Mr. Rioult, a former Martha Graham principal and now a modern-dance choreographer in his own right, shifted the setting of the exotic ballet classic from a Russian fairytale forest to a grimly empty modern-day world.
In this case, the perilous encounter is turned into an exotic ballet with a Leon Bakst set, all gilt and baby blue, with a lion as sweet as a kitten.
"Couture" eggs offered as 12 unique pendants, densely decorated to evoke miniature worlds, suggested Romanov grandeur, while a long al fresco table for the white nights presented a selection of pavé-set egg pendants with hints of the exotic Ballets Russes.
Or try him instead in Rameau's harpsichord arrangement of his exotic opera-ballet "Les Indes Galantes".
First seen in 1998 at the Here theater complex in SoHo, where it was performed in a 500-gallon tank of a stage, the show employs a singularly exotic corps de ballet: a spectral assemblage of swaths of cloth, plastics, feathers, dyes and fishing lures that unfurl, float, dissolve and bob in water in rhythm to Berlioz's music.
There is nothing of ballet's exotic firebird or suffering swan queen here.
"Meadow" is a fluid, lyrical ballet with exotic ritual overtones, a clever score and, at the very end, a gimmick that may not be needed but is pretty striking nonetheless.
"La Trovatiara," set to Verdi, is a sly rendering of exotic moments in opera ballets.
Leonard Bernstein's rich, eloquent and demanding score is still a powerful experience, however, and choreographer Jerome Robbins's street ballets look exotic and experimental - as well as being great spectacle.
He was referring to a ballet about the exotic travels of the medieval explorer Marco Polo, interpreted by the Shanghai ballet to usher in the Chinese Lunar New Year.
The French poet Théophile Gautier conceived it as the epitome of the Romantic two-act ballet, realistic or exotic in the first half, and supernatural in the second.
