Hallberg shows the way as Australian Ballet stars expand boundaries of dance

David Hallberg has brought an extraordinary and challenging work to the Australian Ballet that is exciting, strange and beautiful.

Timothy Coleman and Dana Stevensen in the Australian Ballet’s Kunstkamer. Picture: Prudence Upton

David Hallberg is leading from the front with passionate conviction. Kunstkamer is the first big new work he has brought into The Australian Ballet and not only did he secure this extraordinary, mind-expanding work for the company, he has a central role in it too.

Hallberg plays a kind of spirit guide through Kunstkamer, which means chamber of art. (At some performances Jorge Nozal takes the part.) It’s as far from the Nutcracker Prince as you could possibly get but proves Hallberg still has the unearthly beauty, ravishing line and gloriously arched feet that made him so prized in the conventional ballet repertoire.

His appearance makes quite a statement. It’s an onstage version, really, of what he wants for the company and its audience. The dancers are guided towards a more challenging idea of their possibilities as artists and the audience to a wider perspective on dance.

Last year’s one-act commission, Watermark, by leading contemporary choreograph Pam Tanowitz, was just a shot across the bows in terms of Hallberg’s vision. Watermark was rigorous, exciting, strange and beautiful. It looked wonderful on the dancers. In a radically different way, the full-length Kunstkamer is rigorous, exciting, strange and beautiful. Eccentric sometimes to be sure but never for a moment anything other than utterly fascinating.

Kunstkamer was made for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2019 as a celebration of its 60th anniversary, a milestone reached by The Australian Ballet this year. The work was inspired by Albertus Seba’s 1731 book, Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, and collects and arranges images, ideas, movements and sounds to excavate life’s marvellous complexity.

Paul Lightfoot, a former artistic director of NDT, is Kunstkamer’s prime mover but not its only choreographer. Dances by Lightfoot, Sol Leon, Marco Goecke and the glorious Crystal Pite are interwoven in the way an art gallery might place different paintings together in one room to spark new ways of seeing and feeling.

There are jittery, manic, elastic exaggerations from Goecke to jaunty Strauss polkas, an unlikely partnership if ever there was. It’s strangely touching. Pite’s uncanny command of vast forces gets the blood pumping and eyes welling to the sounds of Beethoven and Schubert. Leon creates indelible images of drama and love, most ravishingly in a sensual pas de deux for Benedicte Bemet and Callum Linnane of almost shocking intimacy.

Lightfoot contributes striking groups and solos to pizzicato music by Bartok and Britten in which corps de ballet members Benjamin Garrett and Elijah Trevitt shine. Others in the corps have shining moments elsewhere, including Grace Carroll, poised beyond her years and, above all, Adam Elmes. Elmes is Hallberg’s apprentice or perhaps his alter ego and holds his own against one of the finest dancers of any generation. It’s thrilling to see young talent in this new light.

At the end, Lightfoot gives voice to artists who are usually silent. Yes, dancers can sing. Who knew?

Kunstkamer is a magic box of treasures. Walls move, doors open and close, Hallberg appears and disappears. A woman falls from an upper door and is caught, twice. At one point a pianist – Duncan Salton on opening night – is seen at the back of the stage playing Schubert as dancers mass. So much dancing and so much great music from the Opera Australia Orchestra with Nicolette Fraillon in command. The company is on fire. The dance-loving world will be divided into those who have seen it and those who, sadly, have not.

Kunstkamer. The Australian Ballet, Sydney Opera House, April 29. Tickets: $59-$333. Bookings: 02 9250 7777. Duration: 2hrs 20mins including interval. Ends May 14. Melbourne June 3-11.