Matthew Bourne: “a lot of young people think that it’s odd to have women as swans”

Mat­thew Bourne’s Swan Lake will be shown on tele­vi­sion 3-D. Ahead of its show­ing The Times talked to the cho­reo­grapher. Here are some of the ques­tions he was asked:

Where would you be without Swan Lake?
It’s the thing that opened up everything else to me. The irony is that this is the only ver­sion that a lot of young people have seen and they think that it’s odd to have women as swans.

Did Black Swan give dan­cers a bad rep?
In ways I don’t think it was ste­reo­typ­ical enough! Because it was all very het­ero­sexual, the gay aspect of dance seemed to be com­pletely not there at all. Dance is more pop­u­lar than it’s been for many years, and Black Swan has a lot to do with that.

As an auto­graph hunter in your teens, who was your best “get”?
Fred Astaire was my idol and I met him many times, to the point where he waved at me from a car once. It feels like so long ago now. People are a bit shocked when I say that I’ve met Charlie Chap­lin — it feels like some­thing from history.

Have you met any of those stars since?
I’ve had lunch at Bar­bra Streis­and’s house, a pool party at Liz Taylor’s house. With Babs it was just me and her, but the Liz one was a fam­ily party. Liz wasn’t someone who really listened. She held court — you could say stuff but I’m not sure it would go in. Cer­tainly not now anyway.

What’s next?
We’re doing The Nutcracker at Sadler’s this Christ­mas. For our 25th anniversary next year we have a lot of plans — reviv­als and a new piece at the end of the year.

read all via The Times

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