Juliet and Romeo is a dance theatre work by British company Lost Dog. Originally devised and performed by director (and company co-founder) Ben Duke and Solène Weinachter, it’s being performed in Adelaide by Weinachter and Kip Johnson.

Solène Weinachter and Kip Johnson in Lost Dog’s Juliet and Romeo at the 2022 Adelaide Festival. Photo © Tim Standing.

The work belongs less to the German tradition of Tanztheater than to a more typically English-language practice of combining dance and text – which tends to be more heavily reliant on (or even dominated by) text, and hence more narrative or theme-based (rather than image-based or abstract, as in much contemporary dance). As such the form arguably has more in common with ballet, but it requires text-based acting as well as dance skills on the part of its performers. It’s also fraught with peril, especially if (as is often the case) the dance component becomes subordinate to or illustrative of the text, and/or any element (choreography, text or their delivery by the performers) is deficient in relation to the others. Sadly, Juliet and Romeo...