EARLY ADVENTURES!!!!

"WE JUST DANCE" Matthew Bourne

14.05.12 7.30pm Matthew Bourne's Early Adventures

Just got back from watching Matthew Bourne's Early Adventures and just feeling elated. That's how you should feel when you come out of a performance, on a total high. It was one of the funniest things I've seen dance or otherwise. I love the complete extremes of emotion they manage to achieve- one minute I was crying with laughter, the next just crying. Some of the solo's were fantastic, the one at the end of COUNTRY called Shallow Brown by a guy named Christopher Marney was wonderful, completely had me hooked, in fact I loved him every time he was on stage. My absolute favourite! Everything about it was entertaining and it had everyone laughing. It was great to see such a packed audience and everyone responding so well to it, it seem to be universal in its ability to reach people as the audience were made up of a huge range of people. People even reacted well to bits that were perhaps more risque than I'd expected. When MB came on to talk at the end I was so relieved. I'd been really worried that this image I'd built of him in my head was going to be destroyed, that he'd be full of waffle and really self centred but he wasn't. I think that was the best bit of the night, realising that really he's down to earth, honest about what he does, what he likes and doesn't like and doesn't pretend to know everything. I built up the courage to ask a question and was so happy when he spoke to me as though I was actually there, same with Kerry Macmillan (one of the dancers) who also answered the question. They spoke to me as though I was a real person and they weren't just addressing a huge crowd. I felt very privileged and probably bounced all the way home. It was a wonderful night and I feel I've gained so much from seeing all the pieces, the use of humour, costume, movement of the performers was immaculate and I loved every second!

What I asked (paraphrased he used several more examples but I hadn't seen them so couldn't comment)


MB (Me!): Obviously this is one of your earliest works but within it I could see lots of  elements from your full length pieces, how much did these early pieces influence you later on and how often did you find yourself drawing on them for inspiration?


MB (Matthew Bourne!): A lot actually, there are definitely lots of things that as we've come to look back on this piece I've recognised, more so than perhaps I realised. There's definitely some movements in the second piece that are in pieces like HIGHLAND FLING, the end of TOWN where they all leave the stage like this (places one hand over head with fingers draped, demonstrating) that's definitely a swan motif though in this piece it's trees with grapes hanging off them. There are quite a few things from THE NUTCRACKER! (I nod this is what I had noticed) that we used as well, what do you think? [turns to dancers]

KM: (Kerry Macmillan): I think that's been one of the best points about coming back to work on this piece, because Matt himself dances in the original it's been wonderful to see how all these ideas came about. There's definitely lots of things I recognise,

T (Tom? Dancer:) Yeah in SPITFIRE the scene where they are posing is really similar to that of the NUTCRACKER! except the arms go the opposite way, that's all they kept shouting at us in rehearsal.. ARMS! but it was really good to work on.