Your essential viewing guide to our 60th anniversary celebration

Alexei Ratmansky carefully recreated Marius Petipa’s ballet of Harlequin and Columbine, two lovers kept apart by Columbine’s father who wants her to marry a rich buffoon. With some help from an unlikely accomplice and a little bit of magic, Harlequin triumphs against the odds to win Columbine’s hand in marriage.

Premiering in 1900 and almost lost to history, it would be 100 years before Petipa’s original choreography was presented by The Australian Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre in 2022. After his century-long sleep, the irrepressible Harlequin is wide awake and ready to charm ballet lovers of all ages.

Created in 1966 for Berlin’s Deutsche Opera Ballet, Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto is one of his most celebrated creations. Set to Dmitri Shostakovich Piano Concerto no.2 in F, the famous lyrical pas de deux was inspired by the original principal artist, Lynn Seymour’s warm up at the barre, where the male dancer acts as a “barre” for the female dancer.

Johan Inger’s uplifting work is a nostalgic look back at a time that was both pure and simple but with the distinct challenges of becoming an adult. Set to Van Morrisons joyful melodies, I New Then is a choreographic journey down memory lane brimming with honesty, clarity and colour.

Originally written for Act III of the 1877 production of Swan Lake at the request of Bolshoi prima ballerina Anna Sobeshchanskaya, Tschaicovsky’s Pas de Deux was a late addition and never published in the original score. Choreographer Marius Petipa moved a section of music from Act I to Act III to create the famous Black Swan pas de deux to complete the ballet. It would take over 50 years before the complete Swan Lake score was discovered with an appendix that included the long-lost pas de deux and George Balanchine would create the eight-minute ballet of exceptional technical brilliance.

Justin Peck, resident choreographer of New York City Ballet, has delighted audiences with his fresh take on classical technique. Set to a score commissioned from indie singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, Everywhere We Go is costumed in witty nautical stripes and features 25 dancers’ streaming in and out of complex group formations and pin-sharp pas de deux. Like his predecessors at New York City Ballet, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, Peck brings the energy of Hollywood and Broadway to the classical stage.

Yuri Possokhov’s sensual choreography crashes into Leo Tolstoy’s famous book, illumining the tragedy of Anna Karenina, whose desire brings about her ruin. When Anna meets Vronsky, a handsome young officer, the instant connection between them flames into an affair – with disastrous consequences. Anna leaves her conservative husband and relinquishes her son to be with her lover, but her bliss is fleeting, and when Vronsky’s passion cools she takes desperate action.

Pam Tanowitz premiered Watermark for The Australian Ballet in 2021. A contemporary choreographer, Tanowitz has created an ensemble piece that demonstrates her fresh approach to gender roles in a work primarily using the male dancers of The Australian Ballet. The Pulitzer-prize winning composer Caroline Shaw's concerto Watermark is the perfect score for Tanowitz’s exciting creative vision.

The Australian Ballet’s Resident Choreographer, Alice Top premiered her work Little Atlas in 2017. Based around the notion of memories, and our attempts to recreate or unmake them, Little Atlas explores our connection to people and places of the past. Delving into our attachment to the way these things made us feel, whether they're events that continue to plague us or places we return to for sanctuary. It’s as though we keep moments safe in our minds, the only place where long-lost pieces of the past can live on. Together, we carry our memories, each a unique map of scars and stories imprinted on our brains through the trinity of past, present and future, bringing ourselves both comfort and discomfort, burden and blessing.

Featuring the Fandango and Grand Pas de Deux from Act III of Rudolf Nureyev's Don Quixote, this spectacular production based on the 1973 film follows the story of the barber Basilio, who wins the hand of his love, Kitri, with the help of the visionary knight. Join the happy couple as they overcome adversity to live happily ever after in this spirited larger-than-life performance.