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RWB’s anticipated premiere was ambitious but lacked the wide-eyed innocence of the classic tale

At one point during the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Wonderland, a projected sign that says "Expect the Unexpected" suddenly pops onstage. Truer words were never written.

The highly anticipated world premiere choreographed by Montreal-based Shawn Hounsell opened last week for a five-show run, March 9 through 13. The show hits the road this week for an eight-city Western Canadian tour.

The two-and-a-half-hour story ballet inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic tale is breathtakingly ambitious. Hounsell has added his own contemporary twists and re-imagined beloved characters, including Alice (Jacelyn Lobay), Caterpillar (shared by Amanda Green, Dmitri Dovgoselets, Amar Dhaliwal and Tristan Dobrowney), Duchess (Eric Nipp) and the narcoleptic Dormouse (Yayoi Ezawa). A series of voiceovers punctuate the show, beginning with a grown-up Alice recounting her story as a dream.

The ballet is technically strong with Hounsell creating his own dialect of angular movement vocabulary. There are about a gazillion cues to contend with and, for the most part, the breakneck-paced ballet flowed without a hitch.

However, having to tell the audience when to applaud with signs is usually a bad thing. And the opening night crowd seemed as befuddled as Alice by the end, responding with a hesitant standing ovation that seemed to underscore its perplexity.

The show grows increasingly bizarre and lacks a clear narrative arc. Characters weren’t adequately delineated and too much frantic activity distracted from the storyline. The gorgeous A Garden of Live Flowers scene performed by eight barefoot female dancers in translucent headdresses provided much-needed repose, as did the hookah-pipe puffing Caterpillar’s deliciously hallucinogenic quartet.

All 26 dancers displayed impressive conviction — pushed well beyond their comfort zones — but several offered standout performances.

Principal Tara Birtwhistle sells her cranky, cigarillo-smoking Queen of Hearts for all she’s worth. Hilarious backstage film footage added furthering layering to her larger-than-life character, portrayed as an aging, silent movie star has-been.

Principal Vanessa Lawson’s hyperkinetic/ dominatrix March Hare is another treat, particularly her polyglot spluttering during the Mad Hatter’s (Alexander Gamayunov) crazy tea party.

Soloist Yosuke Mino’s funky White Rabbit is as crisp as his rabbit-white cargo pants, acting as Alice’s guide and the catalyst for the story. A few leaps thrown in — what you would expect from a hare — would have taken advantage of Mino’s well-known powerhouse dance chops.

The eye-popping spectacle courtesy of Jimmy Lakatos’ multi-media projections and Guillaume Lord’s set design is unprecedented for the company — if not cumulatively exhausting. Kudos to Tadeusz Biernacki for leading the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra through John Estacio and Brian Current’s complex electro-acoustic score. Costume designer Anne Armit has outdone herself with over 40 zany costumes, with the production dramatically lit by Hugh Conacher.

Still, amidst all the high-tech chaos and confusion, what is missing — ironically — is a sense of innocent wonder. During the final voiceover, older Alice declares she would have been lost without "that dear Rabbit," but it all rings false. Ultimately, even the White Rabbit couldn’t save Alice — or this tumbling ballet — from the vortex.