Melbourne Ballet Company’s Archè takes Tchaikovsky’s well-loved Swan Lake as its jumping off point, combining some of the iconic elements of the ballet with a more contemporary language – a language nonetheless rooted in Classical traditions.

Choreographed by the company’s resident choreographer Simon Hoy and guest choreographer Timothy Podesta – who choreographed MBC’s new work Being and Time, which premiered at Hawthorn Arts Centre earlier this year – Archè draws on more legends than just Swan Lake. The work is also influenced by the Greek myth Leda and the Swan (and the Yeats poem based on the myth) as well as Tennyson’s The Dying Swan and its balletic reimagining by Michel Fokine.

MBC’s swans glide en pointe, their arms undulating in graceful wing movements, but their motions extend beyond traditional ballet forms, stretching and curling in more naturalistic – yet still lyrical – movements.

Archè’s narrative owes much to Swan Lake. In the opening scene, against a swirling cloudscape projected on the back of the stage, Rothbart – the dark spirit of the forest, his costume decked with black feathers – enchants Odette and a group of young maidens in the forest, turning them into swans.

Alexander Baden Bryce is a sleek, predatory Rothbart. Fluid and imperious...