Australian Ballet’s Vitesse: Kylian, Forsythe and Wheeldon

The Australian Ballet turns up the dial in certified hits from three of the biggest names in contemporary ballet.

Forgotten Land Lana Jones Rudy Hawkes PhotoKate Longley

Vitesse presents three certified hits from three of the biggest names in contemporary ballet and turns the dial up as the evening progresses.

It starts with one of Jiri Kylian’s mysterious appeals to the heart, takes a charge through the cerebral and physical complexities of William Forsythe and finishes with Christopher Wheeldon being fast, flashy and entertaining.

A bonus is the number of featured roles for dancers at the lower end of the rankings. On opening night, Kylian’s emotionally charged Forgotten Land had three corps de ballet members and two coryphees among its six couples. At the curtain, Ella Havelka (from the corps) had a smile radiant enough to light the auditorium, and why not? She looked wonderful in Kylian’s passionate choreography, as did the full cast.

The AB has an affinity for Kylian and on Friday night Forgotten Land, an abstract dance that evokes life’s joys and sorrows, was the most fully realised, piece although all had many high points.

Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated is nearly 30 years old and could not be stricter in its use of classical technique but still has the ability to disturb one’s equilibrium (a marvellous solitary boo from the stalls on Friday proved that). To Thom Willems’s tough-as-nails electronic score — surely the volume has been turned down over the years, not to advantage — six women and three men take ballet to the wilder outskirts of town with off-centre balances, split-second changes of direction, sinuous torquing of the upper body and extreme extensions.

Not everyone in the first cast entirely captured the work’s formidable contrasts between action and stillness and thrust and resistance, but principal Kevin Jackson looked like a god and alone was worth the price of admission on the night.

Wheeldon’s DGV: Danse a Grande Vitesse is a large-scale hymn to going places as it evokes speed, travel and the momentum of technology. It couldn’t be called profound but it’s smart as paint and smartly danced by the AB, although without the drop-dead glamour New York City Ballet brings to it, a quality helpful to a work that’s essentially all surface. It’s a terrific surface though, with the large corps suggesting the waves of departing crowds, the actions of a train in motion and the heady rush of groups in transit. Four strong pas de deux anchor DGV and principal Chengwu Guo provided some fancy fireworks.

Nicolette Fraillon and Orchestra Victoria accompanied the first and third works with music that couldn’t be in greater contrast: Benjamin Britten’s intense, melancholy Sinfonia da Requiem and Michael Nyman’s perpetual-motion MGV: (Musique a Grande ­Vitesse).

Dance: Vitesse. The Australian Ballet. State Theatre, Melbourne, March 11.

Tickets: $42-$222. Bookings: 1300 182 183 or online. Duration: 2hr 15min including two intervals. Until March 21. Then Sydney, April 26-May 16.