Seated in WA Ballet's boardroom, sporting a head of greying curls and a striped pastel shirt, eminent Hungarian-born choreographer Youri Vamos instinctively launches into a passionate retelling of his life story. In a gravelly, resonating voice, he speaks of an early love of the arts, a gypsy attitude towards life and how an accidental dalliance with choreography turned into a career.

These days, Vamos and his dedicated forward guard of artistic staff travel the world to oversee the restaging of his many ballets. His renowned version of Romeo and Juliet, set in the 1930s, is especially sought after, and this time Vamos is visiting Perth to help WA Ballet dancers and artistic staff with the finer points of its nuanced dramatic elements.

"(Romeo and Juliet) is a drama, with artistry and comedy," he says. "Everything is inside. We don't speak, we dance. This is a drama without words. This is what is difficult for the dancers because they have to think more about how to articulate with the face and body."

Anyone even slightly familiar with ballet may find such comments obvious. But Vamos' musings on dance are heavy with insight born of a lifetime of both appreciating and creating important works of art.

As a youngster in Budapest, he began learning the piano but was later told he lacked the aptitude to be a top pianist. His piano professor was impressed by the boy's energy and musicality, however, and suggested he take up ballet.

Vamos' love for ballet was spontaneous, a love that was encouraged and reinforced by his "cultivated" parents who took him to the theatre regularly.

"I watched the (performers), they touched me. I look at man dancers — why I like him? I cannot take away my eyes from Nureyev," he says excitedly. "When you think about Nureyev on the stage, he was screaming with his eyes . . . the people had to look at him."

Despite his family's zeal for the arts, Vamos was the only artist in the family. "Very serious family. They were teachers and academics, as were my grandparents, everybody. Just I was gypsy," he says with a laugh.

After working as a dancer at the opera house in Budapest, his "gypsy" wanderlust led him to Munich, where he was principal dancer for 14 years. At 26, this is where his choreographic career began.

Vamos calls his initial foray into choreography an accident. His first work was part of a last-minute rescue plan, as the company was one ballet short of a complete mixed bill. Vamos remembers being asked: "Do choreography, we are missing one — do something!"

"I said, no. But also on this day, I met a pianist and he said, 'I don't understand why you ballet people don't make new ballet of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody'. And then I hear this music and the next day I say to ballet director, 'I do choreography. I try'," he says.

He planned to create a version of Romeo and Juliet set to Prokofiev's score quite early on but back then he felt too close to Cranko's version.

"The music is fantastic, the Shakespeare is genius, and Cranko was very, very good," Vamos says. "In Munich, when I danced Romeo, and then next day do new choreography, I think is impossible."

After shelving his Romeo and Juliet for 15 years, Vamos felt there was enough of a gap from Cranko's version and began to create.

"I decided to hear the music again, without Cranko, and that gave me idea to put Romeo in the time from the composer's life. It was composed (by Prokofiev) in the 30s, and this provided different version."

While Vamos' Romeo and Juliet is set in the 30s, he never sought to cash in on a few cheap gangster thrills but rather something else.

"Not because of mafioso, no. What is very, very important is the religion. Religion and the family in Italy are very strong. For this reason, I was thinking keep it in Italia. The girls not marry unless the father says yes. Maybe they can, but out from the family. It exists today and I'm sure it did in the 30s," he says.

The 30s setting can also be traced back to Vamos' early experiences in the theatre and his belief that an audience needs to be able to identify with and be emotionally touched by a ballet. To this end, Vamos says that historically recent settings are the key — even yesterday, referencing the famous Beatles song.

"Ballet is from feelings, better we talk what was yesterday. What you will feel tomorrow? I'm happy when I know what I feel today. But with emotion I had yesterday; I can tell a story," he says.

According to Vamos, too far back is equally alienating. "Put Romeo and Juliet on stage in the Renaissance and this is just for entertainment. I don't think the people really come with you."

Cultivating the personality of performers is also of utmost importance to Vamos. When he thinks back to his childhood memories of Nureyev, he now knows what made the man so compelling. "He made himself so interesting. But he made himself," he says.

It's this aspect of performing that Vamos will be working on so intently with dancers from WA Ballet. "Dancers should work with the personality they have, it should come from inside. Ballet should touch me, it should touch me," he says.

Romeo and Juliet is at His Majesty's Theatre from Friday to July 18. Book at BOCS.