the music of Australian composer Graeme Koehne. High Tide is a tender depiction of the never-ending morphosis from birth to death and is inspired by the human condition: growing pains, growing apart and growing together and learning to love and live with the light and shade, youth and age, within us all.
October 24 – December 14, 2024 | Various Locations
Liam Scarlett created A Midsummer Night’s Dream for RNZB in 2015 featuring distinguished New Zealand designer Tracy Grant Lord’s glorious vision of Shakespeare’s iconic characters and enchanted wood, illuminated with lighting by Kendall Smith.
Featured Photo for the Royal New Zealand Ballet 2024 Season of Principal Dancer Mayu Tanigaito in Swan Lake. Photo by Ross Brown.
