Murder on the Dancefloor: 5 True Crime Ballets

Choreographer: Timothy Gordon
Premiere: 1990, The Australian Ballet

My Name is Edward Kelly tells Australia’s most famous true crime story—that of bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang. It stages the key moments from Kelly’s life—the altercation with police officer Fitzpatrick, the bank robbery at Jerilderie, the shooting at Stringybark Creek, the siege at Glenrowan, and finally Kelly’s trial.

But as with all engaging true crime tales, this is not merely a recreation of events but a layered exploration of justice, vengeance, and mythmaking. It centres its narrative on the letters written by Kelly to newspapers and government officials, attempting to explain his side of the saga, drawing in elements of colonial oppression and social injustice. The crimes of Kelly and his gang are recontextualised from ones of greed and violence to those of desperation and resistance, blurring the line between felon and folk hero. It asks the audience to reconsider how we think about national heroes and what tension lies between historical reality and myth.

Choreographer: Agnes de Mille
Premiere: 22 April 1948, American Ballet Theatre
The Australian Ballet Premiere: 1998

In 1892, Lizzie Borden was accused of killing her father and stepmother with an axe in their Massachusetts home. The story’s garish details made it infamous fodder for the newspapers at the time, turning Borden into a celebrity murderer of legendary proportion even before her trial, where she was found innocent and acquitted.

In her balletic interpretation of the case, de Mille disagrees with the real-life jury and proclaims Borden guilty, an unusual example of not only telling a true crime story but actively rewriting history.

De Mille explores the repressive and rigid New England society in which the story takes place and how community pressure can lead to individual acts of violence. Through stylised movement and expressionistic storytelling, the ballet imagines the psychological breakdown and emotional volatility of its central character. De Mille both condemns and sympathises with Borden, ruminating on the very concept of guilt in terms of the legal system and within our own emotions and communities.

Choreographer: Sir Kenneth MacMillan
Premiere: 14 February 1978, The Royal Ballet

Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling examines the dark truth behind royal privilege in this ballet soaked in scandal, obsession, and brutality. It is based on the 1889 Mayerling incident: the apparent murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his much-younger mistress Mary Vetsera. It follows Rudolf’s descent into paranoia, addiction, and turmoil that culminates in a final, fatal decision that reverberates through European history.

MacMillan does not romanticise this tragedy, instead using choreography to confront the audience with raw violence and psychological chaos. He uses the framework of this real story to examine broader truths: how power, secrecy and untreated mental instability can spiral into catastrophic violence—particularly when cloaked in the illusion of nobility.

MacMillan’s equally dark, dramatic, and celebrated work Manon is playing at Melbourne's Regent Theatre from 10-22 October 2025.

Choreographer: Angelin Preljocaj
Premiere: 19 September 2013, New York City Ballet

This contemporary ballet is inspired by the Salem witch trials, using the cultural knowledge of this well-told story of 17th-century mass hysteria to explore spiritual ideas, rather than retelling the facts. Through stark and symbolic choreography oscillating between control and frenzy, Preljocaj evokes the paranoia and brutality of the trials.

The title of the work refers to the intangible "proof" that was allowed as evidence—dreams and visions where the accused’s spirit appeared to the victim and caused them harm. The costumes of the four women on trial are floating white shifts with dramatic slashes of red, representing perhaps the blood spilt or the symbolic ‘mark’ of guilt branded on the bodies of the accused, unable to be wiped away.

Spectral Evidence explores how official judicial structures have historically been weaponised into tools of anxiety, misogyny and mass delusion. The production invites audiences to see themselves in the accused and question how they might react themselves when asked to pit reason against hysteria or evidence against fear.

Choreographer: Hege Haagenrud
Premiere: 7 March 2024

This new work was created as part of a triple bill all centred around the theme of true crime and how the creation and consumption of the genre affects our understanding of the justice system. The Bystanders examines the role of the spectator in true crime narratives and how those who witness, suspect and remain silent still become part of the story despite their inaction.

The score is a compilation of audio from true crime podcasts, YouTube videos and social media. These voices act as character monologues, narrating the hesitant, restrained movements by the dancers dressed as judges in white wigs and long brown cloaks.

By turning the focus from the crime to the audience ready to consume it, Haagenrud uses ballet’s capacity for emotional nuance to interrogate our cultural fascination with true crime—and our complicity with turning tragedy into spectacle.

Choreographer: Maurice Béjart
Premiere: April 17, 1985, Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris
The Australian Ballet Premiere: 1989

Competition in the arts can sometimes feel like life or death… and in Béjart’s Le Concours, it really is! This comedic ballet is not a true crime story but a satirical take on the cutthroat world of dance competitions and murder mysteries.

When a contestant is assassinated during an international dance competition, suddenly the participants, jury, fans and family members all become suspects in her murder. A detective questions them all and, aided by the ghostlike vision of the victim, tries to solve the answer to this balletic whodunnit before the curtain falls.

Béjart uses the structure of a competition to explore the pressure and danger of elite performance, where the desire to succeed above all else can become lethal. It spoofs courtroom drama and film noir tropes, creating a stylised world where crime becomes performance, and performances become evidence. The competition stage is exposed as a psychological battleground where envy, rivalry and ambition combine into a deadly pursuit of perfection.