Queensland Troupe Shows Lively Aussie Edge

Anyone who has endured the numb rectitude of the Australian Ballet will understand why every other dance company Down Under capitalizes on energy, muscle power, the joy of dancing, outrageous humor, provocative sexuality--anything but glazed opera house manners.

Enter the Queensland Ballet, formed in 1960, based in Brisbane and only now on its first American tour. Dancing a Gilbert and Sullivan ballet in Glendale on Friday and a Shakespeare ballet in Glendora the following night, the company looked highly skilled, indecently attractive but also alarmingly desperate to please.

Indeed, Daryl Gray crammed everything but kangaroos and koalas into his full-length adaptation of “The Pirates of Penzance” at the Alex Theatre, while Harold Collins piled up anachronisms and ballet-parodies galore in his delirious one-act version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Citrus College.

Happily, the Citrus program also offered Jacqui Carroll’s sensual and inventive “Scheherazade,” which trusted classical dancing to tell its facets-of-love story and keep you involved. Admittedly, designer Mike Bridges unleashed a barrage of rippling waves and billowing smoke--besides keeping all the dancers picturesquely undressed.

However, “Scheherazade” remained a unified choreographic statement despite such distractions--despite even its problematic finale (an elaborate buildup leading nowhere), plus the same reliance on lurid gymnastic lifts shared by Gray and Collins. And it made nearly all the Queensland dancers look like champions.

In the ever-whirling Shane Weatherby, the company boasted a demi-caractere virtuoso ideal for the role of Puck in “Dream,” while the majestic Michelle Giammichele (Titania in the same ballet) and the versatile Dione Ware (Mabel in “Pirates,” multiple incarnations in “Scheherazade”) proved themselves ballerinas of distinction.

Essentially a character dancer with enough technique to perform classical leads, Paul Boyd brought conviction to the eternal seeker in “Scheherazade,” while Anthony Lewis generated enough charisma to compensate for inconsistent technical powers as Collins’ Oberon and Carroll’s lead warrior.

Extravagantly swaggering and bumbling as, respectively, the Pirate King and Major General in “Pirates,” Julian Lankshear and Anthony Shearsmith put over even the hoariest sight gags with endearing earnestness and vigor.

However, the major discovery of the Queensland visit was Josef Vesely, (Frederic in “Pirates,” Bottom in “Dream”), a highly personable young artist with ideal proportions for classical dancing plus the unerring technical flair, partnering prowess and acting potential to take him virtually anywhere in ballet he might care to go.