Starring in the eclectic Bodytorque program, TBDA nominees Chengwu Guo and Luke Marchant were pushed out of their comfort zones by the fresh new choreography of the bill. Guo is an explosive dancer, built on the Nureyev model and capable of the most gravity-defying, speed-of-light feats. But in Scope, a delicate pas de trois, most beautiful in its quietest moments, the choreography demanded a different dancer and Guo delivered. Transforming the bombast of a leap or surge of pirouettes into subtlety, Guo danced like a river between two willows; powerful, fluid and relentless.

For Luke Marchant, it was the opposite kind of challenge. Encomium was a poignant story in a bold style, demanding three-dimensional characters and explosive energy. As the young son, Marchant delivered just that, embodying both the curious boy and the frenetic teenager, and burning each step of choreography, from the classical to the contemporary to glimpses of jazz and hip hop, across the stage.

If you missed our live stream of the Bodytorque.Muses program, never fear! You can watch it as video on demand.

Take a sneak peak at the visuals for Alice Topp’s brand-new work Scope, part of our new-choreography showcase Bodytorque, which opens at Sydney Theatre tonight. Not in Sydney but hankering to see the five fresh new works? The last performance of Bodytorque will be live streamed on bigpondvideo.com/ballet on the 29 May, 3pm. You can also watch it afterwards as a video on demand.

These behind-the-scenes shots were taken by Stefan Duscio as The Apiary (Gavin Youngs and Lily Coates) created visuals for Scope.

Christine Walsh and David Ashmole in The Sleeping Beauty 1988. Photo Anthony Crickmay

The Sleeping Beauty, Act III pas de deux, Petipa

The grand pas in The Sleeping Beauty, like so many of the genre, is the climactic wedding scene that ends the ballet. And, like so many of the classic pas, it’s choreographed by Petipa and scored by Tchaikovsky. Here we see the traditional form of the grand pas: an opening adage, a variation for both male and female dancers, and a coda in which they are reunited. Aurora is marrying the prince who’s kissed her back to life, and she’s transformed from a girl to a gracious woman. The two express their love with a royal dignity (although they’re not above showing off with a fishdive or three). Aurora’s stately but sensual variation, in which her twining arms seem to embrace the air, is a highlight.

Ty King-Wall and Lana Jones in Swan Lake, Black Swan Pas de Deux. Photo Jessica Bialek

Swan Lake, Black Swan Pas de Deux, Petipa/Ivanov

This is technically a grand pas d’action, as it progresses the plot instead of being just a piece of stuff-strutting. We’re seeing Odile deliver the coup de grace to the besotted, enchanted Siegfried, as with every dazzling fouetté he gets closer to his unwitting betrayal of Odette. This is the ultimate show piece, whip-sharp, diamond-edged, sizzling with dark chemistry. It’s also the first time the 32 fouttés, a party trick of the Italian ballerina Pierina Lagnani, appeared; it later became a feature of the genre.

Lucinda Dunn and Robert Curran in Don Quixote. Photo Justin Smith

Don Quixote, Act III pas de deux, Petipa

More wedding action, this time a little less exalted: the mettlesome couple Basilio and Kitri are plighting their troth after a ballet’s-worth of hi-jinksy travails. You barely recognise the knockabout lovers as they dance their majestic adage (highlight: Basilio’s spectacular turns on the diagonal to land on knee at his bride’s feet), but in the variations personality reasserts itself – Kitri coquettes deliciously with her fan, while Basilio scorns the air with exuberant barrel turns. They compete in the coda – Kitri pulls out the famous 32 and steals the show.

Yosvani Ramos and Leanne Stojmenov in Coppelia . Photo Jim McFarlane

Coppélia, Act III pas de deux, Petipa

Like Kitri and Basilio, Franz and Swanilda are a rackety, squabbly pair who turn on the decorum for their wedding adage – all sweetly grave balances and winsome head-turns. Franz is lucky to have a variation. In the days when ballet was largely a spectacle for male aristocrats, who liked to watch women rather than men, the role of Franz was danced by a girl, and there was no variation for him. Today’s real-boy Franzs shine with light but complex turns and footwork. Swanilda’s moment in the limelight is a delight, featuring needle-delicate pointe work and precision turns.

Nobuo Fujino and Madeleine Eastoe in Le Corsaire. Photo Jim McFarlane

Le Corsaire, pas de deux, Petipa

In the wrong hands, a piece of overblown camp … and in the right hands, a piece of overblown camp that takes your breath away. A vehicle for the stunning talents of the Russian defectors Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov, this is one of the few grand pas where every eye is on the male dancer. And why not? Whatever the ballerina is wearing, she can’t compete with the male’s exotic bare-chested slave-boy garb. There is a female variation, but its delicacy is no match for the explosive, brass-fanfared barrel turns of the male’s.

The Bluebird, the Peasant, the Nutcracker – what’s your all-time favourite pas? And what dancers past or present would you love to see dancing them?

The theme of this year’s season is ‘Muses’, so we thought we’d ask the choreographers what the word ‘muse’ means to them.

Daniel Gaudiello has been inspired to make a classical pas de deux in the style of Petipa, focusing on the tragic story of Tristan and Isolde. For him, a muse is “a never-ending stream of energy and when you dip your paint brush in, it will always come out a new colour … ”

Kevin Jackson’s Encomium is a tribute to his mother, and focuses on the journey of the young boy away from his mother, her sadness, and her joy when he returns to her as a man. Kevin sees a muse as “someone who inspires me to create, grow and love”.

Alice Topp was inspired by a photographic exhibition that showed the passage of time between images. Scope is a meditation on our attachment to objects, places and our own mortal bodies. Alice speak of a muse as “a source from which your creative vision is born. The muse is what inspires, motivates and influences the content of the work, colouring it with purpose and expression.”

Vivienne Wong’s Touch Transfer had its origins in Vivienne’s love of drawing. She began to contemplate the way marks on a page come together and compared it to the shapes made by dancers. How does she see her muse? “A muse is a spark that resonates in our hearts and minds. Something that gives us the power to create”.

Lisa Wilson found the seeds for her work Contour when she was sorting through some belongings of her father’s and came across his PhD on children’s perception of mapping. From there, she began to consider our internal journeys and pathways. The work, like a map, will represent these ideas. Lisa sees a muse as “a source of inspiration, a starting point, a thing that inspires deeper reflection and creative absorption”.

You can see Bodytorque.Muses at Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay, 26-29th of May. Book tickets here.

It’s a freezing Tuesday night, and instead of the warmth and comfort of The Australian Ballet studios or the State Theatre, we’re standing huddled together in Melbourne’s Guildford Lane, preparing to be part of web based video project Sideshow Alley TV. A bit of a guerrilla filming outfit, Dave, Ty and their merry group of video bandits have been setting up shop in assorted laneways around town, and shooting one-take footage of various musical acts, from established bands like Midlake to new kids on the block The Tiger and Me. So very Melbourne … and fittingly, so very, very cold.

The Australian Ballet corps de ballet member and budding choreographer Alice Topp has modified her acclaimed Bodytorque work, Trace, to take in the hazards of asphalt and gutters, cutting some of the lifts but none of the tension and meaning from the piece. Dancers Vivienne Wong and Calvin Hannaford walk through their paces, hands fluttering as they dance through the work in their minds.  Squares of light illuminate the street from a nearby gallery, while glittering monolithic city buildings stand silently in the background.

Vivienne’s talented partner Tiago is our musician for the night and he hugs his guitar for warmth. There are no amps, no lights, no set-up: just five crew with video and still cameras waiting to capture the action.  An old Nissan is parked nearby and its headlights are our DIY spots.

The dancers are ready, and frantically strip off their outer layers in the street, revealing flimsy flesh-coloured lycra. Vivienne’s knees are strapped with tape, skateboarder-style, to protect them from the rough surface below.  The only sounds are Tiago’s melodic guitar and the soft scraping of ballet slippers; the rest of us are holding our breath.  Every movement is gentle, insistent, full of longing. Calvin partners Vivienne with confidence, and the trust must be incredible as he holds her high, face towards the ground. Maybe it’s the unique and unusual setting, but there’s a kind of electricity in the air and we all know we’re witnessing something very special.

It lasts for five minutes but no-one wants it to an end. There’s a long pause before the whooping and clapping starts. One take was all it took.

Ballet choreographers have turned to countless influences including mythical creatures, literary figures, and soaring scores. Bodytorque.Muses allows the choreographers of tomorrow to step into the studio with the ballet stars of today and create works inspired by their muse of choice. Olivia Stewart writes about the classical concept of the muse, and questions: without the muse, would there be no art?

If you’re reading this, chances are you would not only find a world without art unbearable, but also unthinkable. Of course, art and civilisation go hand-in-hand. While the ancient Greeks loved their sport, giving us the basis for the modern Olympics, history demonstrates it was in the arts they exalted. In contrast with our contemporary society, there was no god of sport, yet there were nine goddesses of the arts (and also sciences) – the Muses – led by Apollo, the god of music.

Presiding over choral dance and song, Terpsichore is perhaps the most recognisable to modern audiences, her name adapted directly to our lexicon. Calliope, the chief Muse representing epic poetry, whose name is given to a whistling musical instrument, also likely rings bells of familiarity, as do Erato (love/erotic poetry) and Urania (astronomy and astrology). Their other sisters – daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and the Titan Mnemosyne (goddess of memory) – were Clio (history), Euterpe (lyric poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Thalia (comedy) and Polyhymnia (sacred song, rhetoric, and geometry).

Through the ages, the Muses have continued to generate many references and examples across music, dance, literature, theatre and art, from Homer, Virgil, Dante, John Milton Shakespeare and others. In creating Apollo (originally Apollon Musagète) in 1928, George Balanchine, the 20th century’s most famed and acclaimed choreographer, drew directly from Greek mythology. The timeless appeal of Apollo’s potent, pure simplicity, and the new classicism Balanchine evolved from his revelatory collaboration with Stravinsky has carried it beyond the 20th century into the new millennium.

The legend of the Muses has also translated beyond classical forms into contemporary life and pop culture references. Despite our sophistication (and cynicism), the belief continues that without the muse, there would be no art. Most commonly, the muse is still a female romantic and/or erotic interest. English writer Robert Graves in his 1948 work The White Goddess expounded the theory of the Muse-poet: “A Muse-poet falls in love, absolutely, and his true love is for him the embodiment of the Muse … But the real, perpetually obsessed Muse-poet distinguishes between the Goddess as manifest in the supreme power, glory, wisdom and love of woman, and the individual woman whom the Goddess may make her instrument … ”

Bodytorque.Muses plays in Sydney 26 – 29 May 2011. Season packages for 2011 are on sale now.

This is an edited excerpt from the New Romantics souvenir program

Image: Brett Simon and Dana Stephensen. Photography Paul Empson