Ballet preserves essence of choreographers' work

Sir Russell Kerr says he has done nothing more than fine tune a few things for the Royal New Zealand Ballet's Swan Lake. Until the week before opening night, he will be directing the production from afar - his home city of Christchurch - a new experience for him but made possible by technology.

The spectacular that is Swan Lake is a tale of tragic love between Odette, a princess trapped in the body of a swan by day by an evil sorcerer's curse, and a Prince.

First performed at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1877, the most popular stagings of this classical ballet are based on the 1895 version, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, using the music composed for the ballet by Tchaikovsky in the mid-1870s.

Each version produced in New Zealand - this will be the fourth in 17 years by the RNZB - has retained the essence of Petipa and Ivanov's work, he says, a captivating mix of impressive solos and graceful corps de ballet work.

"The thing that people sometimes choose to change is the ending, whereas for example the white swan scenes, which are really traditional, don't need to be. They're just so beautiful and they were created so beautifully right from the start, from my point of view."

The 2013 restaging, working from what was created by Kerr and the late costume and set designer Kristian Fredrickson, will reuse Fredrickson's sets and costumes but Kerr points out it is not simply a reproduction of what has been in the past.

"It has to be alive and each company takes it over and it belongs to them. When the audiences see it, they will see something handed down through the generations but it's as fresh today as it was then, because the dancers make it that way.

"Dame Margot Fonteyn said once it's really a story about a man and a woman who fall in love and give their all for that love. There have been many variations, with all sorts of different endings but, yes, in the end, it is a love story."

It is many years since Kerr, 83, put away his dancing shoes. He spent seven years dancing professionally overseas and, upon his return to New Zealand in 1957, he worked with New Zealand Ballet founder Poul Gnatt, the predecessor of the RNZB, and succeeded him as the company's artistic director in 1962. He ran Southern Ballet in Christchurch for many years, and continued to choreograph and work with the RNZB on and off, including producing Peter Pan for the company in 1999, and two years ago, Petrouchka.

Kerr said they struggled at times but believed in the future of the company. The RNZB's dancers have a wide vocabulary of contemporary and classical dance and haven't stuck to the past, which is why he believes it has survived so long. The steady support of sponsors bringing in people who otherwise would never have attended a dance performance, and word of mouth, means many more people know now what dance is.

"Now if people ask me what I did when I was younger I can tell them I was a choreographer and ballet director and they know what that means.

"I've been so fortunate being involved with something I love. All these years I've run the gauntlet of very emotion, but I can say I have never been bored."

Swan Lake opens at the St James Theatre, Wellington, on July 18, and is at the Napier Municipal Theatre, August 31-September 1. Tickets from Ticketek