Matthew Bourne on his Swan Lake with male swans, the present that shook up the dance world

Celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of his legendary stage manufacturing, Matthew Bourne tells the BBC in regards to the present that radically modified ballet with one “huge concept”.

Essentially the most iconic dance costume of latest occasions could also be a pair of white feathery breeches on everlasting show at London’s V&A museum. They are a tribute to choreographer Matthew Bourne’s gender-flipping dance model of the ballet Swan Lake. The manufacturing, which first premiered in London in November 1995, ruffled feathers in some ways as a result of the swans, till then feminine roles, had been performed by male dancers. It went on to grow to be the longest working full-length dance traditional within the West Finish and on Broadway, profitable each Olivier and Tony awards.

Because the present celebrates its thirtieth anniversary with a 2024/25 tour, Matthew Bourne tells the BBC the story of the landmark manufacturing.

“I believe most individuals thought that once they got here to see it, they had been going to see males in tutus,” says Matthew Bourne, of public expectations again in 1995.

The younger, London-born choreographer, then aged 35, had been given the chance to stage his personal model of Swan Lake at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre. It was a cherished dream for him, he says, “as a result of I’ve all the time cherished and recognized with the story”. His huge concept, he recollects, “was that each one the swans can be male. Every little thing else in regards to the manufacturing flowed from that one easy concept”.

He explains that he discovered the which means within the story via the character of the prince. “He is always being informed he must get married; his mom retains pointing on the ring on her finger, which is ballet mime for ‘time to get married’. And he retains saying, ‘no I am going to solely get married for real love’. I all the time thought there was one thing else occurring there. And that is the place the thought of male swans got here from, from fascinated with the prince himself. I believe he is clearly on the lookout for one thing else.”

Bourne skilled in dance earlier than changing into a choreographer for tv and theatre, and by the early Nineties, had type for placing his personal spin on classical ballets. Just like the cohort throughout that period often known as the YBAs (Younger British Artists) – which included Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas – Bourne was seen as an agent of change in his sphere. He had important success together with his model of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, the place the setting was a Victorian-style orphanage. In 1994, his model of La Sylphide (referred to as Highland Fling) was set in a modern-day housing property in Glasgow.

Till this audacious twist on Swan Lake, ballerina Margot Fonteyn’s legendary performances because the Dying Swan had grow to be an iconic picture not simply of Swan Lake, however of Twentieth-Century ballet itself.  When it was introduced that Bourne was bringing his personal model, he remembers that “lots of people thought it was a folly”.

“Nobody may actually think about what it will be like, I believe,” he says. “Should you’d been requested what ballet appears like, I believe the picture of feminine swans, the dancers, the tutus, was the classical look anybody would think about.”

“They mentioned issues like ‘he is not the best particular person to do a brand new model of Swan Lake, he is recognized for humour and a jokey strategy to issues, for parody.’  I used to be referred to as ‘the unhealthy boy of the ballet’ – I am not even from the ballet world – and ‘the Damien Hirst of Dance’. They thought it was going to be an enormous ship up and there have been lots of people who had been both doubting it, or excited that this humorous piece was going to occur.

“However I knew I wasn’t going to try this. I knew I had a good suggestion. Whether or not folks would love it or not, that I did not know.”

A part of the visible shock of the present had been the male swans. The look – a single black triangle on their foreheads, cropped hair, naked torsos and ft, and most famously, their white silk chiffon “feathered” legs – had been created by Bourne and British designer Lez Brotherston. Bourne was additionally influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 movie, The Birds.

“Lez and I wished the swans to have a way of being bird-like, animalistic and human, all on the identical time,” he says. “That they are legendary and tribal as a gaggle. I had a number of visible photographs, that I gave to Lez, of an Indian dancer that I might seen leaping within the air with some fringy trousers. He additionally got here up with a phenomenal, barely corseted, prime half. For the ‘beak’ make-up, I might seen a ballet by Roland Petit, Notre Dame de Paris. The one make-up he needed to characterize the hunchback was a black sq. line throughout his eyebrows. I’d simply remembered how easy it was and the way it labored nicely.”

Removed from being a humorous model of the unique love story, Bourne describes his Prince’s reference to The Swan as “the center of the piece for me”.

“This Prince is on the lookout for one thing in his life that he did not have,” he says. “He has a chilly mom, nobody touches him, which is true of a royal particular person if you concentrate on it. So, to be embraced by the swan’s wings was the center of it. It represented to him all of the issues that he wasn’t in his personal life, which is being free and being wild, to be a free particular person. It is so nicely embraced by Tchaikovsky’s music. It is very transferring, deep stuff, as a result of the story has a component the place you’ll be able to deliver your self to it.”

The choreographer additionally expresses shock – because the costumes for his ‘royal’ household had been modern – that the 1995 headlines primarily targeted on The Swan, quite than a perceived reference to the British Royal Household and the divorce of the then Prince of Wales from Diana, Princess of Wales.

“The royal information was so huge on the time and the lead did look a bit like Prince Charles at one level. So, I assumed that might be picked up on, the story of a troubled prince. Nevertheless it was all in regards to the cultural icon, which is the Dancing Swan.”

The world premiere of Swan Lake, on 9 November 1995, with Adam Cooper, a Royal Ballet principal dancer enjoying The Swan, triggered a right away sensation. 

“It was a shock to many within the viewers, I believe, when Adam Cooper and these males in costumes got here on,” Bourne says.

“It wasn’t a foul shock; it was simply one thing model new. And it was a shock to me, the way in which it took off in a single evening. We had been front-page headlines in some newspapers. Cameron Waterproof coat cornered me within the interval – he did not even await the tip of the present – and mentioned that it needed to go to the West Finish. He recognised one thing in it instantly.”

There have been, he provides, some who walked out when two males began dancing collectively, and the sexuality of the piece was a speaking level all through its first record-breaking runs in London’s West Finish in 1996, and on Broadway in 1998. It was nonetheless a controversial matter. Though same-sex marriage had been depicted within the US’s hottest sitcom, Mates, in January 1996, weeks after the premiere of Swan Lake, it will nonetheless be one other twenty years earlier than homosexual relationships would obtain full equality in legislation in both the US or Nice Britain.

“It obtained labelled ‘the Homosexual Swan Lake’ in a number of locations, and I used to be informed to maintain quiet about it after we first went to Broadway,” Bourne says. “They thought it was very unhealthy for publicity. It would not be now, after all.”

“Deep down, I knew there was primarily a homosexual story being informed inside the piece,” he says. “I believe I used to be cautious of going too far with it on the time, and considering of everybody’s consolation. I might be saying about The Swan, ‘he is sort of a father determine’.”

“I believe {that a} wider viewers discovered it extra palatable within the mid-Nineties as a result of it wasn’t an easy homosexual relationship. It was a prince and a swan. It was seen via the eyes of a prince looking for peace in his life, and looking for somebody who would love him. It has a easy common theme, which you possibly can learn a number of methods, and I believe its openness is a part of its success. However there have been individuals who did not like that aspect of it.” 

If Bourne did not really feel in a position to have a good time the queer narrative inside this Swan Lake in 1995, the remainder of the dance world took for much longer. It wasn’t till the 2020s that in style TV dance exhibits featured same-sex {couples}, and it was solely this yr that classical ballet premiered a brand new ballet, Oscar, with an overtly homosexual story. 

“These limitations have simply been damaged, which is attention-grabbing,” says Bourne. “The 30 years of historical past has modified all of it, it is not seen as controversial anymore, it is ‘deliver the children at Christmas, deliver the household’. It is modified enormously. Nevertheless it’s gone via a historical past of whether or not I can overtly have a good time that as nicely, and I’ve gone by myself journey about how I speak about it.” 

Swan Lake’s position in serving to to query gender norms of that period, nonetheless, was evident in Stephen Daldry’s Oscar-nominated movie from 2000, Billy Elliot, the place Jamie Bell stars as a boy who needs to bop. Adam Cooper stars within the final scene of the movie, as grownup Billy, about to carry out as The Swan.

With that one scene, Swan Lake glided into popular culture. And Bourne believes the manufacturing had a direct affect on the variety of younger males who now felt in a position to pursue a profession in dance.”Round that point there was an unbelievable progress in curiosity from younger males, in addition to younger ladies, to get into dancing,” he says.

“I believe it has a legacy when it comes to male dancers, together with Billy Elliot, from that point. It turned an okay factor to do, due to these swans, this nice mixture of masculinity and lyricism, they present that each may be embraced. It is an iconic piece that they aspire to be taught now.”

Swan Lake additionally broke new limitations when it received a British Olivier theatre award in 1996, and three Tony Awards in 1999, together with finest director of a musical. It triggered consternation amongst some on Broadway as they had been divided on what his manufacturing represented. It was nearly past definition, a recent piece set to the unique music of Tchaikovsky.

“It’s a musical theatre piece, however there was all this controversy about me profitable the Tony Award, as a result of there have been some who mentioned that Swan Lake wasn’t a musical, it is a ballet,” says Bourne. “However something of this nature, this type of argument, is all the time attention-grabbing as a result of that is how issues change, and the way issues are then considered in another way.”

However that many audiences do certainly see his Swan Lake (and his subsequent dance productions) as ballet, has had a long-lasting influence on the inclusivity of the artwork type, he thinks. “I believe the factor I am most happy with with Swan Lake is the expansion of dance audiences due to that piece, it actually embraced wider audiences,” he says. 

“I believe it made folks looking forward to creativity and wanting one thing totally different. That is been a particular legacy of the present. And for some folks, what we do is ballet, they usually wish to admire that they’ve discovered one thing new, which is, for them, ballet. So, it is all about definitions actually. Maybe we’re only a style on our personal.”

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake is on tour from November 2024 for 29 weeks.