The Australian Ballet’s recent appearances at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden got plenty of attention here and in the UK. Travelling somewhat under the radar was another touring venture, a triple bill taken to eight cities in Victoria and NSW. Think Geelong, Albury, Griffith, Dubbo and so on. (Other states are visited in alternate years.)

This regional outreach is called The Australian Ballet On Tour – previously known as The Dancers Company – and features TAB company members alongside senior students from The Australian Ballet School who, by the way, looked ready and eager to join the profession.

One might think the London gig would be the bigger prize for dancers but closer inspection suggests not, or at least not for all. The company dancers on the regional tour – six of them – were all from the corps de ballet, the bottom company rank. In London, where the company performed George Balanchine’s Jewels, they would have been in the anonymous massed ranks supporting the glittering lead couple in Diamonds or taking a back seat to the zesty lead couple in Rubies. 

In the likes of Port Macquarie, where I saw the final On Tour performances in that city’s very fine Glasshouse, they were dancing Prince Desirée, Aurora, Princess Florine and Bluebird in the third act of The Sleeping Beauty. They were creating roles in Lucas Jervies’s new The Vow, a one-act piece as reliant on acting as on dancing for its success. And, with Circle Electric, they were the first TAB dancers to get a chance to work with Stephanie Lake, currently the hottest name in Australian contemporary dance. Her Colossus (2018) is a must-have at festivals around the world and last year’s exhilarating drum-fest Manifesto has also been seen internationally and is getting revival seasons here. 

On Tour opened with The Vow, a narrative ballet in which all does not go smoothly at an Australian country wedding. In a graceful nod to TAB’s 60^th anniversary year, the name of the bride, Peggy, clearly pays homage to the company’s founding artistic director, London-born Peggy van Praagh. The British tradition that shaped her is still noted for valuing dramatic truth in dance and Jervies honours that. The Vow has a contemporary setting but if you separated some of the guests from their mobile phones the piece could easily pass for something from an earlier time.

The story is simple. An ex-boyfriend crashes a wedding and arouses conflicting feelings in the bride. At the end, order is restored. The Vow is well-crafted, moving easily from natural, if heightened, behaviour to dance and from external action to internal turmoil. 

The key role is that of Peter, Peggy’s ex, whose arrival at the wedding puts the cat among the pigeons. There’s a terrific solo for Peter, finely delineated pas de deux for the bride and her former and current loves, pleasing ensemble dances that use the ABS students well and engaging by-play for all. Well, the camp wedding planner is a bit obvious but it’s nice to see him get to partner a man while all around him there are the male-female pairings ubiquitous in ballet.  

One could argue that Jervies should have chosen an Australian score for The Vowbut it was, nevertheless, fascinating to hear the slightly unsettling arrangement of Grieg’s Peer Gynt by Norwegian composer Tormod Tvete Vik. In the Hall of the Mountain King and Solveig’s Song, both so familiar and beloved, served Jervies’s purposes well. 

The evening closed with a version of Act III of The Sleeping Beauty, parts of it adapted by TAB répétiteur Paul Knobloch to give more stage time to the ABS dancers. Regional touring doesn’t allow for live music but it was a pity that the selected Beauty recording was rather dull. 

In between came Stephanie Lake’s first TAB commission, Circle Electric, to an electronic score by her partner and frequent collaborator Robin Fox. As always Fox’s music was indivisible from the action, although possibly he dialled it back just a touch for ballet company purposes. It still got the juices flowing.

It’s pretty hard to stay away from words associated with electricity when talking about this work so let’s get them out of the way. Circle Electric is highly charged. It’s about plugging into different kinds of energy, about the good buzz of being together and the not so good of finding the network shut down. This being dance, these ideas were fully embodied by Circle Electric’s six performers, all of whom collaborated with Lake on the movement. When Fox’s score was filled with static the dancers responded as if conduits for a current. A strong beat wasn’t only heard; it had visible physical impact as dancers flinched or shook. 

The piece looked intriguing even before it started. There was a circle (obviously) ringed with lights on stands – think a football stadium, only a hellava lot smaller. A cone of light from high up (Bosco Shaw’s design) pierced the gloom. The atmosphere was gladiatorial and nothing the dancers did dispelled that impression. It was an arena in which the abstract became personal.

At only 15 minutes in length Circle Electric didn’t waste a moment. Dancers raced on and off as they enacted relationships between pairs, trios, the group, whatever. There were, not surprisingly, circle dances of different, rousing kinds and a brief but beautiful vine-like dance that started with half the dancers and ended with them all crossing the stage in the half dark. Lake is good at the unexpected, even as she continues to mine ideas and emotions important in her other works. 

The line-up of three women and three men may have been dictated by the needs of the touring program as a whole – I don’t know, but it sounds sensible – but everyone was equal in the electric circle. Gender wasn’t an issue in the flickering light of people connecting and disconnecting, sometimes like pugilists or wrestlers, sometimes like lovers or friends.

I was able to see Circle Electric at both the matinee and evening performances and it repaid the attention. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of it. 

Circle Electric was danced on tour by TAB company members Sara Andrlon, Hugo Dumapit, Lilla Harvey, Cameron Holmes, Samara Merrick and Maxim Zenin, all transfixing. They all had their moments elsewhere too.

It was good to see Zenin, who has the bearing of a danseur noble, look so striking in Circle Electric. Andrlon was a powerhouse in Circle Electric and then about half an hour later a radiant Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, so calm, poised and elegant. Merrick’s expressive back and arms gave a lovely sense of youth and freedom, making her a glowing Aurora and an even better Princess Florine. Harvey’s eloquent face and strong dramatic instincts made her bride, Peggy, memorable in The Vow. Dumapit also shone in Jervies’s ballet, playing the ex-boyfriend at the matinee and the husband in the evening. In him you could see the differences, not so very vast but important, between the two characters. Holmes raised the stakes by going in the other direction in The Vow. His brooding, intense performance as the ex-boyfriend showed exactly why he would have been an exciting boyfriend and a dangerous husband.     

The regions were extremely well served by this program. Who needs London?