Lloyd Webber in tribute to ‘lone wolf ’ Cats choreographer Lynne
ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER has paid tribute to his friend Dame Gillian Lynne, the British choreographer, who passed away on Sunday aged 92.
Dame Gillian, who choreographed the dances for Lloyd Webber’s 1981 musical Cats, was a “a lone wolf and a pioneer” in her field, the composer told The Daily Telegraph.
“In the early Eighties, musical theatre and dance were considered to be impossible bedfellows,” he said. “It’s no exaggeration to say that we opened with the only cast that could act, sing and dance at the same time.
“I think it’s a great tribute to her that so many people and kids who came to see Cats became so interested in dance. It turned on a whole new generation to dance and made people in Britain feel that we could do it.”
The hit musical was originally planned as a series of songs without dance, setting the words of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, TS Eliot’s book, to music. But a letter by the poet inspired Lloyd Webber to get in touch with Dame Gillian.
“TS Eliot wrote a letter in which he had the idea of an event that all the cats went to,” he said. “The event was the Jellicle Ball. That’s when the dance idea hit me – I felt it was vital to have a choreographer involved in it and she was the only go-to person.”
“Funnily enough, what she spotted was that cats never do anything together, they’re all individual. What a lot of choreographers would have done is to bring the entire cast together in an ensemble piece. Gilly never did that – she made the cats true individuals.”
Earlier this year, Lloyd Webber announced he was renaming his New London Theatre – where Cats was first performed – as the Gillian Lynne Theatre in tribute to her work.
The composer said it was “wonderful” that she could attend the official relaunch of the venue last month, to see “her closest friends and colleagues and those that she’d influenced just rise as a body and say ‘Bravo, Gilly!’” At the event, Dame Gillian was carried onstage
‘Funnily enough, what she spotted was that cats never do anything together, they’re all individual’
in a golden throne, with pink ostrich feathers.
After Cats, the pair collaborated on The Phantom of the Opera (1986) and Aspects of Love (1990).
Their work often involved heated disagreements, the 70-year-old composer said. “My relationship with her as a composer was that we absolutely decorated loved each other, but then she’d want to change my music and I’d say ‘No, you can’t do that!’ And then we’d have a right royal battle, and we’d always end up with a compromise.
“Gilly was very strong willed and always wanted her way but so did I, and the consequence of many of our battles made Cats what it is. She was a wonderful collaborator because she was so strong. She frequently told me off, but I would go to the end of the earth for her.”
Before she moved into choreography, Dame Gillian rose to prominence as a ballet dancer, beginning her career as a performer with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet (now the Royal Ballet) during the Second World War.
Part of what made her approach to dance so distinctive was that she “believed very strongly in women’s sexuality,” Lloyd-webber said. “She was never frightened of talking about sex, male or female. She was part of a generation that is probably considered too un-pc for the world today.”