A good dancer beautifully performs the choreography. A great dancer’s body does not perform. It is as if there is no choreography. Body and soul move as ifefirst time. As if the dancer has never moved before. Spontaneous. Coherent. Utterly beautiful. But, and this is the miracle, the choreography is no longer learned. It flows the dancer’s naked soul, like water flows a river, and like lightning flares clouds. Yet, with the vulnerability of a person like you and me.

KUNSTKAMER, performed by The Australian Ballet, embodies this miracle. Precision inspires the dancers. Yet the coherence seems ad lib.

A good dancer beautifully hones effort. A great dancer’s body does not know relentless determination. It is as if the sweat is manna. As if the forces of nature unfold from the dance, rather than impel it. Physical boundaries of endurance no longer seem to constrain: they set the dancer free.

As with the miracle of seeming spontaneity, The Australian Ballet’s KUNSTKAMER embodies the second paradox of a great dancer. Just as an uncorrupted child can harness their muscles and play (thanks to at least 200,000 years of human evolution, almost 4 billion years of the emergence of life on Earth, almost 14 billion years of the universe unfolding . . . and who knows what before that . . . ) a great dancer taps a seemingly eternal wellspring of effortlessness. But, just as a child (before distorted by a difficult and conflicted world) plays creatively, a great dancer’s ease holds intelligibly.

Which brings us to the third miracle. The Australian Ballet’s KUNSTKAMER seems spontaneous, effortless, yet is coherent. Every sequence communicates intelligibly with every other sequence. 

Each part of the choreography knows every other part. Each knows its uniqueness. Knows others’ similarities and differences. Gets its vitality by dancing these intimate human bonds. Gets its pathos by dancing these vulnerable slings and arrows.

The Australian Ballet’s KUNSTKAMER is a quantum leap in the company’s glorious history.

Great dancers, consummate creatives and exquisite music bring a new dawn to the Australian landscape.

For information about the creatives, dancers and music, search

The Australian Ballet’s KUNSTKAMER is at the Sydney Opera House 29 April – May 14, 2022; Arts Centre Melbourne 3 – 11 June, 2022.