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CHOREOGRAPHER OF THE MONTH CLAIRE CUNNINGHAM What made you want to be a choreographer? I didn’t. It’s happened by accident! As I began to work in movement, images began to occur to me that I wanted to create or ideas kept occurring about trying new ways of using the crutches or an unusual balance. Eventually it began to make sense to try to make these images into something – that was the beginning of making my first piece, Evolution.
What is the inspiration behind your latest show? ME (Mobile/Evolution) is a double bill of two separate pieces. Evolution has two ideas running through it – one is that of the changes that had happened to my body over my lifetime, due to medical interventions then due to dance. The second thread is that of the various dance techniques I’d been exposed to that gradually convinced me I could and should work in dance. Mobile was inspired initially by visiting an exhibition of work by the sculptor Alexander Calder, who invented mobiles, and seeing his work there were certain sculptures that made me think of crutches and the way they have similarly unexpected balance points. What are you looking for in the people you collaborate with? Trust and honesty. It’s a frightening thing to really open yourself up to someone in the way you have to in collaboration – to throw out your stupidest thoughts, be willing to expose yourself and your behaviours in improvisations, etc. So you need to have respect for each other, and probably for me a similar dark sense of humour . . .
What do you hope audiences will take away from your work? I hope they have something to talk about – good or bad, I don’t actually mind. I think if art makes people have a conversation then that is a good place to start from. ■ ME (Mobile/Evolution), Gilmorehill Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 20 Apr.
31 Mar–28 Apr 2011 THE LIST 115
PREVIEW NEW BALLET SCOTTISH BALLET: ALICE Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Tue 12–Sat 16 Apr; Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Wed 20–Sat 23 Apr
Her career at Scottish Ballet reads like a little girl’s daydream. Marie in the Nutcracker, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty and the ultimate rags to riches heroine in Cinderella – Sophie Martin has played them all. And that’s before we even get to her stunning turn as the tragic teenager in Romeo and Juliet. At the age of 26, Martin is no stranger to playing
characters less mature than her, but for her latest role she’s going even younger. Ashley Page has cast Martin as the lead in Alice, his much anticipated re-working of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, in which she plays a child of ten. How easy is it to inhabit such youthful characters?
‘At first it was really hard,’ says Martin. ‘But I think you have to unlock something in your mind and just let it go, make it fresh and new again – to not only think
about perfect technique, but to liberate yourself and find the freedom you used to have as a kid. I worked on that in the Christmas ballets and then with Juliet, although she is a bit older, but I still had to play a younger girl, so it’s not something new for me.’
The beautiful French-born dancer has perfectly
embodied all her roles to date, so there’s no reason the character of Alice should be any different. What we can also expect from this brand new production is the wonderfully quirky vision of choreographer Ashley Page and designer Antony McDonald, who have included the character of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll’s real name) in the show. ‘Alice doesn’t fall into a hole, she falls into the lens of a camera,’ says Martin. ‘Which is a reference to Lewis Carroll, because Charles Dodgson was a photographer before becoming a writer. And at the same time, she falls into his mind and his thoughts while writing the books, and he presents all the other characters to Alice.’ (Kelly Apter)
PREVIEW STREETDANCE SHOW FLAWLESS: CHASE THE DREAM Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Fri 1 & Sat 2 Apr; Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Sun 17 Apr
In 2010, streetdance troupe Flawless went from 100m athletics to marathon men. Prior to their Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, Chase the Dream, they had only ever performed short sharp routines, in competitions, on the dance circuit and, of course, on the 2009 final of Britain’s Got Talent. What did a month in Edinburgh do for them?
‘I think we proved that we can actually put on a full length show,’ says Flawless main man, Marlon Wallen. ‘The Fringe definitely gave us a platform to experiment with things, and selling out for the whole month and winning an award, we were absolutely blown away by that. It really motivated us to think we could take it out on tour and make it bigger.’
Which is exactly what they’ve done, with a newly extended 90-minute show. Currently touring theatres, Wallen and his nine fellow dancers are continuing their quest to prove they’re far from one-trick ponies.
‘The storyline is about an individual chasing his dream,’ says Wallen, ‘and there are moments when you don’t even realise you’re watching a dance show, because it takes you to another place from an emotional point of view. And it doesn’t just have the high-energy acrobatic thing, we fuse ballet, contemporary and jazz with our streetdance style.’ (Kelly Apter)