DANZ QUARTERLY No 10 December 2007
Making Magic: Francesca Horsley talks to choreographer Christopher Hampson and designer Tracy Grant Lord
The Royal New Zealand Ballet’s production of Cinderella has been a resounding success, attracting 44,000 people it is their most successful production ever. Francesca Horsley talks to choreographer Christopher Hampson and designer Tracy Grant Lord
You would have thought that Christopher Hampson deserved a long sleep-in after the premiere night of his new production ‘Cinderella’. But no, the choreographer had just returned from a morning run when I met him at the Royal New Zealand Ballet studios at the St James, Wellington.
Despite the opening night audience’s enthusiastic response, his freshly minted work was still being appraised by the pundits and had yet to be acclaimed, as it later was, as an outstanding production, a celebrated box-office success. On this Saturday morning he was just hopeful it would be well received. He needn’t have worried.
Christopher’s association with the RNZB is proving to be winning combination. His previous full-length work for the company, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (2003), with its grand style, gritty drama and lyrical love duets was also a success here and on their tour to England in 2004. His short works ‘Saltarello’ (2001) and ‘Esquisses’ (2005) both impressed with the choreographer’s expressive line, space and light.
A Londoner, Christopher is kept busy creating ballets for companies in Europe and America, amounting to a substantial volume of work, considering he is only 34. He began choreographing when he was 16, and started his freelance career when he stopped dancing in 1999. Christopher trained at the Royal Ballet School, London, and danced with the English National Ballet; a number of the ballets he made for them are still in their repertoire.
He is among a field of young English choreographers. In fact his class at ballet school seems particularly flush with talent – also producing Christopher Wheeldon, who works in New York, and David Dawson and Dave Fielding who work in Germany and London respectively.
Christopher’s work straddles both traditional and contemporary ballet techniques and he chooses his style carefully to suit each ballet. “My language will always be classically based because that’s my training – it’s in my body and is what I know. This is not to say I am not curious about other techniques but it will always be the foundation. I look to push the boundaries to try and find new ways of communicating through new steps and new lifts, new ways of using the body.”
In ‘Cinderella’ he chose to use traditional steps to tell the story. “With a narrative work it’s often dictated by how to tell the story; difficult lifts don’t tell a story. However in the last pas de deux in the rose garden between Cinderella and the Prince, when there is no more story to tell, it is a celebration of who they are and what they have, and I choreographed that to be more expressive.”
“I feel the choreography is another element to producing the story. You have the music that helps to give the story, the design, the lighting, and the choreography - they are all working to hopefully move and transport us. The choreography is like the script if you like – it’s my language; if it was a play they would be talking, if it was an opera they would be singing; because it’s a ballet they are dancing. I felt that traditional language was appropriate for this ballet; it needed to be sculptural, beautiful and classical. There are lots of arabesques, turns, very traditional devices – classic tales need telling classically. I didn’t do the same for ‘Romeo and Juliet’ because the emotions were very raw, and often very physical, and I felt the choreography needed to be the same.”
Christopher says he adapts his movement to suit each work. “I’m quite chameleon, I do whatever is needed to communicate the message – I guess that’s what being a dance maker is about – communicating through the body. There is probably a core language that is me, but I don’t know what it is – that’s for other people to debate. I always try and push myself into different places, find new ways forward.”
Music is Christopher’s muse, and his choreography is built around the score. “I work very much to try and realise the score.” His ten years of piano training have stood him in good stead. “I always listen to music – I have it on constantly – my Ipod is blinking at all times.” His taste is eclectic - African, classical, gypsy, hip hop, folk. Christopher particularly relishes Prokofiev’s rhythmic complexities, in both the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Cinderella’ scores. “Cinderella’s a wonderful complex score and its quite difficult music to dance to - but that’s why I like to work with it.”
Christopher had wanted to create a version of ‘Cinderella’ for a long time and when long-time friend Gary Harris, artistic director of the RNZB, suggested he make one for the company, he immediately began collecting material and ideas.
He collaborated with New Zealand designer Tracy Grant Lord for just over a year, working on details through emails and by phone. They already had a good working relationship as Tracy had designed ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
The story of the rose was central; it linked Cinderella to her mother, then her fairy god mother and eventually to her prince. It took the place of the slipper which Christopher says can become cumbersome when a ballerina has to spend time tying up an inelegant pointe shoe.
A clear narration of the story was paramount for both Christopher and Tracy. Christopher said they both like to mix up periods to create an entire language for a show. When I interviewed Tracy later at her home in Manurewa, Auckland, she agreed. “When you collaborate you set about finding a language for the story. This doesn’t mean you decide to set it as a period piece, say in the 1920s for example. We find a particular language, and the actual integrity of the show becomes of itself. It’s to do with colour, light, fabric and character.”
Christopher says “I don’t pigeonhole myself in a time. The ugly sisters looked quite 1950s – with their frilly mini shirts and their head scarves, and their ball dresses could be Edwardian. The pink and black ball gowns looked 1940s. We were taking the best from anywhere to tell the story; a bit of art nouveau, bit of 1890s, quite a mix, it ebbs and flows. We did the same with ‘Romeo and Juliet’.”
Tracy says that using different periods comes naturally and she uses a whole mishmash of references. Christopher threw words at her like style, elegance and grandeur. “He wanted it to be beautiful – the word beautiful and magical just kept on coming up over and over again.”
The design of the show has received critical acclaim and Tracy says she worked to realise Christopher’s vision. “Chris had a story book and when we first got together in June of last year and he sat me down and literally said to me ‘once upon a time there was a young girl called Cinderella’ and he just told me his story of Cinderella. He played bits of music that he worked from the score and he would say ‘and this is the really sad bit’ and he would play it and I would go all goosey. And then he would go ‘and this is the bit that has to be really, really magical’ – and I write in my notebook ‘magical, magical, magical’.”
The colour range was also an important element. Tracy said finding the colour for the rose was central, she knew it had to be pink but says she “didn’t want it to be a girly rose show – didn’t want it to be naff.” To offset this she set the rose pink against a black wall.
“I knew the rose garden world was going to be quite fantastical and probably quite decorative – juxtaposed to a very simple ball world.”
She chose ash blue for Cinderella, very soft and muted, and envy green for the mother and sisters. In the drawing room scene she chose a mid-European theme and then introduced colours. “I wanted to be able to bring that blue grey and the green worlds together. The stepmother was right ‘out there’ and the uglies were just wild and mad and Dad was going between the two worlds. I loved the way that whole colour dynamic worked in that room.”
The way the action was kept up between scenes was also an important ingredient in the show. Christopher says “I wanted to create something which was a whole performance, not just a ballet where you sit down and the curtain goes up, they dance, curtain comes down, interval. And you clap after each variation. I wanted it to be a much more theatrical experience, to keep the action going through the interval; non-traditional and then traditional – hopefully weaving between the two seamlessly. I wanted it to be a layered production and obviously to appeal to children; also for adults to see some deeper messages.”
He says, “Hopefully it will appeal to the child in you. For all of us there’s the magic and the comedy of sisters, and that hideous stepmother. I think for a mature audience there is also the romance of Cinderella’s plight and the love story between her and the prince – and the father – bless him – he is in such a state. It is important to make those characters human with heart.”
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