Garry Stewart wants to make one thing clear. His dance production, Monument, only focuses on the grandiose architecture of Parliament House and has nothing to do with the personalities that dwell underneath the spire.
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''I wanted the work to represent the ideas and things that we aspire to and towards and a society. The human behaviour within the building may not always hit our higher aspirations. However, the building itself stands as a materialisation of those hopes and desires. That's what the piece is really aiming toward,'' Mr Stewart said.
The famed choreographer is in Canberra with the Australian Ballet Company's triple bill Symmetries - an ode to the capital's Centenary - for four performances, which open at the Theatre Centre on Thursday.
Mr Stewart said when he was approached by Centenary creative director Robyn Archer to create a ballet based on a building he immediately began thinking about the relationships bodies and architecture have with space and how both buildings and the physical human form consume and manipulate space.
''This was the challenge I threw out to David [Symmetries artistic director David McAllister] and Garry - could there be a new ballet to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Parliament House, and could it be about the architecture of that iconic building?'' Ms Archer said.
After being escorted on a personally guided tour by the building's chief architect, Aldo Giurgola, Mr Stewart was inspired to fuse together classical dance and the classic Italian architecture.
Accompanying the dancers on stage, led by Canberra-born principal artist Lana Jones, will be large scale computer-aided design animations of Parliament House as it came to be.
The Monument soundtrack, which is predominantly electronic and contains Tibetan chanting, was produced by Canberra-raised composer Huey Benjamin and is ''very beautiful, it drives the piece and gives it is heartbeat'', according to Mr Stewart.
The entire Symmetries production includes two other ballets, The Four Temperaments and Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain.
Two of the stars are proud Canberrans who are excited to be home performing in front of friends and family. Dimity Azoury began her dancing career 20-years ago in a small church hall in Queanbeyan and after a month of touring and visiting dance companies around the world, the 24-year-old is looking forward to celebrating Canberra's 100th birthday on stage.
''My parents have seen me dance a million times. Now they're excited to see my fiance perform here for the first time,'' Ms Azoury said.
Twenty-year-old Jasmin Durham is glad to be home in a more professional context. ''I started my dancing career here when it was just a hobby for me,'' she said.