WA Ballet revisit Greg Horsman’s La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) with WASO at His Majesty’s Theatre

There is a mix of new and familiar faces at WA Ballet for Queensland-based choreographer Greg Horsman since he last worked with the company on his reimagining of La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) in 2019, the epic story now revived at His Majesty’s Theatre for a limited season. One of those faces is a combination of the two, where WA Ballet guest artistic director David McAllister was still at the helm of The Australian Ballet during Horsman’s previous visit to Perth. “We grew up in The Australian Ballet company, so it’s very nice being able to spend some time with David again,” Queensland Ballet assistant artistic director Horsman shares. “Our paths have crossed over the years since I left The Australian Ballet but we haven’t really had the opportunity to spend a substantial amount of time together, so these two weeks that I’m here, it’s been really lovely.” Geelong-raised Horsman retired from professional performance in 1999, following a career which saw him dance the majority of it at The Australian Ballet and English National Ballet, before turning to choreography and artistic team roles. No stranger to WA Ballet audiences, the choreographer worked with the company in 2015 on his Aussie influenced adaptation of Coppelia, which was transported from its original German setting to the 1878 settlement of Hahndorf in South Australia. His invitation to return in 2019 for production La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) — based on French choreographer Marius Petipa’s 1877 ballet created in Russia — was even more necessary to reimagine for contemporary audiences, given it was very much a product of its time and an outdated cultural representation of India and Hindu religion. “At that time, there was a lot of ballets that took on settings in other ‘exotic’ sort of places, so La Bayadere was set in India, obviously, but it wasn’t really a realistic depiction of Indian culture, or it was a fantasised sort of place,” Horsman explains. “The production didn’t have a lot of authenticity in certain areas, where there used to be, and I think Russia still has this element in their productions, a bunch of children in one of the acts that were ‘blacked up’, which is obviously not appropriate. “It wasn’t a ballet that I grew up with a lot in my own dancing background, although as a principal, I had danced in the second act because that was quite often done by itself, The Kingdom of the Shades.” Horsman had researched what India was really like when Petipa created La Bayadere, a period still under British rule, deciding to adapt the original storyline to fit in with a scenario where the British were fighting with one of the principalities in India, Cooch Behar. A treaty is signed to cease hostilities and form an alliance, involving an arranged marriage between the Governor General’s daughter Edith and the Maharaja’s son Prince Solor, who is already in love with a temple dancer, Nikiya. “So that causes the sort of triangle,” Horsman says. “I wanted a narrative that was engaging and flowed right through to the very end of the production, losing some of the melodrama that was in the original production. I hope that I’ve been sensitive to a lot of the criticism that is generated towards the traditional production.” Horsman maintained many of Petipa’s strong choreography elements, particularly in Nikiya and Solor’s dancing, along with The Kingdom of the Shades. Iconic in the world of ballet, The Kingdom of the Shades’ mesmerising scene features the female corps de ballet, dressed in white tutus while descending a zig-zagging ramp in a series of arabesques, with the utmost of precision and unison. “All of those ladies coming down the ramp one by one, it does take you to a different place, it’s beautiful,” Horsman says. “Like a lot of Petipa’s choreography in Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, it is challenging choreography and has become more challenging with the advanced technique dancers have developed now. The steps are similar, but they wouldn’t have been performed the same way that they’re performed now, in the sense of more turnout and how much more athletic dancers are these days. So although the steps haven’t changed, the way that they’re actually performed has developed.” Accompanied by WA Symphony Orchestra, WA Ballet’s La Bayadere (The Temple Dancer) is at His Majesty’s Theatre until April 20, tickets at waballet.com.au.