Dancers learn the art of fighting as a Greek nymph falls in love

For all the grace and beauty in ­ballet, it is important to get the fight scenes right too.

Dimity Azoury and Adam Bull, in Australian choreographer Stanton Welch’s production of Sylvia. Picture: Chris Pavlich

For all the grace and beauty in ­ballet, it is important to get the fight scenes right too.

This is why the Australian Ballet hired a fight coach for its latest production of Spartacus, which opened in Melbourne last week.

And it is why the company is ­preparing to train ­another set of dancers in the fine art of swordfighting.

The show in question is Sylvia, a new production by the Houston Ballet’s Australian choreographer Stanton Welch and one of the centre­pieces of the company’s season next year.

Unlike the gladiator battles of Spartacus, all the fighters this time will be women.

“People expect realism on stage,” AB’s artistic director David McAllister said. “You can’t get away with just a bit of ballet fighting anymore. When we’re staging stuff, it’s ­really good to bring in ­experts to make it authentic and real.” In years gone by, choreographers tended to be protective of their patch, McAllister said, resisting the input of external advisors.

But the rehearsal space is now ­a lot more collaborative, drawing on skills from other disciplines in the same way that theatre and opera directors are turning increasingly to choreographers for help.

“Dancers are amazingly athletic and very adept with picking up stuff,” McAllister said. “But when you’ve got an expert to craft it, it makes such a difference.”

McAllister identified a “mystical overlay” to several productions in the company’s 2019 season, which he announced with customary fanfare yesterday.

The season begins with a ­return run of Christopher Wheeldon’s Helpmann award-winning Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, starting in Brisbane in February before moving to ­Melbourne in June.

Graeme Murphy, who celebrated half a century with the company this year, then brings a new version of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince to the stage.

A centrepiece of the season, the show features designs by Kim ­Carpenter as part of a local ­creative team.

The Greek mythology of Sylvia, the story of a nymph huntress who falls for a mortal shepherd, will be seen in Melbourne and Sydney later in the year after its world ­premiere by the Houston Ballet in February.

The company’s other international collaboration will be Lac, a fresh take on Swan Lake by Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, choreographed by Jean-Christophe Maillot.

Like many of his colleagues in the ballet world, McAllister has been watching closely in recent months as scandals engulf the New York City Ballet, where two dancers were fired for ­inappropriately sharing explicit photographs.

Asked about workplace culture at the Australian Ballet, he said he was proud that a strong sense of community and mutual respect had developed within the ­organisation.

While the company has internal workplace policies about ­appropriate behaviour, McAllister said it was necessary to remain constantly vigilant. “We all have a shared commitment to being ­respectful,” he said.