MAN EN POINTE
Matthew Bourne.
By the third act he is starting to be drawn to a male character who has a swan-like personality (wild, beautiful, free and daring) and his attraction becomes sexually charged.
DNA: Your production has been called the gay Swan Lake – would you say this is true? Matthew Bourne: True, it has been called the gay Swan Lake and homoerotic, etcetera, and I don’t have a problem with that. Suprisingly, there are precious few ballets with a gay theme and my Swan Lake has meant a lot to gay audiences over the last 20 years, although it’s not as straight forward as that. It is, after all, the story of a young man who falls in love with a swan (or the idea of a swan) and that’s a pretty strange story, be the swan male or female!
The Prince in our version is also a conflicted and highly restricted person, being brought up as a royal. He has a girlfriend in act one, and I wouldn’t say that he would identify himself as gay. However, by the third act he is starting to be drawn to a male character who has a swan-like personality (wild, beautiful, free and daring) and his attraction does become sexually charged. So yes, there is a gay story at the heart of the piece, but I don’t think labelling it “the gay Swan Lake” does it full justice. Your world tour will bring Swan Lake to Melbourne, land of the black swan! Why now? Since it premiered in 1995, my production has been consistently revived every three or four years. New audiences are still discovering it and it’s more popular than ever. It does have a particular resonance now, with the introduction of gay marriage in many parts of the world, but also the persecution of gay men and women in less-enlightened countries. The timing of the tour is a coincidence but once again is a talking point among audiences as it champions the right to love, regardless of sex, race or class. When you premiered this work 20 years ago it was highly controversial, broke box office records and must have had an incalculable effect on social change. At that time, gay marriage was not on the radar – what do you think is the next frontier in terms of sociopolitical impact and do you have an artistic challenge in mind? All of these changes are wonderful and welcome, but the publicity surrounding gay marriage seems to have fired up the ignorant bigots and Putins of this world and in some countries the situation for gay people has become worse, so there is still work to do before we all celebrate too much. We are continuing our mission to get young men interested in dance, however, making work is never politically motivated for me, but I do feel that it is important to reflect the world as it is today, particularly in ballet which, in terms of sexuality, race and manners, seems to be frozen in another era. Your production company, New Adventures, is creating a ballet for young men based on Lord Of The Flies. Do you see a metaphor in that story’s plot for the way places like Russia and Uganda are behaving with their anti-gay legislation? This story is a metaphor for how conflict, of any kind, is inevitable whenever a group of human beings are left to create social order. It also tells of how the weakest and most vulnerable amongst us are attacked and mocked. In that sense, it is always a timely piece of work and is still studied in schools today 60 years after it was written by William Golding. In an interview with The Times, you said Russia is going backward and it’s true that had Tchaikovsky been publicly exposed as gay, the punishment was essentially the same in 1890 as it is now with these new laws. Do you believe this kind of oppression fuelled his artistic output? Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I do believe Tchaikovsky’s work benefited from the turmoil in his soul. You can hear it in the music and it’s what makes the final act of Swan Lake so incredibly emotional. One stop you will not be making on this tour is Russia. Did you suffer any backlash when you first performed there? We have performed
many of my pieces in Russia over the last 10 years (including Cinderella, Play Without Words, Sleeping Beauty and the gay-themed, Dorian Gray). Swan Lake was an enormous hit there 10 years ago, adored by audiences and also by dancers from the Bolshoi. Dorian Gray, which featured some pretty explicit gay duets and relationships, was also appreciated. In the light of all the publicity surrounding Putin’s new anti-gay legislation, it is unlikely that we will be asked to return with anything that has a gay-themed storyline. The next piece that we would have taken next year, The Car Man, which features a gay twist in the storyline, has already been rejected. So the boycott is not one sided! Leading up to the Sochi Olympics, a lot was made of protesting by boycott or going there and making a statement. By choosing not to return, do you think Russians will know what they are missing or is that risk not the responsibility of an artist? Well, as I said earlier, they have already boycotted us. This is extremely sad for both us and the audiences and fans we have built there over the last decade. One of my main reasons for not going now is that I will not put the safety of my dancers at risk, which I believe would be a problem in Moscow and, as an artist, I no longer feel welcome and will not compromise the kind of work that I do. We often hear of nefarious Russian plots, like the KGB poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. Have you heard of the suspicions about Tchaikovsky’s death – that it wasn’t cholera but a suicide ordered by a kangaroo court?
Ihave heard about this, but doubt it. I think that the overwhelming social disgrace surrounding the idea of being homosexual, which there’s no doubt that he was, was enough to push him over the edge. Do you believe he committed suicide? I believe that it’s a strong possibility. As you mention, there is no doubt he was gay, but some Russians still deny this. When I visited his country home in Klin, I was given a tour of the house in which all mention of his homosexuality was whitewashed. According to the Russians he was, in fact, in love with a childhood sweetheart – a female – who he could never have, and this was the tragedy of his life. Laughable! Tchaikovsky suffered criticism because nationalists wanted a completely Russian sound and his had a massive Western influence. How has your own career been influenced by the outside and is that always welcome? I’m in the lucky position of having my own company; a privilege that I do not take lightly as I’m able to do the work I want. We do tour to large-scale venues throughout the UK and internationally and famous titles are almost essential for selling tickets. However, in my own versions of these famous stories I have the chance to be incredibly creative with those simple tales and have developed a theatrical language of my own. My company is not around to uphold tradition; I leave that to the classical ballet companies, so we are very free to create the work we want to. I had the pleasure of seeing your first tour of Swan Lake in Los Angeles with Roddy McDowall, who had taken portraits of one of your principal dancers. Do you recall this dancer and what’s he doing now? Roddy became a great friend and I miss him very much. He took photos of myself and Lynn Seymour [retired leading ballerina] during that time but the dancer you are referring to is Adam Cooper, who created the role of the Swan. He is now a musical theatre star, most recently seen in the West End starring in Singin’ In The Rain, in the Gene Kelly role! You got into dancing and then choreography relatively late in life and you’ve always subverted expectations in your work. Is there anything traditional about you? [Laughs] Lots of things! I actually feel that I’m rather old fashioned both privately and in terms of my attitude to theatre. I’m very much into giving people a good night out, a powerful story full of emotion, humour and spectacle… good old fashioned values. You also collect dolls. So do we! Which is your favorite? To be more specific, I collect odd, slightly damaged, old dolls. I particularly love ventriloquist dolls, as they have a history and an inner life. I hate anything pink and frilly… all my dolls are a bit creepy or sad! My favourite is a vent doll called Leslie, who we use in rehearsals for our Nutcracker (in which the nutcracker doll is a vent doll)! His face seems to change depending on how rehearsals are going [laughs].