With no set intruding on an open stage, chiaroscuro lighting and magnificent music, the West Australian Ballet opened its contemporary season of STATE with a triple bill, each of which display similar themes: those of uncertainty and perplexity, with an underlying frisson of desire for an elusive state of peace.

Carina Roberts and Matthew Lehmann in Li Sze Yeung Justyne and Won Tan Ki’s Galatea & Pygmalion, STATE, WA Ballet, 2022. Photo © Bradbury Photography

Galatea & Pygmalion, choreographed by Li Sze Yeung Justyne and Won Tan Ki, certainly has desire at its centre since Pygmalion is infatuated with his statue of Galatea which he yearns to bring to life. The Goddess Aphrodite eventually does what he wishes. The dance opens with Pygmalion (Matthew Lehmann) chipping away at Galatea (Carina Roberts) scantily clad in a slither of white, both under a stark cone of downlight. Roberts’ limbs jerk in on themselves, her torso bends and buckles and spasms until she seems shod with Carrara marble as Lehmann moulds her outline and enfolds her in his yearning embraces. Philip Glass’ music shatters around them like broken ice as the...