Cabinets of curiosities were all the rage in the 18th century; before modern museums existed, private collections of natural phenomena were the true markers of status. One of the largest belonged to Albertus Seba, a Dutch pharmacist and zoologist. He eventually published a four-volume book, Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, a stunning, exhaustively detailed document of exotica that became a touchstone of taxonomy and symbol of the Enlightenment.
Seba’s book inspired Nederlands Dans Theater’s house choreographers Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, along with Crystal Pite and Marco Goecke, to create a ballet: Kunstkamer. The Australian Ballet artistic director, David Hallberg, secured it for the premiere performance outside the Netherlands, and it isn’t hard to see what attracted him to it. It’s a bold, expansive work, and fiendishly complicated – the kind that challenges a dance company to reach out for new modes of expression. A status marker.
