Whenever I am within cooee of a venue for The Australian Ballet’s regional tour I will be there. Port Macquarie, 2023; Newcastle, 2024; Wollongong, 2025. Other places in other years too. I recall a rather long drive to Bathurst eons ago and a Giselle at The Concourse in Sydney’s Chatswood.
I note that TAB now calls this the National Tour, which isn’t exactly wrong but not precisely clear either, given that the main company also moves around the country but is seen only in capital cities. There are many good reasons for this, but still …
Nomenclature aside, the Tour is a precious thing, bringing aspects of TAB to cities that will never see the main company in full flight. The dancers are TAB company members, mostly from the lower ranks (but not always), and senior students from The Australian Ballet School. They present a kind of tasting menu of ballet.
This year Balanchine (Allegro Brillante and the pas de deux from Diamonds) rubs shoulders with contemporary Australian choreographer Lucy Guerin (the new Ground Control) and Act II of The Nutcracker in a version choreographed by Paul Knobloch.
This year the Tour goes to seven cities (three to come) in South Australia, Victoria and NSW. There is no live orchestra for obvious reasons and lighting predominately creates setting but the program is engaging and the audience gets in on the ground floor when it comes to seeing rising talent within the company and the professionals of tomorrow.
That is no small drawcard for committed balletomanes. In Wollongong I bumped into a handful of Sydney balletgoers by chance and there were undoubtedly more.
Balanchine’s Allegro Brilliante, made to Tchaikovsky, is the whirlwind opener, a 14-minute display of exuberant, flowing, plotless classical dance. (It was on last year’s Tour too.) At the performance I saw coryphée Belle Urwin and corps member Alain Juelg were the attractive principal couple, supported by four secondary couples. Irwin’s attack was welcome in a piece that really does need bags of glamour to make its mark. The apparent breeziness is not easy but the cast acquitted itself well.
Balanchine would have most loved the fact that one woman took a tumble – and in time-honoured ballet fashion was up in a flash – because the choreographer thought going for it and falling was much better than holding back.
The pas de deux from Diamonds was up next, with corps member Mio Bayly serene, secure and with that air of the unattainable that makes Diamonds so wonderfully mysterious. Coryphée Adam Elmes was her sensitive swain. Elmes is most often seen in striking contemporary roles so it was good to see him in this guise, albeit intensely serious and a little too reserved. But that’s the thing about the Tour. It puts a blowtorch to the belly of the company’s younger dancers and gives them invaluable experience.
I very much enjoyed the quality of Bayly and Elmes’s eye contact. The when, when not, for how long and so on is crucial in this role.
There’s a lot more for both to find in this piece, particularly in tiny matters of timing (live music would help immensely it goes without saying), but it was touching to see the two exploring it.
Lucy Guerin’s Ground Control is a quartet made for the Tour and to be seen again in DanceX in October when TAB brings together eight companies for a festival covering an enticingly wide range of dance disciplines. (Allegro Brillante is also in DanceX.) In abut 15 minutes and two sections Ground Control blends contemporary and classical impulses. Weight meets the appearance of weightlessness, an image of the ethereal and otherworldly is seen against the solidity of the group. The pointe shoe makes – yes – a point. It was a strong addition to the program.
The Nutcracker Act II has many fewer dancers than a mainstage production can offer but Knobloch’s version has wit, charm and all the expected dances: Spanish, Arabian, Russian, Mirliton and Flowers. I saw coryphée Samara Merrick as an exceptionally poised Sugar Plum Fairy in the traditional grand pas de deux. Her épaulement – the use of head, shoulders and torso – was refined and expressive and the audience loved the fast, confident leaps on to the shoulder of her Prince, Henry Berlin, who partnered handsomely.
Corps member Alexandra Walton was the other standout on the day, first in Ground Control and then, wearing a divine tutu designed by Louisa Fitzgerald, as a delightfully floaty Floral Fairy in The Nutcracker.
Orange, June 28; Dubbo, July 1-2; Tamworth, July 5.
deborah jones: FollowSpot 
I was fortunate enough to catch this program last weekend in Geelong, where the performance played to a capacity audience at Geelong Arts Centre.
Having seen the exact same cast as you have reviewed here, I heartily agree with your comments. A lovely, well matched company of young dancers performing a charming classical program with just a touch of modern dance.
I too made the trip to Geelong (3½ hours train Albury-Melbourne, a further hour on the Melbourne-Geelong train) for opening night, collecting two cousins (one of whom had never seen ballet, the other had never seen live theatre at all) en route.
Alain Juelg was scheduled to dance Allegro Brillante but a badly-timed back twinge saw Belle Urwin and Juelg replaced by Samara Merrick and Henry Berlin – who as a graduate of the School of American Ballet (SAB) has Balanchine in his DNA. They were lovely – not as experienced as 2024’s Isobelle Dashwood and Davi Ramos (as seen in Wagga Wagga), but lovely all the same.
Adam Elmes and Mio Bayly danced the Diamonds pdd, and I do agree – Elmes should get more classical/neoclassical opportunities.
I really, really liked Ground Control, particularly the clever diaphanous ballooning green costume as worn by Belle Urwin, dancing with Harrison Bradley, Berlin and Alexandra Walton. I will happily blow the budget [again] with a trip to DanceX to see it again.
The Nutcracker cast we saw was Walton/Bradley, with Bayly and Berlin as Clara and the Nutcracker, Elmes swirling an emerald-lined cloak with aplomb as Drosselmeyer, and gorgeous Floral Fairy Urwin. Fun fact: as a 12yo at SAB, Berlin performed the same role in Balanchine’s Nutcracker with New York City Ballet.
This year’s level 8 students, particularly Natalie Henry, look very promising.
The ballet novice cousin was enthralled with all of it, the theatre novice cousin had no words. Literally.
Such fun, isn’t it? I can imagine Merrick and Berlin would have been lovely in Allegro Brillante but yes, the extra experience does show (I saw Dashwood and Ramos in Newcastle). Gorgeous to hear that the novices loved the show.