Time to update Goh's Romeo & Juliet

In major ballet companies worldwide, it seems that Romeo & Juliet is never kept out of the repertory for long. With a second staging in three years, Singapore Dance Theatre looks to follow suit with a version of the ballet by the late Singaporean choreographer Goh Choo San, created for the Boston Ballet in 1984.

It is a shame that his work is not performed so frequently globally anymore. Thus, does the responsibility not fall with the Singapore Dance Theatre to be a guardian of his work and to keep presenting it?

Amid the decorum and drama of Shakespearean Verona, Goh's Asian touches are still evident. It is clear he has a penchant for asymmetry as he litters balletic sequences with the occasional snaking hip, upturned wrist and curving back.

While this amalgam with the classical vocabulary is sometimes uneasy, it is surprising for the most part.

The severity of angular arms and deep backbends lend the ominous strains of the Dance Of The Knights considerable dramatic heft.

Sergei Prokofiev's majestic score is an undoubted reason for the ballet's success and Goh negotiates its twists and turns with aplomb.

The choreography grows in amplitude as the ballet careens towards its unfortunate end. The titular lovers' eyes meet and then with dance as their language, they get to know each other through modest lifts and fluttering steps. This builds to a climactic balcony scene (albeit after an untimely intermission), in which Rosa Park's Juliet is lifted high over the head of Chen Peng's Romeo, legs unfurling like their blossoming relationship.

Park's first interactions with her nurse border on babydoll cuteness and she is polite, almost conscientious. She comes into her own only in the final act, dancing with an aching inevitability. Surging forward into desperate arabesques with her arms outstretched, she knows there is no turning back. Apart from Li Jie - steely legs and a pliant back - as a superfluous Fate, the women of the company seem thinly present throughout.

It is the men who dominate the stage. Timothy Coleman's Mercutio is bright in step and presence. Provocative and cheeky, he means no harm and draws his sword only out of loyalty. Zhao Jun is a commanding Tybalt, glowering and leaping with menace and pride. Ballet master Mohamed Noor Sarman keeps up appearances as an urbane host of the Capulet ball, yet is a cruelly oppressive father to Juliet.

As Romeo, Chen displays a dramatic integrity, phrasing his steps with an eager truth. He transforms from a lovestruck boy to caring man, and eventually tragic victim.

He corkscrews with delight upon his first kiss with Juliet, reluctantly but indignantly picks up his sword to avenge Mercutio and heartbreakingly drapes himself over Juliet's lifeless body in the crypt.

At three hours with two intermissions, the ballet does get tedious at points. Perhaps the action can be tauter and more of Prokofiev's music made use of instead of having audiences look at a screen with two of Shakespeare's lines for extended periods.

Several updates can be made to Goh's choreography, notably making gestures more naturalistic and crowd scenes more intense. A renewed Romeo & Juliet would be one worth coming back to.

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