Christopher Bruce

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety nine, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a dancer. As a boy who'd suffered from polio, he was sent to dancing classes to strengthen his legs, and by the time he was twenty two he'd become the star of the Ballet Rombert. Ten years after that, he created and danced a flamboyant masterpiece, Cruel Garden, based on the life of the Spanish poet Lorca. A choreographer of international renown, he's worked for the London Festival Ballet and the Houston Ballet, but he returned five years ago to the school which had trained him. The Rombert Company had hit hard times, but by building bridges between the modern and the classical, he's brought it back into the limelight. Nevertheless, there are days, he says, when I clutch my head and think I can't do this job any more. He is Christopher Bruce. Is it that bad, Chris? You've compared it to being a a football manager. Is it so stressful?

Christopher Bruce1:19

There are bad days, but there are also days when the reward is so enormous that one quickly forgets those head-clutching days.

Presenter1:27

So th the rewards are in the dance itself. The stress is presumably about money.

Christopher Bruce1:31

It's partly money because like many arts organizations in this country, we're very underfunded. But the rewards are in seeing the performances of what I think is a very, very great company at the moment.

Presenter1:44

But it's not about audiences. The audiences are there, aren't they? You get big ones.

Christopher Bruce1:48

We do very well for contemporary dance, which is not obviously as popular as the classical ballet. We we get an audience which is much larger than any other contemporary dance company in this country, but it's not enough to pay the bills.

Presenter2:02

But you weren't getting those audiences or Rombert wasn't getting those audiences in nineteen ninety four when you came back, and you've set about building bridges with, for example, I think, pieces like Rooster, which is based on the Ro Rolling Stones music, isn't it?

Christopher Bruce2:16

Yes, I thi I think I wanted t to have a repertoire that was very wide ranging, which covered all areas of contemporary dance, from the very serious, the postmodern, through to lighter works like Rooster.

Presenter2:29

It is Rolling Stones, it is it is the stones on stage, and they start off in those tight little suits, rather like the Beatles did in the early days, don't they?

Christopher Bruce2:38

I I lived with this music for thirty years, and I I didn't think I could ever really do a piece.

Presenter2:44

Well, it's you, it's your period, isn't it? Yeah.

Christopher Bruce2:45

Yes, it is. Uh I used to bop around to it, but it wasn't until, you know, twenty-five years later that I thought, well, maybe I could assemble some of these wonderful songs into uh a score for a ballet which has certain themes which lock it all together and make it one particular piece. So although it's a very popular piece, it has very serious themes and in terms of composition I uh though I say so myself, it's well constructed, well made.

Speaker 32:50

Well

Christopher Bruce3:13

And I think that is part of its popularity, that it actually works as a piece of choreography.

Presenter3:17

But it's all it there, isn't it, in your ballet, that that kind of jagger strutting his stuff, as it were, and it's it's rather insolent and it's very sexy.

Christopher Bruce3:23

And that's all the

Christopher Bruce3:25

Yes, I mean it sort of describes really the attitudes of uh men of that time and I would sort of include myself. Things are changing, I hope.

Presenter3:32

But when you say there are deeper themes to it, what what do you mean? What what deeper themes are there?

Christopher Bruce3:36

Well, it's interesting because, you know, I'm making a a new ballet at the moment and th many of the same themes come out in my pieces and

Christopher Bruce3:43

I mean, it's a universal story of man and woman and the relationship between the two, the antagonism as well as the attraction. And I think it's there in the stones. It's the men giving the women a hard time, behaving badly, the women being rather more sensible, feet firmly on the ground and looking at the men with a smile.

Presenter4:02

Yeah.

Presenter4:05

We better have your first record.

Christopher Bruce4:07

The first record I think has to be um

Christopher Bruce4:11

Sympathy for the Devil from Rooster. It's such a great number. It builds wonderfully. It was made, I think, late at night when everyone was a little bit tired in the studio. You can hear the the girlfriends of the stones i in one of the booths sort of joining in. It was almost ad hoc really in the way it was made and it has that kind of spontaneity.

Speaker 34:30

I need traps for troubadours who get skilled before they reach Barbay.

Speaker 34:40

Pleased to meet you. Hope you get my name. Oh yeah.

Speaker 34:47

But what's puzzling you is the nature of body.

Speaker 34:55

Look at that!

Presenter4:59

The Rolling Stones and Sympathy for the Devil. Do you feel envious, Chris, when you see your dancers on stage performing things like that? Do you wish you were there still?

Christopher Bruce5:07

I wish I could still do it, but it's very difficult when you've reached your fifties. Uh you know, I try to keep up with them. I I do class most days, but uh the body just does not answer in quite the same way.

Presenter5:19

But I can imagine you sitting there watching someone do Cruel Garden, which was of course a big rule for you, which is revived quite often, and and y your body knowing, you know, wa wanting to be up there, doing it, feeling it.

Christopher Bruce5:32

Yes, and and I think particularly with Cruel Garden, because it was so close to me because I was the original poet. The first few productions of that were quite painful, teaching the part to other people.

Christopher Bruce5:44

Now I've got over it, I have no inclination really to try and get up there and do it. There's no way I could now.

Presenter5:50

But you're still saying, it seems to me, that choreography is a poor second to dance itself.

Christopher Bruce5:54

No, I'm not actually. I get great satisfaction from making a piece that works. And there's moments, particularly in the studio, when you're finding something that is exciting and beautiful, you go home very, very happy. So I think it's an equal.

Presenter6:10

You became a star, as I said, when you were twenty-two, I think, in 1967. You danced the lead role in Pierre au Lunaire and were called all sorts of wonderful things, like the Nourief of modern ballet. Tell me about that role, because i it was, again, wonderfully acrobatic, you were wonderfully supple, and and I've seen clips of you, you know, tumbling down a kind of trapeze. Was it was it a wonderful piece to dance?

Christopher Bruce6:36

It was a great piece to dance. There are very, very few major roles in contemporary dance that can really fulfil you in the way that Piero did.

Presenter6:47

Can you remember performing it on that opening night at the premiere? Can you remember the feeling afterwards?

Christopher Bruce6:52

Oh yes. I mean, people talk about it being my first major starring role. One doesn't think of it at the time. It was such a tough piece to dance, so exhausting. It was just getting through it, both technically and physically, that I was concerned about. But I I remember just being very surprised at the

Christopher Bruce7:10

Uh excitement of the audience and the success of the piece and all the fuss that was made afterwards. In those days, I mean, Rombair was still a very uh small, modest company, although it was doing wonderful work. And it amuses me to think of going home with Glenn Tetley, Norman Morris, uh the director of the company at that time, on a twenty-seven bus from Richmond to uh Notting Hill Gate. We opened a bottle of uh champagne which hit the roof of the upper deck of the bus and we drank from a bottle all the way home. We couldn't afford taxis in those days.

Presenter7:45

But that was a contemporary piece, and it was just then that Rombert had had shifted from classical dance to contemporary dance, and very much um inspired by the school's founder, Mary Rombert. She she pushed you, didn't she? You were her protege.

Presenter8:01

How hard did she push?

Christopher Bruce8:02

Rombert never knew any half measures. She was um ruthless. She didn't know the word tiredness. She did not know the word tiredness in in relation to herself. She dedicated her whole life to dance.

Presenter8:15

She was still doing cartwheels at seventy, wasn't she?

Christopher Bruce8:17

Absolutely, and I saw her do them.

Presenter8:18

That's why I do them.

Christopher Bruce8:22

Very. And I think she enjoyed people fighting back. She tended to destroy people who cowered, actually. And I being a very balsy seventeen year old, we were really I don't understand why she didn't fire me actually, because we had so many fights. But at at the same time, in rehearsal, I would work for her till I couldn't stand up.

Speaker 38:42

Hmm.

Christopher Bruce8:42

She did have this eye for talent and she just an intuition which enabled her to discover.

Christopher Bruce8:50

Possibilities in dances that maybe would never have made that kind of standard anywhere else.

Presenter8:55

So would you go as far as to say if it hadn't been for her you wouldn't be where you are to day?

Christopher Bruce8:59

Oh, I think that's certainly true.

Presenter9:02

Record number two.

Christopher Bruce9:04

Well, Pierre Lunaire, the opening s uh song. There are many reasons. I think it's a wonderful score. But I uh I remember when I first heard it, I hated it. I couldn't think of it in terms of music. So working every day to this score was a profound musical education. And by the time I was performing on stage, uh I loved the score and I saw the poetry uh and the beauty in it.

Speaker 39:36

Be fine, be mine, meet all tweet.

Speaker 310:13

Oh, and because the majors push me towards.

Speaker 310:23

Oh

Speaker 310:25

Kiss na ster wunt in woo gedg.

Presenter10:32

Mary Thomas and the London Sinfonette are performing Moonstruck, the opening song to Schoenberg's Piero Lunaire, conducted by David Atherton. You've made an an extraordinary confession for a top class dancer, Christopher Bruce, and that is that you've been lame all of your life. Can that be true?

Christopher Bruce10:48

It's true, yes, and I think if I'd have been at any other school other than Rombay.

Presenter10:54

Ha ha ha.

Christopher Bruce10:54

Ah, I would not have made it. I would have been turned out.

Presenter10:57

She knew, did she, Madame Robert?

Christopher Bruce10:58

No. No, I hid it. Uh, you know, I talk about it now, but I didn't talk about it uh as um a dancer.

Presenter11:05

And didn't she spot it?

Christopher Bruce11:06

No. I mean, there were things I had technical difficulty with, but there were ways of hiding it. You've got two legs you can do. You can practically dance on one leg, you know. I discovered you can.

Presenter11:18

So why were you laying polios?

Christopher Bruce11:20

He has had polio at uh eighteen months uh old.

Christopher Bruce11:23

And that was part of the reason why uh I took up dancing, which was straightening my legs so that I could play football at all.

Presenter11:27

I spread my legs so that I could play football. But you were actually paralysed where you were.

Christopher Bruce11:31

I I I don't remember, obviously. I was eighteen months old, but I I think I was paralyzed for a time, but slowly I developed some strength and uh I was able to walk. And although my it's I've always been a little lame, uh you know, many people would not have noticed.

Presenter11:45

Mm-hmm.

Presenter11:47

But why dance? Why did the family choose dance to strengthen your legs? I mean you could have gone and played football to strengthen your legs.

Christopher Bruce11:54

It was pure accident, and it's sort of bizarre. My we moved to Scarborough in Yorkshire for my father's health, and uh we were living next door to a

Christopher Bruce12:04

A man who was a harmonica player who knew a ballet teacher. We went and uh

Christopher Bruce12:09

I was captivated.

Presenter12:11

Your father was quite determined that you should do something, you know, out of the humdrum.

Christopher Bruce12:16

I think so. I mean, he and most of his generation had been t trapped by the Depression. He'd seen terribly hard times, walked on the hunger marches. He was not to know that by the sixties there would be jobs for e practically a anyone who wanted them. But he was looking for a way out of he

Speaker 212:29

Wait.

Speaker 212:31

Yeah.

Christopher Bruce12:37

As you say, the ordinary, he was looking for an imaginative career for his children.

Speaker 212:43

Good number three.

Christopher Bruce12:45

I've chosen Westside's story because I took my wife to see it on our first date when we were sixteen years old. I think it's probably for me the greatest musical that has ever been made. I think it has a wonderful score by Bernstein. The story is great because it's Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. And Jerome Robbins, of course, created marvellous choreography for the piece. And for me, Robbins is probably my greatest mentor because his work as a choreographer crossed so many boundaries. He made wonderful work for the classical ballet, great contemporary works, and of course crossed into musical theatre and did it all brilliantly.

Presenter13:58

The opening of the prologue of the film version of Westside Story, music of course composed by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter14:04

So you were sent to London, Christopher Bruce, to to the Rombert Ballet, a gangly, working class boy with a with a northern accent. Did you fit in easily, or was it difficult?

Christopher Bruce14:14

I did not fit in easily. I had an accent that was different to everyone else's. I found myself being sort of rather aggressive to sort of cover my shyness. But one sticks in there and just the daily instruction in dance was so satisfying that

Christopher Bruce14:33

Made everything worthwhile.

Presenter14:34

But it was difficult. You were living miles out of London with an aunt and uncle in Dunstable.

Christopher Bruce14:38

Yes, I couldn't get a grant for the school, and so the school were very, very kind. They let me have tuition for free. I worked in the kitchens at lunch time to pay for my lunches. I stayed with an aunt and uncle out at Dunstable because we couldn't afford accommodation in London.

Presenter14:57

You must have spent half your time travelling.

Christopher Bruce14:58

Yes, I was up, you know, around half past five, six in the morning. We travelled I travelled, what, two, two and a half hours. Probably wasn't getting enough s sleep, but somehow you survive when you're young.

Presenter15:08

Quite brave of your family, though, to to let you do it. This is a thirteen year old alone in London.

Christopher Bruce15:13

Yes. But I think London was a very, very different place then. I think you were very much safer.

Christopher Bruce15:19

The more innocent times. Maybe, I don't know.

Presenter15:21

And it m must also though have been wonderful. You must have thought, My God, this is life

Christopher Bruce15:26

London opened up to whole a whole new world.

Presenter15:28

Uh-huh.

Christopher Bruce15:30

I mean the museums, the the theatre, just the city itself. In a sense my education really started there.

Presenter15:39

There's been talk of a of a secret benefactor as well as the school waiving your fees. What was there someone?

Christopher Bruce15:45

Yes, there was someone that helped.

Presenter15:47

Do you know who it was?

Christopher Bruce15:48

I do now, but I didn't then.

Christopher Bruce15:51

It was uh a friend of uh the secretary at the school, uh a lady called Erika Bowen, who was another wonderful lady who had a great effect on my life. She was she took a shy to me, I think, and uh was determined that uh I would come to the school. And she managed to persuade the father of one of the other children in the school to help out. And uh

Christopher Bruce16:16

I will always be so grateful.

Presenter16:19

There seemed to have been a lot of women at this school who were intent on looking after I mean, not just Mary Rombert herself, but also her daughter, I think.

Christopher Bruce16:22

Not just Mary Rob.

Christopher Bruce16:25

Okta.

Presenter16:25

Off to you.

Christopher Bruce16:26

Ah, absolutely. Angela was quite an inspiration too, and uh she bullied me in.

Christopher Bruce16:32

uh taught me every day.

Presenter16:34

So why do you think they all wanted to mother you and look after you?

Christopher Bruce16:38

I wish I had that answer. Uh I think I've always been attracted and uh sort of enjoyed the attentions of uh strong women, if you like.

Speaker 316:49

Next record.

Christopher Bruce16:51

Well, number four is a piece by George Crumb. It's one of the songs from Ancient Voices of Children. There was a period in my choreographic career where I was hypnotised by George Crumb's music and I did about four or five ballets to his music. This was the first Ancient Voices of Children. It's a beautiful score. But I've chosen this piece not only because I love the score and it was a very successful piece for me, but because it brought me into contact with Lorca, the work of Frederico Garthio Lorca, and therefore put me in touch with Lindsay Kemp and that created Kruhlgarden, which we later made in 77. So this was a starting point for a string of events which were very important for me.

Speaker 317:41

What is

Presenter18:10

Jander Gaitani singing Each Afternoon in Granada A Child Dies from George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children, with the contemporary chamber ensemble conducted by Arthur Weisberg.

Presenter18:22

George Crumb there, whose music you've used on several occasions, Chris.

Presenter18:26

Very spatial, very theatrical.

Presenter18:29

Do you like that kind of music because there's more freedom than in traditional classical dance music? You're not hidebound by a rhythm. It's not leading the dancer anywhere.

Christopher Bruce18:41

Absolutely. I think uh at that particular time

Christopher Bruce18:44

This is the mid to late seventies. I was keen to create choreography that I was very much in control of in terms of its dynamics and rhythm. And using music, which has, as you say, space, allows you to do that. It it allows you great freedom. You're not sort of uh stuck with a rhythm you feel you must keep to.

Presenter19:08

But you've done some um dance without music at all, haven't you?

Christopher Bruce19:11

Yes, and I I think I always remember when when I did a piece called For These Who Die as Cattle, which was created and performed in silence, Rombe was so pleased because she'd always suggested that dance was as important as music as an art form.

Presenter19:29

Or that movement in fact was music, I think she almost suggests.

Christopher Bruce19:32

Yes, you know, visual music. And she felt that this piece proved her point.

Presenter19:38

This was b based on Wilfrid Owens' war poetry, wasn't it?

Christopher Bruce19:40

Well, it it wasn't. You know, I found the po I discovered the poem after I completed the piece. And the astonishing thing is that so many of the images in his poem were the same as I put into this particular ballet. I get angry about things, and it isn't that I want I set off to make a statement, it just comes out in the work in a very natural way. And of course, I think one artist should feel free to to carry on saying these things because as we see in Kosovo at the moment

Speaker 219:57

Hmm but

Christopher Bruce20:13

It's still with us.

Presenter20:15

The other influence that comes through again and again in your work is actually everyday life, whether it's children or or the wife at home, there's a ballet uh called Week End that you did, isn't there, about a a man returning home every weekend to his home and all is not rosy and happy. That's that's you, is it?

Christopher Bruce20:34

I think the theme is more universal. Sure, I I based it on some of my own experiences, but it is so difficult for a couple to

Christopher Bruce20:48

carry on a life when

Christopher Bruce20:51

One of those people is also married to a profession, to a career, and dance is so

Christopher Bruce20:57

Absorbing, it takes your energy, it takes your whole life, and I was fortunate enough to have so many opportunities.

Speaker 221:01

Do that.

Christopher Bruce21:04

Maybe I should have turned down some of the opportunities and done less and spent more time at home, and I have regrets, but it was so difficult to know at the time what I should be doing and what I should have left. And I do regret that I didn't spend more time at home with my wife and children.

Christopher Bruce21:22

Next record.

Christopher Bruce21:23

I've chosen uh Rachmaninov.

Christopher Bruce21:26

The reason is not only because uh this second piano concerto is a wonderful piece of music, but it was music used by Walter Gore for a piece called Winter Night. And when I was a student at the Rombert School, and we were given free tickets to see the company at Wimbledon or Sadler's Wells, etc., this was one of the pieces being uh performed, and I thought it was a great ballet.

Speaker 221:43

Yeah.

Christopher Bruce21:50

What I liked about it, and also it was present in the work of Anthony Tudor, was that the work, without being specific.

Christopher Bruce21:59

said something about the human condition, told a story. It wasn't clear, you could read it on so many different levels. And that's what, for my mind, is the strength of ballet, of dance. You can say so many things with, you know, five minutes of movement.

Presenter23:07

Vladimir Ashkenazi playing the opening movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. Two with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kirill Kondrashin.

Presenter23:15

At some point I read, Chris, you had your kneecaps lowered. Can can you do that, and why would you do that?

Christopher Bruce23:21

Why?

Christopher Bruce23:22

I had knee problems. It was just a question of tightening the knee up. What you do is just sort of cut out the bottom of the tendon, which is attached to the top of the shin, and you sort of pin it in with a steel staple an inch lower.

Presenter23:38

But the truth is that dancers do punish their bodies in a very unnatural way, don't they?

Christopher Bruce23:44

Yeah, it does terrible things to your body, especially if you train badly or overwork it. Uh and I know many people my age, a little older, that have had hip replacements and uh suffering terrible problems.

Presenter23:56

I mean, you overwork your body by definition, surely.

Christopher Bruce23:58

By definition, surely. And you do crazy things to your body. If you see what an answer does every day of their lives, it isn't in any way natural.

Christopher Bruce24:06

Of course you're going to suffer the consequences.

Presenter24:07

But you have to be active every day. You have to work out every day because you're in such pain until you do, as I understand it.

Christopher Bruce24:13

Well, if you're working hard, the next day you get up, but it you're stiff.

Christopher Bruce24:19

Chemicals form in the body.

Presenter24:21

Acids in the joints.

Christopher Bruce24:22

The joints. You have to stretch and uh work to uh get rid of the pain, sure.

Presenter24:27

So in a sense you're kind of hooked on us I think. You're on the treadmill really. Because you're damned if you do it and you're damned if you don't.

Christopher Bruce24:30

You're on the treadmill, really.

Christopher Bruce24:34

Absolutely. And anyway, you become well with in my case, you become an exercise junkie. I find it difficult.

Presenter24:36

Yeah.

Christopher Bruce24:40

To live without exercise, without physically working my body.

Presenter24:45

But your polio's come back to haunt you, hasn't it?

Christopher Bruce24:47

Yes, ten years ago I was only given a year.

Presenter24:50

Yeah.

Christopher Bruce24:51

to uh be able to walk unaided.

Christopher Bruce24:55

It's quite devastating, particularly if you're a choreographer. But I I found a physiotherapist that I worked with for five solid weeks and within a few months I was actually running quite a fast two mile. I still have problems sort of going up on what we call two demi-point raising up onto your toe on one leg because the muscle coordination isn't there to do it, but I could run two miles. It's a very strange thing.

Presenter25:21

We talked about a lot of your work being autobiographical. Isn't that what your Dance Swan song is about, is the torture of being a dancer?

Christopher Bruce25:28

It's about two things. I used the experience of a dancer's daily sort of gruelling regime as a metaphor for the interrogation and torture of a victim.

Christopher Bruce25:43

So it works on sort of two levels. W it is about a political act of terrorism, if you like, uh an interrogation and torture.

Christopher Bruce25:53

But it is also about being able to let go, and I've drawn an analogy between me being able to let go of my dancing career,

Christopher Bruce26:05

saying, Well, it's all over, it's behind me. Now I don't have to go through this any more letting that go, and also uh paralleling it to the freedom that the prisoner finds in death, if you like, or escape at the end of the dance. It was just a useful metaphor

Speaker 226:14

Good.

Presenter26:23

But in either case there's no joy at the end.

Christopher Bruce26:26

You are indeed, because I don't have that pining to be on stage, to go on every night and be worshipped by an audience any more. I'm free of it.

Presenter26:38

Record number six.

Christopher Bruce26:40

You know, I've chosen music that really highlights particular moments in my life, important moments, and I think the creation of Ghost Dances was an important moment, both because it was probably one of my most political pieces, and it also turned out to be one of the most popular pieces I've ever made. And we're reviving it at the moment for Rombert. And coming back to the music, I realize I love it just as much as I did when I made this piece. It's so haunting.

Speaker 327:02

Uh

Speaker 227:02

Uh

Presenter27:44

Sicuriadas from Ghost Dance is played by Incantation, a group formed from the Ballerombert Orchestra in the early eighties.

Presenter27:51

How do you do it, Chris? Create a dance. Once you've had the the idea or the image, do you go away and work on it in theory? Or do you take it in into the dance and create it with the dancers?

Christopher Bruce28:04

You know, I I sit on an idea for a long time. If I've chosen music, I'll just listen to that music over and over again for as long as I need to. I may have a few ideas for movements, but by and large I I create the movement in the studio with the dancers because I

Christopher Bruce28:23

react and I'm influenced by my dances.

Presenter28:26

It's a collaborative thing, isn't it?

Christopher Bruce28:27

It it is in a sense. I mean, I choreograph it, but I bounce off how they do what I give them.

Presenter28:33

So, in a sense, you're the artist, but the the dancers are your canvas, if if you

Christopher Bruce28:37

Absolutely.

Speaker 328:38

Yeah.

Christopher Bruce28:38

Yeah.

Presenter28:38

What happens when there's another artist involved other than the dancers, as there was for Cruel Garden when you worked with the mime artist Lindsay Kemp? Isn't that difficult?

Christopher Bruce28:46

Okay.

Christopher Bruce28:49

It is, you know, we're we're still uh doing Kruwgarden uh now after reviving it. And uh it was a very difficult time because we you had two very different but very strong personalities bringing together

Christopher Bruce29:04

two art forms. I mean, Lindsay hated steps, he can't make steps and he doesn't like making steps. And he would always complain that uh you know, he'd leave the studio for two minutes to go to the toilet and uh I'd choreographed another five minutes. And so uh

Presenter29:18

But what did you say? I mean, what are you supposed to do?

Christopher Bruce29:19

Yes, I said, Well, it is a dance company, Lindsay, and and uh but he was a tremendous influence uh on me and I I I think uh particularly in Kruwgarden one learnt the importance uh of stillness and just letting the the visual

Christopher Bruce29:35

picture on the stage tell its own story, that moving slowly and and being still could be as equally powerful as a lot of steps, and it it's a balance of the the two.

Presenter29:45

It worked in the end, obviously, and Cool Garden's been a great success. But I did see you described as the Jack Spratt and Mrs. Spratt.

Presenter29:53

You're so lean and and sparse, and he likes all that flamboyance here.

Christopher Bruce30:01

Yes. I mean, we're dry eyes. I think because we're such opposites, I think we've created something that neither of us by ourselves would have made. And that is why Kruhgarden is so very unique.

Presenter30:02

Dry ice

Presenter30:06

Yeah.

Speaker 230:15

Next record

Christopher Bruce30:17

Right, well I've uh chosen uh this piece uh of Ravel because when my wife was sixteen years old we were both at the Rombeau School and uh one of the students choreographed a piece uh that uh starred my wife and it was the first time I I I'd seen Marian dancing uh on stage. And she was beautiful, and this will keep me in mind of her until I'm rescued, I guess.

Speaker 330:41

Yeah.

Presenter31:43

Part of Ravel's introduction and allegro for harp, flute, clarinet, and string quartet played by Kyung Wa Chung, Radu Lupu, Ossian Ellis, and the Melos Ensemble.

Presenter31:54

There's a real sense then, Chris, of your being back at Rambert.

Presenter31:59

of paying the company back, really, for what they gave you.

Christopher Bruce32:04

Yeah, it feels like completing the circle and it feels right and I'm although it was a very difficult

Christopher Bruce32:11

decision to make and Marion and I sat down and talked about it really for about forty-eight hours, almost non-stop. I think she realized more than I did what it would mean in terms of taking me away again. But I felt there was no option and I've enjoyed very much contributing to the company's success over the last few years.

Presenter32:31

And you've done the trick. You know, and the Arts Council wasn't going to give any money if you weren't the Artistic Director, so in that sense, you fulfilled the brief. But I get the impression now that the call of your garden in Somerset is getting stronger.

Christopher Bruce32:44

Well, I've had to put it on hold at the moment. But I would like a life which combined both elements in a more balanced way. I think it's unbalanced at the moment. But I'm working, I hope, towards a point where I will have more time for my garden and my wall building.

Presenter32:45

Uh

Christopher Bruce33:04

Yes, I love to build walls. I have a lot of stone on the land, so I sort of.

Presenter33:04

No ball build.

Christopher Bruce33:09

I'm creating all these monuments in the garden.

Christopher Bruce33:13

What they have no practical use whatsoever except as w wind breaks and but

Presenter33:17

Good good training for a desert island. You're obviously going to be able to cope on this island.

Christopher Bruce33:22

Well, if we're living in fantasy land, yes, I'll be fine.

Presenter33:25

Last piece.

Christopher Bruce33:26

I think um like most choreographers you always think that the present piece you're creating i is your best piece ever, but I'm really enjoying making Tales, which is a ballad based around Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. And so I've chosen this piece, Chantere pourment courage. It's a song about a woman who's

Christopher Bruce33:51

lover or husband has gone away on the Crusades. And again it's about a woman being left alone, and my sympathies are more with this woman than with the man going away.

Presenter34:28

Christina Clarke singing Chanteret pour moncourage, written by Guillaude de Dijon at the time of the Third Crusade in eleven eighty nine, with the early music consort of London, conducted by David Munro. If you could only take one of those eight records, Chris, which one would it be?

Christopher Bruce34:43

Well, you know I'd probably have to take the Rachmanin off. It's just such a powerful piece of music and encompasses so many emotional

Christopher Bruce34:53

ideas that

Presenter34:54

And you love Brief Encounter.

Christopher Bruce34:55

I love brief encounters.

Presenter34:58

What about your book as well as the Bible and uh Shakespeare?

Christopher Bruce35:01

Well, I I decided on uh a sort of teach yourself French book, the most comprehensive one you can find with a big dictionary, because uh I love to come back from the island bilingual. Instead of just knowing a little bit of many different languages, enough to get by in a hotel, a restaurant, etcetera, I love to uh speak another language well.

Presenter35:21

And your luxury.

Christopher Bruce35:23

I think about ten gallons of sun cream, really. Factor twenty five.

Presenter35:29

Christopher Bruce, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Christopher Bruce35:32

Pleasure.

Speaker 235:40

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.