The event, to be held from Friday 23 to Sunday 25 October 2009 and hosted by the Nine Network’s Catriona Rowntree, is the second of its kind and follows the highly successful performance of Tim Harbour’s Wa at the resort in 2008.

The Australian Ballet’s Artistic Director David McAllister has selected four classic divertissements to be performed by Principal Artist Yosvani Ramos, 2009 Telstra Ballet Dancer Award nominee Stephanie Williams, 2008 Telstra Ballet Dancer Award nominee Ty King-Wall and newcomer to The Australian Ballet, Kristy Corea.

Fields, 48, artistic director emeritus of the Minnesota Ballet, is working with dancers of Rochester's Children's Dance Theatre as director of the upcoming production of "The Chocolate Factory."

"When I retired from the Minnesota Ballet three years ago, I decided I wanted to get back to the roots of dance," Fields said. "I got a call from CDT, and I thought, 'To go back to my roots, there's nothing like working with kids.'"

"I have always had a little eclectic musical taste," says Dominguez, 46. Recalling the '70s, he says, "There were two choreographers in Mexico that were really avant-garde, doing really modern pieces within the classical vocabulary, and they were always looking for music."

Dominguez recalls dancing to Pink Floyd's Ummagumma and other modern works, and that is where he started entertaining a desire to put Jarrett's masterpiece of prestidigitation into the toes of some dancers.

Britain's favourite ballet choreographer Chris Wheeldon rode into his homeland last night, bringing with his Anglo-American company Morphoses work by himself and by Britain's second favourite ballet choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. Two favourites should be enough to guarantee the opening programme, but there are two drawbacks: the pieces filling the middle of the programme, and the limp video in which it's all wrapped. And the whole represents a split in taste between US and British ballet expectations from which I am beginning to fear Morphoses - that shining optimistic light of new ballet a couple of years ago - is destined forever to suffer.

In the US it's common for the choreographer to come on and charmingly introduce himself, thank the venue winningly for having them, and wishing everybody a wonderful evening - it's also, I dare say, more common for film accompanying the dancing to be a bland PR package. In Britain we actually don't care if the choreographer doesn't say a word as long as his choreography does, and we expect dance film packages of the poky quality that the Ballet Boyz have accustomed us to. Less of the gladhanding and reverence, let's just get on with the meat.

For reasons best known to himself, Christopher Wheeldon is leaving the big event of his company's season – the premiere of his own new work, Rhapsody Fantaisie – until last. In fact, with only one of his works in the opening evening – a revival of the slyly whimsical Commedia, beautifully performed – our first views of the company are more of Wheeldon the artistic director than of Wheeldon the choreographer. Given the uneven quality of the three other pieces he has programmed, this doesn't seem wise.

Songs of Leaving, by the Australian choreographer Tim Harbour, is leadenly overburdened by intimations of mortality. Couples drag out mournful eye contact; women are hoisted like sexy, reproachful wraiths above their partners' heads. While Ross Edwards's score is pleasantly plangent, it seems to encourage Harbour's derivative tendencies. When he isn't pushing his themes of death and rebirth too hard, he reveals a much more interesting imagination, however. Setting two duets against each other, for instance, his choreography starts to work its own alchemy, bodies colliding, flying and retreating as if subject to their own laws of physics.

However, the rest of the choreography is less exciting than previous visits. Compared to last year's gold dust by Frederick Ashton and Jerome Robbins, we have Softly As I leave You by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon. It's a duet for two angsty types, with a woman (Drew Jacoby) flexing her feet and contracting her abdomen while a man (Rubinald Pronk) looks numb. You can hardly blame him.

Also on the programme is Bolero by one-time Bolshoi director Alexei Ratmansky, who's now Artist in Residence at American Ballet Theatre. It's set to Ravel's famous score, and Ratmansky gently spoofs its heroic ascent by depicting his dancers as Olympians. It's a good joke, but isn't sustained throughout.