Hong Kong Ballet's season-opening show Alice (in Wonderland) looks like it could have been designed by Baz Luhrmann, with a nod to Tim Burton. Artistic director Septime Webre has not shied away from exploring the so-called dark side of this children's classic.

The show is as much about the spectacle as it is about dance. Alice's dream world in Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel and its 1871 sequel has been reimagined by Webre as a luminous, sensuous, fanciful world that while being timeless also references elements from contemporary popular culture. For instance, the pot-bellied twins Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee who befriend Alice during her adventures on the other side of the looking glass appear on stage riding a tandem bike up in the air, dressed like the McDonald's mascot.

But then this isn't exactly a world of children, permeated by innocence. Its adult, skewed nature is manifest in the presence of the masked men wearing white body suits who string up Alice in a harness, carry the Red Queen around like slaves and lie under the table at the Mad Hatter's tea party, enjoying a more hedonistic variation of the same thing. The scene in which piglets in swaddling clothes are bandied about like tourniquets has an undertone of cruelty to it.

Throughout the 20th century, critics have scanned the pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, finding coded expressions of adult, even perverse, themes - from acid trips to pedophilia. It's not impossible to find traces of a possible inappropriate relationship between young Alice and Lewis Carroll, who spun the tales to entertain a little girl he was close to, in Webre's interpretation. For most of the show, Alice is seen as being manipulated and pushed around - by Carroll, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat (whose grungy, weather-beaten appearance seems to be a throwback to Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats) - until she comes into her own by first slaying the Jabberwock monster and finally rebelling against the Red Queen's army of cards.

From jaw-dropping technical achievements to cuteness overload, there's plenty to love in Alice (in Wonderland). Alice is hoisted up to the level of the second-tier gallery in the scene where she grows to an enormous size after eating a piece of cake. Child dancers dressed up as hedgehogs roll over adorably when hit by the flamingo mallets in a game of croquet.

The color palette (sets by James Kronzer; costumes by Liz Vandal) seems to be overflowing with lush, fluorescent hues, enhanced by giant cutouts. The music (Matthew Pierce) runs the gamut - from a Swan Lake-ish composition to match the dance of the flamingos to more funky tunes. The Jabberwock is an improvised version of the contraption used in Chinese dragon dance, providing a sweet local touch.

Three dancers stood out from among the enormous cast of adults and children. Brooklyn Mack of the Washington Ballet, who played both the Dodo Bird and Joker (Knave of Hearts), was riveting. The pirouettes performed by him were a joy to watch. Jin Yao as Mother/Red Queen held her stiff, menacing facial expression, befitting a playing card persona, from start to finish - a perfect antithesis to Chen Zhiyao's Alice who was completely believable as a curious young woman with a spring in her step.

(HK Edition 08/24/2018 page9)