Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Choreographer and resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, known for contemporary works that challenge dancers and audiences.
On the island
Eight records
a huge kind of thrilling ride for full orchestra
We Played Some Open Chords and RejoicedFavourite
A Winged Victory for the Sullen
one of the most kind of open, beautiful, kind of emotional, heart rending pieces that I know
Have I Told You Lately That I Love You
When I hear this track, it makes me smile all the time. It reflects my parents' love for each other and the love that I had growing up at home.
Impromptu in G-flat major, D. 899 No. 3
two very different kind of art worlds coalescing at the same time to give you added value in terms of meaning
Electric Counterpoint (3rd movement)
it's a piece that is just so insistent, it kind of pushes you into action to find a way
I've never heard anything like it in sound. I'm going to work with her because it's a language that's so unfamiliar and I just think she's phenomenal.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
I'm choosing it because of Antoine. Partly I really remember the first time I saw his face.
from a production of A Little Night Music that I did the musical staging from
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:30What are the big questions that preoccupy you, the things you're trying to fathom through the work you do?
I think the questions are endless. I mean, I think I'm fascinated by the technology of the body. If you think about the body as the most technologically literate thing that we have in a world where technology is developing at a rate where we're going to experience our lives in really challenging and interesting ways, it just feels to me that the body is central to all those conversations. And you know, our bodies, we carry all our kind of personal archive in our bodies. … the bodies are so redolent with meaning.
Presenter asks
2:29You once said you're interested in bodies misbehaving. Tell me more about that.
Well, I think in a way it relates to this idea that technique is a codified language that people understand and that is structured in a very particular way. And I think the potential of the body is so much wider and greater than that. And I want to explore the possibility, the potential of a body, rather than what the body already knows.
Presenter asks
5:48Cast your mind back a decade, within those hallowed walls [of the Royal Ballet], what sort of reception were you given when you first arrived?
The keepsakes
The book
Denis Diderot
I'm going to take Diderot's encyclopedia, which is one of the first ever encyclopedias, but the compilation of drawings, these extraordinary drawings from the Age of Enlightenment that range from politics to philosophy to languages, and work out what they all mean.
The luxury
artwork 'Life' by Tatsuo Miyajima
I would really love an artwork by the Japanese artist Tatsu Miyajima and it's called Life and I love it so much because it's digital, it's spiritual and it really takes me to a place where you really understand why cities are important, why culture is important and why people are important.
Well I think within the company I was given an amazing reception. You know, I found a company that was really hungry for new kind of creative challenges. I found a kind of production organization of people who help you realize the things for the stage … really excited to try new ideas. And I found the majority of the audience really open to a different way of expression.
Presenter asks
6:22In 2005 you decided to go and watch some open heart surgery. Why did you?
Well I was making a piece about the heart and I wanted to work with the heart surgeon to actually build a better kind of knowledge about it so he thought it would be really great for me to go to open heart surgery and I had a quite an embarrassing experience in there in that I fainted during it. I'd imagined that I was going to be behind the screen … looking in through the window and actually I was scrubbed up and in the operating theatre … I hadn't expected the smell of the cauterization. I think that kind of took me totally unawares. So I ended up on my back with my legs in the air and the surgeon coming to make sure I was alright.
Presenter asks
7:45What do you make of Strictly [Come Dancing]? Do you watch?
I think it's amazing strictly because what you see there are people who don't normally dance, having to go through a process where they have to put their body through kind of an ordeal in a way. … over time, you see that body start to have rhythm and start to have flow. And I think that's really extraordinary. It's never too late to dance. And it's never too late to get back in touch with your body.
Presenter asks
26:26Where do you stand on escapism for escapism's sake?
… I think I'm very interested in kind of present tense. Often my work is described as kind of futuristic, and I don't think it's futuristic. I think it's just really dealing with the preoccupations of today. … what's really amazing about the way in which culture has moved is that there's a real range of what the nature of perfection is, you know, and rawness is perfect, you know, minimalism is perfect. … we've got very different barometers of the idealized in a way.
“I think I'm fascinated by the technology of the body. If you think about the body as the most technologically literate thing that we have in a world where technology is developing at a rate where we're going to experience our lives in really challenging and interesting ways, it just feels to me that the body is central to all those conversations.”
“It's co-authoring rather than me telling and imprinting myself on them. And if you've got a room full of really extraordinary dancers who are in a state of readiness, you can't disappoint them. You're working with them to deliver something extraordinary together, but it really is a we, not I, endeavour.”
“I think one of the wonderful things about my parents is that they have that kind of trust and compassion for one another that allows them to do things that perhaps their generation wouldn't do. And it's been a wonderful gift to see that and to experience it and to have it in my life.”
“We all have formulas by which we live. We all have formulas by which we look and experience the world. … And so to try and unpick those is actually quite hard to remain open. The great choreographer Merce Cunningham said he spent his life unlearning.”
“What I think what it [not being an enfant terrible] does, it creates a whole lot of space for these really amazing artists who are working at the edge of culture who should be doing more and more and funded more.”