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bournefan · 5 years

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Matthew Bourne interview: Swan Lake’s choreographer on his high-flying reboot

As Matthew Bourne’s fabulous Swan Lake gets a reboot, he tells David Jays how he has hand-reared a new generation of male cygnets

The Sunday Times, December 2 2018, 12:01am

You know you’re ageing when swans, like policemen, are getting younger. So imagine how Matthew Bourne feels as he revives his landmark production of Swan Lake with its all-male swans. “It’s the first time we’ve done the show where quite a large amount of the cast were not born when we made it,” he tells me during a break in rehearsals in east London. He sighs self-deprecatingly. “It feels a bit weird. I’m some sort of historical figure to them.”

This Swan Lake soared straight into dance history when it premiered in 1995. It whirled Tchaikovsky’s tragic romance into a modern British context: the prince struggles with the expectations of an icy royal family and is overwhelmed by a magnetic wild bird. It’s like The Crown, but with added hot boy swans. Bare-chested, ferociously charismatic, those swans became instant icons, and the production reached the West End, Broadway, film, DVD and student curriculums. No one had expected it to run, let alone fly with such irresistible force.

Bourne has more silver in his beard these days, but, almost 25 years on, he’s delighted that the work still acts like catnip to charismatic young dancers. “The piece has an amazing legacy of inspiration for young guys,” he says. “For virtually everyone in it, it’s the thing that made them want to dance and it’s their dream to be in it. They have a big emotional relationship with it — you can’t buy that.”

For many spectators, too, Bourne’s Swan Lake is the gateway drug that gets them hooked on dance. But it was his first large-scale show, so he is pleased that the by now “knackered” sets and costumes gave him an opportunity to rework it. “I’d be happy to lose a lot of the humour,” he reflects. “I’ve grown more involved in the dark psychology. The prince is a mind in turmoil. For me, it’s very simple — it’s about someone without love in their life who wants to be held.

“We’ve questioned everything,” he continues. He was tempted to make the Fergie-like royal girlfriend a bit more Meghan, but it was “too late in the day” for such radical changes. But he has stripped things back: the rackety Soho club sequence, for example, originally home to Quentin Crisp and Joe Orton, is simplified to focus on dance.

Fresh eyes for the creative team were provided by Paule Constable, Bourne’s inspired go-to lighting designer for more than a decade, but a newcomer to this piece. “Classical ballet is not my comfort zone,” she admits. “But this is engaging and overwhelming. It’s about loss, and it’s profoundly painful.” She was especially taken by “the emotional impact of the ending. It really hits you.”

Constable also praises Bourne’s “narrative muscle”. “It’s fascinating, as an early show for Matt. It has big dance sections — the complexity is very different from the contemporary choreography of The Red Shoes. Matt’s reinvented it. A lot of people say it feels more grown-up this time.”

She had asked herself if seeing these young men dancing as swans would still feel radical, but she isn’t wondering now. “I had no idea it would feel so resonant and pertinent. We are sitting on a massive crisis in mental health, particularly for young men. Twenty-three years ago, Matthew was already engaged in these struggles.”

Does Bourne never resent his iconic Swan as being more of an albatross round his neck? “No, I’ve never felt it. It’s the biggest show we do, so there’s always a big influx of new people. Many of them have never acted before. Developing talent is a huge part of the show now.” For a lot of the cast, this is their first professional gig. In fact, many of the show’s fledgling swans were hand-reared. Some had performed in Bourne’s Lord of the Flies, a production that recruits local young men at each venue, many of whom have never set foot in a theatre.

More intriguing still, several dancers emerged from the company’s “Swan School”. Hold on, Swan School?

“We started it to give people a better chance of getting into the show,” Bourne explains. It was prompted by watching unpolished talent at auditions. “We invited people who we thought had potential, but who, left to their own devices, may just have come back a year later without the means to be cast.”

I can’t help imagining a feathery Hogwarts, but the reality is more focused: learning the choreography, getting feedback, exploring the show’s mix of styles. As Bourne puts it, “a crash course in being a swan”.

Swanning, he insists, is trickier than it looks — he drops a starry ballet name he didn’t think was right for it. As for the complete newbies: “There’s always been room for people who have a good standard of dancing but no performing experience — they learn through doing the show.” Later, in rehearsal, I watch the least experienced Prince: James Lovell, who came via Swan School. “He’s the youngest guy in the company, and he’s playing the Prince,” Bourne marvels. “He’s an actor, perfect for us. He’s holding his own completely.”

As for the new swans, they were lured from West End musicals and big ballet companies. Matthew Ball, rising star of the Royal Ballet, told Bourne that, when young, he had the show poster on his wall. He even had the T-shirt. He has taken leave from the RB to dance the Swan; and Max Westwell left English National Ballet altogether. “I’d auditioned for Swan Lake before,” he says, “but it wasn’t the right time. This time I really went for it.” Meanwhile, the contemporary-trained Will Bozier was performing in Wicked, but leapt at a chance to audition. He, too, was a devoted fanboy: “I grew up watching Swan Lake.”

To inform the performances, Bourne shares film clips via Facebook and tries to make everyone watch The Birds. Bozier and Westwell — one sweet, one springy, both with close-cropped hair — describe their all-enveloping preparation. Bozier browses YouTube for footage of swans attacking people (Bourne’s birds are far from house-trained); when he isn’t needed in rehearsal later, I see him practising wing things at the back. Meanwhile, Adam Cooper, who originated the role, came in to coach them. How was that? “Insane,” Bozier says. “He’s still amazing — the speed of his movement. It all clicked into place.”

Each dancer must put their own stamp on the dual role of the Prince’s beloved wild bird and the wicked buck who humiliates him at the palace ball. Bourne explains what he needs: “In the same way that [the traditional ballet] is a challenge for the ballerina, these two roles are very different. You can’t just be a beautiful Swan. As the Stranger, you’ve got to come out and be a bit of a sexpot. It doesn’t work if you have only one of those things.”

In rehearsal, Bourne is a soft-voiced authority, the kindest of historical figures. “It’s difficult, this piece,” he tells the company. “A lot of different characters, and you have to keep changing styles.” How do the dancers themselves assess the challenge?

“Coming from a classical background, the range in the movement was tricky,” Westwell says. “And it is a big role, you have to pace yourself.” With multiple casts throughout the tour, each Swan will wrap itself around the heart and body of three Princes. “It feels different each time,” Westwell says. “So many scenarios. You have to respond in the moment. We’re working flat out.”

If this Swan Lake welcomes a new generation of artists, Bourne’s next show, based on Romeo and Juliet, goes further, involving a raft of young creatives. “We’re working with lots of younger artists,” Constable says. “We’re all bringing on young associates. I’m working with a lighting designer called Ali Hunter. She has a voice in the room, not just as an assistant. This project feels like it has incredible possibility.”

Swan Lake is at Sadler’s Wells, London EC1, until Jan 27, then touring until May 25: new-adventures.net/swan-lake

#swan lake #matthew bourne

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junker-town · 6 years

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Replacing your mentor is weird. Here’s how Nick Nurse is handling it

Dwane Casey was the person who gave Nick Nurse an NBA job. Now, the two are trying their best to overcome the awkward circumstances the Raptors thrust upon them.

On a glowing-hot day in the summer of 2012, you could wander into the Hofheinz Pavillion, the arena at the University of Houston where Great Britain was hosting a pre-Olympic warm-up, and bear witness to the origins of the modern-day Raptors for 10 dollars a pop.

It’s where former Toronto Raptors head coach Dwane Casey first met current Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. Nurse was an assistant coach for Great Britain’s national team, back when defensive gamesmanship buttered his bread. Lithuania was invited, bringing Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas, and by proxy, Casey, into Nurse’s orbit.

Nurse and Casey bonded when Casey audited Great Britain’s practices and scrimmages, run by head coach Chris Finch (now an assistant with the New Orleans Pelicans).

“[Casey] was always a guy that liked to learn from watching other coaches and watching practices and stuff like that,” Nurse tells SB Nation in his office. “That was something he encouraged us to do.”

Nurse couldn’t have known then that by the summer of 2015, he’d be on Casey’s coaching staff, accompanying him on a practice excursion to Seattle, to watch Pete Carroll run the Seahawks by day — “the single best practice I’ve ever seen in my life by any sporting team ever,” Nurse recalls — while immersing himself in Casey’s inner life by night.

“You get to go to his home, see his family, see where he hangs out in the summer.”

At dinner, Nurse’s pre-teen son, Noah, a theater junkie, gave the toast.

“He was going on and on, probably quoting some play or film.” Just before wrapping up, he read the room. ‘Oh wait, I forgot,’ Noah added. ‘To the Raptors!’

Nor could Nurse have imagined he’d soon be taking semi-regular trips to Lithuania, conceiving of the summer regimen that turned Valanciunas’ from a prodding post-up big to an occasional offensive nucleus at the top of the key. Or that this summer, Nurse would have to explain to Valanciunas, a career starter, that he wanted him to come off the bench some games.

That last part, nobody dreamed of it even six months ago. The Raptors, at 59-23, had just finished their greatest regular season in history. Casey was a heavy favorite to win Coach of the Year. The modernized offense was humming at No. 2 in the league. The restructured defense was switchable and strong. All Star DeMar DeRozan just had a career year.

“I didn’t think it would be here,” Nurse told reporters at Tuesday’s practice prior to Wednesday’s game against the Detroit Pistons, the franchise Casey took over as head coach. “I really expected to be a head coach in this league, and I didn’t think it would be here.”

But the Raptors looked listless in a four-game sweep against the Cavs in the second round of the playoffs, always a chess-move behind LeBron James and coach Tyronn Lue. By June 25, when Casey collected his Coach of the Year award, Toronto GM Masai Ujiri had shown him the door.

Ujiri went unnamed in Casey’s acceptance speech. So did Nurse, who was named his replacement 11 days earlier, flipping from understudy to adversary. Nurse has been mum on their communication since, considering it private. Casey told Sportsnet’s Michael Grange, “I think he texted me once I got the job here, but haven’t talked to him or spoke to him since then.”

Despite the fact that the Raptors also swapped DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard, Casey felt the implicit message of the shake-up was about him.

“It’s the hardest thing to do in this league, to take a team from irrelevant to relevant, or from obscurity to big time relevancy.” -Nick Nurse on Dwane Casey

“[It was] specifically pointing the finger at me — and that’s their prerogative,” Casey told Rod Beard of the Detroit News. “They said I was the problem. I know what we did over a seven-year period there and starting from the rebuilding, developing and in the lottery to where they are now.”

“They can’t take that away,” he added. “A lot of people can take credit for all the good and put all the bad on me — and that’s fine.”

It’s true. While the Nick Nurse-era has spawned its own intricacies — looser, more collaborative practices, and an open floor with one of Valanciunas or Serge Ibaka coming off the bench nightly — Casey was the one who built the foundation with which the Raptors have glided to a 12-2 record.

He landed soft, inking a 5-year, $35 million with the Pistons, but all he has to do is peer over a bridge to see the spoils up North and the border that divides them from him.

“It’s the hardest thing to do in this league, to take a team from irrelevant to relevant, or from obscurity to big time relevancy,” Nurse says. “And he deserves a lot of credit.”

Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

April 27, 2013 was a career-changing day in Nurse’s pro coaching life. He was the head coach of the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the Rockets’ D-League affiliate. On a damp, hazy morning in Santa Cruz, Calif., Nurse was sitting at breakfast with his staff, conspiring to steal a road victory in Game 1 of the Finals against the Santa Cruz Warriors, coached by current Raptors assistant Nate Bjorkgren.

That’s when Casey’s name flashed on Nurse’s phone. “Win the championship,” Casey said. “And then I’ll have you come up to Toronto to talk.”

Maybe it was the morning fog. Probably it was game ahead, which the Vipers won en route to a ring. But it took Nurse a few days to realize he was going to be interviewing for an NBA assistant coaching job. He was merely happy to be recognized.

“When you’re in the D-League and you ever hear from an NBA coach, it’s always an uplifting moment. A lot of times, you’re down there, people don’t really know you exist,” Nurse says.

Casey was willing to pluck him away from hinterlands of basketball, from jammed 22-seaters and cheap airfare and eery half-empty arenas.

Nurse didn’t secure the gig until just before summer league, but in the intervening months, he and Casey hit it off.

“We were watching the playoffs,” Nurse says. “Talking about the games all the way through. We were developing a relationship.”

They were both basketball lifers, dogged in their refusal to do anything but coach, with the air miles to show for it.

At 23, Grand View University in Iowa made Nurse the youngest head basketball coach in the country. He spent the next 20 years picking up acronyms and experience, as an assistant in the NCAA and United States Basketball League, and a head coach in the British Basketball League, the Polish Basketball League and the D-League. By the time Casey gave him a shot, Nurse accumulated two decades worth of head coaching experience.

In 1989, his 10th year as an NCAA assistant, Casey was the subject of an NCAA investigation that banned him from coaching for five years and sent him looking for a job in Japan. He won the defamation suit and the ban was lifted within a year, but perception haunted him. He spent five years bouncing back and forth from Japan to the NBA’s minor league, until George Karl hired him as an assistant with the SuperSonics. He spent 11 years there until getting his first head coaching gig in the NBA.

“I think we’ve both got a certain degrees of toughness because of that same scenario,” Nurse says. “It’s been kind of a long fight for both of us in a lot of scenarios and I think we coach our teams that way, with a certain level of toughness and discipline and preparation.”

That’s true. Call Casey what you want: stubborn, old-fashioned. Say his teams underperformed in the postseason. Pin some of that on his lack of in-game adjustments, for good measure. But this is a guy who had a reputation for watching more game tape than his assistants. The Raptors improved every year on his pillars of defensive tenacity and player development and never looked back.

Well, until they did.

Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

In an office lined with books and posters of jazz musicians, Nurse sits silently in the dark — his way of fending off unnecessary stimulation — pondering the differences between him and Casey.

“Coaching philosophy-wise…” he pauses and turns to the side, his wrinkled eyebrows lining eyes that peer down thick-framed glasses.

He wraps his hand on his closed MacBook a couple of times. Nurse comes off as a terminal thinker. When media members ask him a question he hasn’t pondered before, he’ll often turn his gaze to the ceiling and bob his head back and forth. The gears are constantly grinding.

“I don’t know. I can’t really think of what the differences are,” he says, playing into an obvious question: Why fire Casey and hire Nurse, an assistant who is presumably similar to him?

But they are different, right? Casey was a merchant of order. Nurse seems to embrace chaos.

“I wouldn’t phrase it that way either. I embrace structure, right? But I do believe in freedom of action and freedom of choice a little bit. But I’m not comparing that, that [Casey] didn’t either.”

There is truth in what Nurse is saying. Casey proved adaptable when Ujiri called for a “culture reset” last summer. The defensive architect shifted his focus to offense. Summer scrimmages featured a four-point line. Casey wrangled two stars, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, into sharing the ball and economizing their shot selection. He mandated 30 triples per game. He grinned and bore it when they clanked off the rim for weeks. He held up his end of the bargain.

In the end, it wasn’t enough.

Maybe with Leonard and Green, two shooters replacing two non-shooters in DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl, Casey’s sensibilities would have been enough. With Poeltl and Lucas Nogeiura no longer causing a log-jam at center, maybe he would have moved Valanciunas to the bench and elected to play more small-ball.

Maybe Casey would have changed the starting lineup, but he certainly wouldn’t have changed it nearly every game on the basis of matchups, like Nurse has. Casey settled into three main lineups last year: the starters, the bench mob, and the closing lineup, which featured Fred VanVleet in place of O.G. Anunoby, with an occasional mix-and-match of big men. He believes in continuity. Nurse wants the Raptors lineups to be so interchangeable by the end of the year that he’s trying to eradicate the word “unit” from his vocabulary.

In Monday’s loss against the Pelicans, Nurse tried to go super-small in the fourth quarter, playing Pascal Siakam and Anunoby at the big man slots. It didn’t work out — sometimes Jrue Holiday and E’Twaun Moore are just going to hit threes in your faces — but he was willing to try it, and it could be an option down the line. These are little things, but little things, increment by increment, can become big things in the flash of an eye.

“Our differences probably come in our backgrounds,” Nurse says. “I coached in every little league— little league, literally.” He laughs. “You can think of in the world, and was forced into having to try a lot of things.”

Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey intended for the Vipers to be a hotbed of innovation, and Nurse answered the call. After watching Russia win a national hockey championship, he fiddled around with hockey substitutions, offsetting his roster’s talent imbalance by asking his players to go all-out for a three or four-minute increments at a time and promising quick breaks. Then, there’s the fly-by closeout. Instead of contesting 3-point shots, defenders would run by the shooter and sprint to the other end of the floor, with the defensive rebounder ready to make an outlet pass on misses.

“Sometimes experimentation will lead you to things you wouldn’t necessarily see,” Nurse says. “I am still tinkering with lineups, still tinkering with offenses and defenses, and that’s probably just more my personality. It’s more fun for me and it’s more interesting just to see where our potential can go.”

The difference between Casey and Nurse is analogous to the difference between last year’s roster and this years: pieces that were straining to become modern vs. pieces that are naturally disposed to be. Casey was a stabilizing force that imbued work ethic, character, a consistency of purpose onto the Raptors.

Nurse isn’t so much a 180-degree flip as he is a pivot away from Casey. When you’re this close to the rim, sometimes all you need is a different angle.

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