Award-Winning Ballet Blockbuster ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND Returns To Melbourne

The Australian Ballet's gigantic, award-winning, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland©, returns to Melbourne this year for a limited, exclusive season from 8 to 22 June at Arts Centre Melbourne.

"Amazing"..."Magical"..."Sensational" are just some of the ways audiences described Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland© when it swept through Melbourne and Sydney in 2017.

This sell-out hit is the biggest production undertaken by The Australian Ballet. 350+ costumes, 27 sets changes, a tap dancing mad hatter, an eerily disembodied Cheshire Cat manipulated by puppeteers, a slinky Caterpillar with 16 feet in bejewelled pointe shoes and dancing playing cards are all included in Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland©.

With all the action on stage enhanced by the most impressive optical illusions, immersive digital projections, the audience will feel as if they are falling down the rabbit hole with Alice into Wonderland.

Created for The Royal Ballet in 2011, this production has enraptured audiences around the world. Wheeldon's ballet is full of all the wit and charm of the original story by Lewis Carroll, as it follows Alice into a topsy-turvy world where nothing is quite as it seems.

Vibrant sets and costumes by the Tony Award-winning designer Bob Crowley create a vision of a topsy-turvy Wonderland through puppetry, optical illusion, immersive digital projections, intricately detailed costumes and wild wigs.

The cinematic score by Joby Talbot combines ballet melodies with theatrical flourishes like ticking clocks and the purring of The Cheshire Cat, and weaves around the action onstage as if springing from the mind of Alice herself.

The Australian Ballet's production of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland© won the Helpmann Award for Best Ballet in 2018, and was nominated in five other categories, including Best Choreography, Best Scenic Design and Best Male and Female Dancer.

With its action-packed storyline, dancing in the aisles and petals falling from the roof, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland© is a theatre experience not to be missed.

During a garden party at her family home, Alice enjoys the company of her crush, Jack, and the amusements of a family friend, Lewis Carroll. Her day takes a curious turn when Lewis transforms into a White Rabbit, and she tumbles down the rabbit hole after him.

Alice finds herself in a world of wonder, as she embarks on a series of absurd, hilarious and at times frightening adventures. Jack has become the Knave of Hearts, relentlessly persecuted by the bad-tempered Queen of Hearts. Alice finds a magic cake which turns her into a giant. She swims in a lake of her own tears. She encounters a mysterious Cheshire Cat, and then a bizarre tea party presided over by a Mad Hatter. She meets a mesmerising Caterpillar perched on a mushroom, and then, at last, is reunited briefly with the Knave in a magical garden.

The tyrannical Queen of Hearts is torturing her subjects with dance demonstrations and a strange game of croquet, all the while blithely ordering the executions of those who displease her. The Knave is finally discovered and brought to trial, and mayhem ensues. Alice comes to the Knave's defense and together they deliver a testimony that wins the hearts of all but the Queen. When Alice attempts to flee, the whole court comes crashing down around her.

But the very next minute, Alice awakes.

CREDITS

Choreography Christopher Wheeldon

Music Joby Talbot

orchestrated by Christopher Austin and Joby Talbot

Scenario Nicholas Wright

Set and costume design Bob Crowley

Lighting design Natasha Katz

Projection designs Jon Driscoll and Gemma Carrington

Puppet concept and design Toby Olié

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland© is a co-production between The Australian Ballet and The National Ballet of Japan.

The production was commissioned and first performed by The Royal Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada.

The Kenneth R Reed Fund has generously supported the recreation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland© for The Australian Ballet.

DATES: 8 June - 22 June

Arts Centre Melbourne, State Theatre
with Orchestra Victoria

BOOKINGS: australianballet.com.au

To post a comment, you must register and login.