Black swans land on reimagined classic

West Australian Ballet’s profoundly beautiful Swan Lake brings the story to the lands and waterways of the Noongar people.

Oscar Valdes as Sebastian and Kiki Saito as Odette with the dancers of West Australian Ballet in Swan Lake. Picture: Clinton Bradbury

A woman-swan lies huddled on the ground, grievously wounded. A protective group of Noongar Beeliar, the people of the Swan River, gathers around her under a star-filled sky, summoned by an ancient song.

The soul of the piece is here, right at the start of West Australian Ballet’s boldly conceived adaptation of Swan Lake. The ballet is removed far from its European roots and built around the Noongar Beeliar’s spiritual connection with land and their Black Swan totem. The Noongar experience is woven tightly into the structure and there isn’t a royal court within cooee.

There is noble intent. That’s not in question. The surprise is seeing how well Noongar culture and classical ballet combine given the polar opposition of dance styles. One stamps itself into the earth while the other is in constant denial of gravity’s downward pressure.

Krzysztof Pastor’s production unfolds at the port of Fremantle, in Perth and on the banks of the Swan, locations lovingly rendered in Phil R. Daniels’s set and Jon Buswell’s magical lighting. Prince Siegfried is now Sebastian (Oscar Valdes on opening night, Matthew Lehmann in the second cast). He’s the son of a businessman who loathes Sebastian’s transformative friendship with Noongar Elder Mowadji (charismatic guest artist Kyle Morrison at all performances). The simple turn of the man’s back to Mowadji speaks volumes.

Kiki Saito as Odette with Carina Roberts, Claire Voss, Mayume Noguromi and Candice Adea in Swan Lake. Picture: Clinton Bradbury

An unwanted marriage is arranged, Sebastian is tricked into thinking one woman is another and tragedy ensues. Sticking essentially to the bones of the traditional narrative, Pastor has split the roles of Odette and Odile, with Odile introduced early as the daughter of a second land-grabbing businessman. His alter ego is a bird of prey, a mighty wedge-tailed eagle who harries the swans.

Pastor, who created the ballet in close consultation with Noongar leader Barry McGuire, wisely keeps the beloved Act II choreography mostly intact. White-clad Odette apart, the swans are arrayed in Charles Cusack Smith’s stunning black tutus with touches of red, making them look unusually authoritative and beyond glamorous.

On opening night the rafters rang for Kiki Saito’s exquisite, ethereal Odette. The following night Dayana Hardy Acuna, intense and sorrowing, was entirely different and equally affecting. Predictably and rightly on both nights the Cygnets were cheered to the echo.

Pastor elsewhere creates a lively mix of the familiar and the new, delivered with winning exuberance by a company looking sleek and confident. Some intonation and accuracy issues marred the West Australian Philharmonic Orchestra’s otherwise solid delivery of the Tchaikovsky score on both evenings and conductor Jessica Gethin was clearly attuned to the needs of the dancers.

Pastor’s repositioning of some national dances makes sense, alas something that can’t be said about the muddled third act. There’s no subtlety or magic as a too-rapacious Odile vamps Sebastian while wearing a vast white feathered cape (she must be Odette!) and cavorts with the Spanish troupe that inexplicably escorts her.

Barry McGuire as Boodja Wiirn, Spirit of the Land. Picture: Clinton Bradbury

Second-cast Carina Roberts was less obviously scheming than opening night’s Chihiro Nomura but nothing can save this idea. Too bad, because the interaction is vital to plot and character. Sebastian, already a far less imposing figure than Morrison’s Mowadji, looks weak and foolish. No number of Odile’s showpiece fouettes can compensate.

Pluses, though, outweigh minuses by a large degree. Barry McGuire’s song is heard over the last bars of Tchaikovsky and the Noongar Beeliar gather up Sebastian. It’s a profoundly beautiful ending to a Swan Lake like no other.

Swan Lake. West Australian Ballet with Gya Ngoop Keeninyarra (One Blood Dancers). His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, November 18 and 19. Tickets: $24-$202. Bookings: online. Duration: 2hr 20min including interval. Ends December 11.