0:00:26 > 0:00:30Choreography is a combination of things. Musical interpretation -
0:00:30 > 0:00:35if there's something in the music, maybe a drum roll or something,
0:00:35 > 0:00:41you try to relate the choreography to that. Or maybe there's a build up and they'll do a standing spin.
0:00:41 > 0:00:46It encourages the audience to applaud. Touch the audience - that's what it's about.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49Your job is to touch the audience.
0:00:49 > 0:00:54- Dynamics - quicks and slows, highs and lows.- Yes.
0:00:54 > 0:00:59These all go towards making great choreography.
0:00:59 > 0:01:04And also I imagine it's about, "Oh, they're good with their hands." Real strengths and weaknesses.
0:01:04 > 0:01:10- "That will highlight my partner." - Right. Day one - you scan your celebrity.
0:01:10 > 0:01:15With Mark Ramprakash I just said, "Stand on one leg, spin around."
0:01:15 > 0:01:20Ker-ching! He did it! "Everything I choreograph now, he's spinning!"
0:01:20 > 0:01:26Let's talk about Ali and Brian's rumba. Talk to me from a choreography point of view.
0:01:26 > 0:01:31The step I've chosen here is a step we see in our field very often.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33It's great. She elevates now.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36- See the toe on the floor?- Yeah.
0:01:36 > 0:01:43It would have taken a split second to come a centimetre off the floor, Len would class that as a lift,
0:01:43 > 0:01:49they would have lost points. What I was so amazed by was they've already got such a trust.
0:01:49 > 0:01:54There's such control in her body that she kept that toe on the floor.
0:01:54 > 0:02:00Not only that. She then devlappes right the way across Brian and they keep great balance.
0:02:00 > 0:02:05And again...spin. Spin is really important in dance.
0:02:05 > 0:02:10It creates a dynamic. Then leaning across into a low-level position.
0:02:10 > 0:02:16- You said this was really clever. Why?- This two were slated,
0:02:16 > 0:02:21but look at that step there. Very clever. Joe took her full weight.
0:02:21 > 0:02:28She's on her side. If he even slightly falls, they're both on the floor together,
0:02:28 > 0:02:30if he'd got that even slightly wrong.
0:02:30 > 0:02:36- He's got to take full weight in his arms and she'll ballet walk. Very difficult.- Let's have a slo-mo
0:02:36 > 0:02:39so that you can totally explain.
0:02:39 > 0:02:44- That's him just being strong? - He's got to collect her there.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47She's only on her little toes as she's going round.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50He has to take full weight.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54Let's talk about Chris and Ola's tango, which I love.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59- What was great about this? The music was brilliant - ZZ Top.- Great.
0:02:59 > 0:03:03I love their relationship. Kick, ball, change. And this bit.
0:03:03 > 0:03:07Drop, up. This is the dynamics I'm talking about.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11Generally in a tango, people just plod across the floor. Boring.
0:03:11 > 0:03:17Dynamics. Highs and lows. Kick, ball, change is a very quick action. Quicks and slows.
0:03:17 > 0:03:25Very quick action. Then a high point, dropping down and up again makes an effect.
0:03:32 > 0:03:37I never heard the word choreography until I came from the west coast to New York,
0:03:37 > 0:03:39that big city.
0:03:39 > 0:03:44And then I realised it wasn't just a matter of making up dances,
0:03:44 > 0:03:48it was comparable to the composing of music,
0:03:48 > 0:03:53only instead of using sound, you use the human body
0:03:53 > 0:04:00and you use space as a very definite and... necessary factor.
0:04:04 > 0:04:09Martha Graham is as fundamental to modern dance as point shoes are to ballet.
0:04:09 > 0:04:16As young dancers, we all study her technique. She devised a new language for movement
0:04:16 > 0:04:20and used it to create works that changed the face of dance forever.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25Contract. Beautiful.
0:04:25 > 0:04:32She's compared to Picasso, Stravinsky, Einstein and Freud. What is it? What did she discover?
0:04:32 > 0:04:38She'd say, "I didn't discover anything. I rediscovered what the body can do."
0:04:38 > 0:04:43She took the natural movement of the body
0:04:43 > 0:04:45and theatricalised it.
0:04:45 > 0:04:51Martha came along and said things like, "Imagine you have an eye in the middle of your forehead
0:04:51 > 0:04:56"or ears pricked like animals. And imagine if you contract
0:04:56 > 0:05:01"and then release, it should be as if you could break a rock with your chest."
0:05:03 > 0:05:06PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT
0:05:14 > 0:05:20Martha was struggling with the idea of the individual, in society and as an artist,
0:05:20 > 0:05:27and in coming to grips with how to define herself and her way of moving that was her.
0:05:27 > 0:05:34She was looking for the profoundly human that she could touch and that she could describe.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43The physical language which began quite simply
0:05:43 > 0:05:47with the idea of trying to find a basic body language
0:05:47 > 0:05:53and not interested in the foot-busy language of ballet or anything decorative,
0:05:53 > 0:05:58but feeling that the torso was the seat of emotional responses.
0:05:59 > 0:06:06She developed a vocabulary of movement that was based on a centre in the pelvis,
0:06:06 > 0:06:13movement that originated in the solar plexus and moved out to the limbs.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16And one...two...
0:06:16 > 0:06:22A technique built on a breath phrase. You think of the inhalation and exhalation of the body
0:06:22 > 0:06:28and then she built that into the musculature contracting, releasing and expanding.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32And one... Great. Inside the body. Deeper.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36Press up into the arc.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38Contract.
0:06:38 > 0:06:43She wanted to create a form that was not like European dance,
0:06:43 > 0:06:51that was American in something about its energy, its freshness, its power.
0:06:56 > 0:07:01She commissioned her contemporaries, Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber,
0:07:01 > 0:07:08and Chavez, and the great composers who, in retrospect we say were the geniuses of the 20th century,
0:07:08 > 0:07:13but at the time they were all young, starving artists together.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17Appalachian Spring is a triumph of American creative talent -
0:07:17 > 0:07:22Martha's choreography, music by Copland and design by Isamu Noguchi
0:07:22 > 0:07:26created a landmark work in a new art form - modern dance.
0:07:26 > 0:07:32In this film, Martha, aged 64, gives a moving performance in the role of the young frontier bride.
0:07:59 > 0:08:05Most importantly, Martha wanted to create dances so that she could perform.
0:08:05 > 0:08:13She didn't sit down to think about creating a technique. It all came out of the work that she choreographed.
0:08:18 > 0:08:25As her vocabulary developed, the body was full of contradictions and emotional upheaval.
0:08:26 > 0:08:32It was a body language that became very suited to the subject matter
0:08:32 > 0:08:35of...of heroines
0:08:35 > 0:08:39in...in mental torment.
0:08:53 > 0:09:00I think she wanted to deal with subjects that were timeless and that everybody could relate to
0:09:00 > 0:09:02however disguised they were as myth.
0:09:02 > 0:09:08That these feelings of jealousy and rage and complexities of emotion were visible to everyone.
0:09:23 > 0:09:30We've asked two very distinctive choreographers - Wayne McGregor and David Bintley -
0:09:30 > 0:09:36to give us an insight into their working methods and the modern language of dance.
0:09:39 > 0:09:46David, who's Artistic Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, developed out of the classical tradition,
0:09:46 > 0:09:50drawing inspiration from the techniques of ballet.
0:09:50 > 0:09:56Wayne's work could hardly be more of a contrast. His choreography grows out of his own body
0:09:56 > 0:10:01and the way it moves - angular, disjointed, fluid and fierce.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06We've set them a challenge to create a brand new dance.
0:10:06 > 0:10:12I've given them as a starting point the first preserved example of the written alphabet,
0:10:12 > 0:10:16etched onto an Athenian wine jug in about 740BC.
0:10:17 > 0:10:24It says, "Whoever of all the dancers performs most nimbly shall win this jug as a prize."
0:10:24 > 0:10:31And even more amazing that one of the first things ever written about was dance, the art with no words.
0:10:31 > 0:10:36Wayne sets about the task in a surprisingly literal way.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40He's partnered me with Thomas Edur and wants to create a dance
0:10:40 > 0:10:44inspired by the unusual shapes of the Greek letters.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48The elbow does a U. And your head does a U.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53So elbow, head. 'I started in a simple way today.
0:10:53 > 0:10:59'I've taken that text and looked at it as geometry, as graphic information.'
0:10:59 > 0:11:01Are you doing any of this?
0:11:01 > 0:11:03Yes. I'd done this one.
0:11:03 > 0:11:08- You have. Yeah, yeah, you have. - You just go like this.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12I try not to do things that are predictable in movement.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16That's not a conscious decision. It's the way it comes out.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20I'm very interested in how you can actually reinvent physicality,
0:11:20 > 0:11:25so it doesn't follow its natural point of conclusion or end route.
0:11:25 > 0:11:31I'm trying to find a way of moving that's always in dislocation, fighting with itself.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34I like the tension and conflict.
0:11:34 > 0:11:39An elbow is the top of the circle, the top of the 8 there.
0:11:39 > 0:11:46Then I change my mind and do another one, come out and describe straight away a circle.
0:11:47 > 0:11:49Got my zig-zag.
0:11:51 > 0:11:57I really try and move with the body so they're pushed to their physical limits.
0:11:57 > 0:12:04There's something exciting about extremity. If you push the body beyond its normal capacity,
0:12:04 > 0:12:09again it tells you something, teaches you something about physicality
0:12:09 > 0:12:13that you've not seen before.
0:12:13 > 0:12:19People like to go to the theatre to see things that are unusual, that take them somewhere.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23Hopefully, what my work does and what the physical language does
0:12:23 > 0:12:27is take people to a different place that they've not experienced before.
0:12:27 > 0:12:33David's initial inspiration for the duet came from one particular piece of music
0:12:33 > 0:12:39- which he has wanted to choreograph for years.- 'The first thing that came to my mind, really,
0:12:39 > 0:12:44'was an idea that had been lurking for a while. Satie's Gymnopedies.'
0:12:44 > 0:12:47And I once heard that Gymnopedies,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50as Satie intended it to be, was...
0:12:51 > 0:12:54..Greek wrestling.
0:12:54 > 0:13:01I always thought it would be fun to do this very famous piece and do it as Greek wrestling.
0:13:01 > 0:13:07And then I started thinking about Deborah and Alessandro,
0:13:07 > 0:13:14and what that would mean as a metaphor. Obviously, I just didn't want to choreograph wrestling.
0:13:14 > 0:13:19And then I got this other idea that sex was quite important to the Greeks.
0:13:19 > 0:13:25So there's a whole lot of stuff that I came with about male/female relationships.
0:13:25 > 0:13:31I want it to have all these elements in. I want it to look like a dance at some point.
0:13:31 > 0:13:36At some point I want it to look like wrestling, at other times like love-making.
0:13:36 > 0:13:41I never want to lose this archaic kind of sculptural quality.
0:13:59 > 0:14:04'It doesn't have a discernible shape. There are peaks, there are troughs.
0:14:04 > 0:14:09'It has moments of flurries and then moments where it calms down.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13'I think that's the same with an argument, the same with a fight.'
0:20:51 > 0:20:57Good. OK, so... then just show me...how you're preparing for that first move.
0:20:57 > 0:21:03Siobhan Davies is one of Britain's leading choreographers of modern dance.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07The works she's created have won a clutch of prestigious awards.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10The one thing a dancer has is this. That's it.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14And whatever history of experience you have within this.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18When you first started playing around with your own choreography,
0:21:18 > 0:21:26do you think you were simply doing that thing of merely elaborating on ways you like to move yourself?
0:21:26 > 0:21:32Were you just making movement that sat naturally on your body, that was about who you were
0:21:32 > 0:21:38- and what you wanted to be like? - I don't think I was aware of it at the time,
0:21:39 > 0:21:43but if I think about the early pieces,
0:21:43 > 0:21:47they all tried to use movement I hadn't done before.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51There was a piece I made called Sphinx.
0:21:51 > 0:21:58And I was normally in the pieces because I thought that would be a way of exploring movement anyhow.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02It would also mean that I could go into a little corner of the studio
0:22:02 > 0:22:05while other people were working.
0:22:05 > 0:22:11And I remember thinking about Sphinx. What is it that I can get to move
0:22:11 > 0:22:15that will totally change the vocabulary?
0:22:15 > 0:22:17And I thought of animals
0:22:17 > 0:22:20and I went on all fours.
0:22:21 > 0:22:23And the moment you go on all fours,
0:22:23 > 0:22:28your spine, chest, stomach, how your legs sit into your hips,
0:22:28 > 0:22:32and how your arms come out of your shoulders
0:22:32 > 0:22:34is enormously different.
0:22:37 > 0:22:41So in a very innocent way I tried to explore all of those things
0:22:41 > 0:22:45and then tilt the body back up and stand,
0:22:45 > 0:22:50but try to keep that image, that knowledge about the spine,
0:22:50 > 0:22:57how the arms and legs hang from the body, how the stomach is different, how the tailbone feels different.
0:22:58 > 0:23:03And see if I could imprint that back through movement.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26The dances that you create have no narrative and no programme.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29What is it they are saying to us?
0:24:29 > 0:24:35They're not saying, in that sense, anything. We are presenting...movement.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40In various ways, different kinds of movement.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44To which anyone can look if they're interested and can bring
0:24:44 > 0:24:50whatever kind of attention or thing to that that each individual thinks,
0:24:50 > 0:24:54rather than it being my telling them how to think.
0:24:54 > 0:24:59- So we are free to read meaning in them if we choose?- Exactly. Oh, yes.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03But is there any meaning in them that you've imparted to them?
0:25:03 > 0:25:07Nothing, I would say, other than the meaning of movement itself,
0:25:07 > 0:25:12what movement is in life, in anybody's life.
0:25:12 > 0:25:19- Nothing of you yourself? - Yes, since I make the movement, then it's me. That I would agree to.
0:25:19 > 0:25:25But it's also that in giving it to the dancers, to the dancers in my company,
0:25:25 > 0:25:31I want them... I want the movement to be the way they would do it, individually,
0:25:31 > 0:25:35rather than just something I have given to them.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40Your dances are not choreographed to music.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44The music habitually arrives when the choreography is completed.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47Why is that?
0:25:47 > 0:25:52Well, there are probably a number of reasons, but the principal point about it is
0:25:52 > 0:25:59to allow an independence of the elements involved, in this case the dance and the music,
0:25:59 > 0:26:03so that the music does not have to support the dance,
0:26:03 > 0:26:09nor does the dance have to reflect the music. But each can be what it is in this circumstance
0:26:09 > 0:26:14and the circumstance is that they both take place in the same time and place.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18They lend something to each other in that time and space?
0:26:18 > 0:26:24I think so. I hope so! I think that between the two they can produce something else,
0:26:24 > 0:26:28something that I myself wouldn't have thought of,
0:26:28 > 0:26:34nor if the music had been made for the dance, it would not have come out this way,
0:26:34 > 0:26:37so in that way we make a discovery.
0:26:37 > 0:26:44Have you a pretty good idea, though, what the music is going to be like before the performance of it?
0:26:44 > 0:26:46No, not necessarily.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50Sometimes the particular composer will tell me something
0:26:50 > 0:26:53and I'm always willing to listen.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57If the composer wants to see the dance, that's fine, too.
0:26:57 > 0:27:02But more often than not, I don't know the exact nature of the sound
0:27:02 > 0:27:07except there is, I think, between the composer and myself, I trust,
0:27:07 > 0:27:13a sense of good faith that we will, in that way, come out with something that is interesting.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17Within the total structures that you create,
0:27:17 > 0:27:21you sometimes leave the arrangement of sequences entirely to chance,
0:27:21 > 0:27:27tossing a coin to decide who does what next. What's the reason for that procedure?
0:27:27 > 0:27:33It is an idea that comes... Well, actually, it's an idea that comes from many things,
0:27:33 > 0:27:38but perhaps principally the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes,
0:27:38 > 0:27:42where you can cast your fortune or ask a question
0:27:42 > 0:27:48and what you get is an answer that is suitable, so to speak, for that moment in time and space.
0:27:48 > 0:27:52Well, I thought that dancing occurs in time and space
0:27:52 > 0:27:59and it would be interesting to see rather than my making the decision as to what follows what
0:27:59 > 0:28:05but by using the I Ching in terms of continuity to discover something else,
0:28:05 > 0:28:11that is that you could see that there could be a different result from moment to moment,
0:28:11 > 0:28:15rather than something that one had set up in advance.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19In that sense, it's like process, it's like continuing.
0:28:19 > 0:28:25For you, you've said that dance is always about dance and nothing else.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29How did you arrive at this simple determining idea?
0:28:30 > 0:28:36Well, I think dancing is, to put it from my point of view, movement in time and space.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39I don't think it needs anything else.
0:28:39 > 0:28:44That is, we don't need necessarily music to walk about.
0:28:44 > 0:28:49We do that just by the nature of that being the way we operate and move.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52And I also think that...
0:28:52 > 0:28:57I thought that movement doesn't have to have a meaning.
0:28:57 > 0:29:04I understand it can convey things, but you have to set up something ahead of time to let someone know
0:29:04 > 0:29:06that that's what it's conveying.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10In my case, I wanted it to be a surprise.
0:29:10 > 0:29:17So rather than it meaning something, it could be what it was as you saw it as it continues to go along.
0:29:24 > 0:29:27MUSIC: "The Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky
0:29:28 > 0:29:34If you like theatre, if you like the movies, then you'll probably like this work.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38You'll probably enjoy it and you'll realise after a while
0:29:38 > 0:29:40that you can get it
0:29:40 > 0:29:46and it doesn't matter that some people haven't spoken for the last 20 minutes or whatever it is
0:29:46 > 0:29:51and you realise, "They haven't said anything, but I'm following a story."
0:29:51 > 0:29:55And it's set in a world that people understand. It looks like a play.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59It hasn't got tutus or it hasn't got dance-friendly costumes necessarily.
0:29:59 > 0:30:03They're adapted or whatever. It looks like the real world.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06And the performers look like real people.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14I've learnt over the years
0:30:14 > 0:30:18to try and find something in people that I think I can bring out
0:30:18 > 0:30:25and develop into people eventually who can give great acting performances through their dancing.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29Don't go near her. Let her prise you together...
0:30:29 > 0:30:32'I do get a lot from that.
0:30:32 > 0:30:37'But I do love the work and I love being part of a family that creates work.'
0:30:37 > 0:30:40I think the shoulders was better.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44Matthew's very, very specific and very clear about the images
0:30:44 > 0:30:46and the idea and the characters
0:30:46 > 0:30:50which frees you up so much when you're improvising material
0:30:50 > 0:30:54because you've got a very clear framework to work in.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58Matthew's good at eliciting the right kind of material from people
0:30:58 > 0:31:05because he gives information and he'll bring in books and films and videos and magazines and photos,
0:31:05 > 0:31:10so you've got a feel for the world that he's trying to create.
0:31:10 > 0:31:16I think most choreographers would say that their reason for being a choreographer is movement.
0:31:16 > 0:31:18Movement invention.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21And most choreographers' work is about that.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24It's an excuse for movement invention.
0:31:24 > 0:31:30Even sometimes if they are telling us a story of sorts, it's just something to hang the movement on.
0:31:30 > 0:31:35Movement always lends itself to where the story is going.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39That's what's important. Not what the movement looks like.
0:31:39 > 0:31:42It's whether or not the movement is telling a story.
0:31:42 > 0:31:46And I suppose that's what makes him different.
0:31:49 > 0:31:55The second half takes us to...the Kingdom of the Sweets it's usually called - we call it Sweetie Land -
0:31:55 > 0:32:00where you meet all these characters that are based on various confectionery, I suppose.
0:32:00 > 0:32:07You've got the Liquorice Allsort people, Marshmallow Girls, sort of yobby Gobstopper Boys. Very sticky.
0:32:07 > 0:32:12We decided people in Sweetie Land are judged by how they taste, rather than how they look,
0:32:12 > 0:32:18so when you meet someone, you have a taste of them. You wipe a bit off and have a little lick.
0:32:21 > 0:32:25I'm not from the ballet world. I wasn't trained as a ballet dancer.
0:32:25 > 0:32:28I love watching ballet,
0:32:28 > 0:32:32but I don't choreograph in the classical style.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36But certain passages of music in this piece are very grand
0:32:36 > 0:32:41and you have to come up with a kind of grandeur which I get a little bit from ballet
0:32:41 > 0:32:46and a little bit from Hollywood musicals, the Cyd Charisse kind of thing.
0:32:53 > 0:32:59I do always approach these projects completely seriously and serious-minded.
0:32:59 > 0:33:03I have to have the heart of the piece central to my idea to begin with
0:33:03 > 0:33:07and then the humour and the satire and the wit creeps in.
0:33:07 > 0:33:12But the central reason for doing it is always something very heart-felt.
0:33:12 > 0:33:16That's why I think, ultimately, people really do like the pieces
0:33:16 > 0:33:19because they're not just throw-away.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23There is something at the heart of it which moves you as well usually.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49Really go over that leg.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51Jan is peeling away too early.
0:33:53 > 0:33:59Created in 1981, Ghost Dances has proved to be one of Christopher Bruce's most enduring
0:33:59 > 0:34:01and popular works.
0:34:01 > 0:34:06In dealing with the victims of political oppression,
0:34:06 > 0:34:10it demonstrates once again his sensitivity to the human condition.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16Ghost Dances was created after meeting with Joan Jara,
0:34:16 > 0:34:24the widow of Victor Jara who was a very famous Chilean actor,
0:34:24 > 0:34:28theatre director, songwriter, singer,
0:34:28 > 0:34:30all-round performer.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33He was murdered in '73
0:34:33 > 0:34:38when Allende was deposed and killed and Pinochet took power.
0:34:39 > 0:34:41I wanted to do it very, very simply
0:34:41 > 0:34:45and I didn't want to, in a sense, make grand statements.
0:34:45 > 0:34:51I wanted it to be about all the little people that are caught up in that terror.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57And I chose to use a very simple image of a ghost dancer.
0:34:57 > 0:35:02For me, they were just spirits of death that took the people away.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06And I used the idea of skeletal figures
0:35:06 > 0:35:12because of those wonderful, simple, naive skeletons
0:35:12 > 0:35:16that they have in Central and Southern America
0:35:16 > 0:35:22where the old religions mix with Catholicism.
0:35:22 > 0:35:26You have these skeletons on stalls, people buy and...
0:35:26 > 0:35:32It's a kind of, as I said, a very naive and simple image.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35I just decided this would be the image.
0:35:36 > 0:35:40Yeah, so that it goes "drop, two, three, four, round".
0:35:40 > 0:35:44That's it. Otherwise, your spacing goes.
0:35:44 > 0:35:49So the idea was these people would come into the space, just rest for a moment
0:35:49 > 0:35:54before passing into the underworld for a moment of reflection before going on where...
0:35:56 > 0:36:00..a fragment of a life is just told.
0:36:02 > 0:36:07A simple song, a simple dance, and maybe the cutting off of that life.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11And don't be afraid to keep moving
0:36:11 > 0:36:15because the more you move on to that leg, it's easier to get back.
0:36:17 > 0:36:19GENTLE PANPIPE MUSIC
0:39:15 > 0:39:19I worked with Chisato last year when we began developing this piece.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23So it was this kind of a crash course for me in sign language
0:39:23 > 0:39:25and in us communicating together,
0:39:25 > 0:39:29so I guess it has an impact on the choreography
0:39:29 > 0:39:33because there are certain things you take for granted as a hearing dancer.
0:39:33 > 0:39:39When we were working together, we couldn't be dancing, then we speak and then Chisato responds to me,
0:39:39 > 0:39:44so we'd have to stop and take time to explain what we were talking about,
0:39:44 > 0:39:47rather than being able to do all of those things at the same time.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25WHISPERING, HIGH-PITCHED SOUNDS
0:43:07 > 0:43:10WHISPERING, HIGH-PITCHED SOUNDS
0:44:13 > 0:44:16Here's how In The Upper Room began.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19I'm working in a London studio in 1985,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23just beginning to isolate a family of movement.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27While ultimately none of this work will be performed barefoot,
0:44:27 > 0:44:32I work without shoes in order to establish a new connection to the floor,
0:44:32 > 0:44:36something which can be unique to In The Upper Room.
0:44:36 > 0:44:41I begin to find a motif. I strike the floor, catch the foot and pull it far behind me.
0:44:41 > 0:44:45The image in my mind is a hunter pulling his bow.
0:44:45 > 0:44:50When I release, the momentum of the leg falling throws me off balance.
0:44:50 > 0:44:56I must recover. This action of recovering will go on throughout the entire dance.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58I transfer this motif to other dancers,
0:44:58 > 0:45:04in this case, Christine Uchida and Shelley Washington of the original cast.
0:45:07 > 0:45:10At this point, individual dancers add to the mix
0:45:10 > 0:45:14with their own responses to my movements.
0:45:14 > 0:45:20For instance, Jamie Bishton, the only member of the original cast still performing In The Upper Room.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28Jamie was a gymnast and from his early athletic training,
0:45:28 > 0:45:32he gained a brave attack and a big jump.
0:45:32 > 0:45:36And these talents enrich the choreography for us all.
0:45:37 > 0:45:39As the dancing takes form,
0:45:39 > 0:45:44I begin to have a sense of the music I will need to support it.
0:45:44 > 0:45:50In a way, it's almost as though I can visualise the music before I hear it.
0:45:51 > 0:45:56I have been improvising to Philip Glass's music for more than 15 years
0:45:56 > 0:45:58and now I know this is what I need.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01There is something about Phil's music,
0:46:01 > 0:46:05the way it's constantly unwinding from itself,
0:46:05 > 0:46:07constantly evolving,
0:46:07 > 0:46:10as though it's skeining endlessly.
0:46:10 > 0:46:12So I call Phil
0:46:12 > 0:46:15and I ask him to compose a score.
0:46:15 > 0:46:20Now, Philip Glass is always very busy, probably booked for years,
0:46:20 > 0:46:25but I say, "Look, Phil, just a little music after breakfast every day."
0:46:25 > 0:46:31I know Phil is very fast and I know that I understand his music well enough
0:46:31 > 0:46:35to take whatever he can give me and make it work. He agrees.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38Then I begin to structure the movement.
0:46:38 > 0:46:45That London improvisation session becomes the starting point for the first of nine movements.
0:46:45 > 0:46:50I introduce two women, one beginning the phrase on the left leg,
0:46:50 > 0:46:52and one on the right.
0:46:52 > 0:46:56These dancers I see as custodians of the space
0:46:56 > 0:46:58like Chinese watchdogs.
0:46:58 > 0:47:03And by starting both sides of the phrase simultaneously, but on opposite sides,
0:47:03 > 0:47:07the phrase will define an arena for the dance to come.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16Now the men enter with the second phrase.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19They dance this in a triangular formation,
0:47:19 > 0:47:22the downstage man inverting the phrase,
0:47:22 > 0:47:27so that the same movement is seen moving both forwards and backwards.
0:47:27 > 0:47:30As the men and women perform the two phrases together,
0:47:30 > 0:47:34you see forward and back, right and left,
0:47:34 > 0:47:37circular and vertical, male and female,
0:47:37 > 0:47:44thus making it clear that In The Upper Room is about opposing forces held in balance -
0:47:44 > 0:47:48old and new, modern and classical.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53One last thing about the title.
0:47:53 > 0:47:57Philip Glass and I had talked many years ago
0:47:57 > 0:48:01about collaborating on a Mass, but this never came to pass,
0:48:01 > 0:48:04so now, as Phil was working on this score,
0:48:04 > 0:48:08I was also listening to a Mahalia Jackson recording of a hymn
0:48:08 > 0:48:10that modulated relentlessly upwards,
0:48:10 > 0:48:15that seemed to climb so high, it pushed through the roof.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17This image of an empty attic,
0:48:17 > 0:48:20a place of last resort,
0:48:20 > 0:48:25where one takes out one's treasures and puts them up for very special public view,
0:48:25 > 0:48:31this image along with the Jackson hymn gave me the feeling of a secular Mass
0:48:31 > 0:48:34and so I suggested to Phil, and he agreed,
0:48:34 > 0:48:40that we use the title of this hymn for our work, In The Upper Room.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54One of my aims as a choreographer is to try and help the audience's eye
0:48:54 > 0:48:57in watching a piece of complex structure,
0:48:57 > 0:49:03but it will be interesting in this piece to see how I might have a full visual field
0:49:03 > 0:49:07in which the audience have to do some of that selection.
0:49:07 > 0:49:13Maybe everything on stage isn't seen all the time, you have an almost accidental way of watching.
0:49:13 > 0:49:15That's our experience all the time.
0:49:15 > 0:49:21Our visual field is very full and we give attention to certain things and edit out the rest.
0:49:21 > 0:49:26For this ground-breaking piece, McGregor chose an A-list of collaborators,
0:49:26 > 0:49:31headed by Brit artist Julian Opie and cult composer Max Richter.
0:49:31 > 0:49:37Opie's animations were created by observing a series of figures walking on a treadmill
0:49:37 > 0:49:40at his studio in London's East End.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43I spend a lot of time looking at people and how they move
0:49:43 > 0:49:47and looking at street scenery as if it were choreographed.
0:49:47 > 0:49:51I like that idea that nature and natural things out there,
0:49:51 > 0:49:57if you focus yourself, you become in a certain sense a kind of passive choreographer.
0:49:57 > 0:50:00You listen to birds singing and think this is symphony,
0:50:00 > 0:50:05then you hear a car horn and a church bell and put them together in your mind,
0:50:05 > 0:50:08so it is creating music out of these things.
0:50:08 > 0:50:14You can do the same looking at people on the street - cue someone with a suitcase from the right,
0:50:14 > 0:50:21so seeing Wayne who can play with that and make something focused and beautiful out of that is exciting.
0:50:25 > 0:50:31This is the first time that Wayne and members of the Royal Opera House production team get a glimpse
0:50:31 > 0:50:34of the screens that Julian's been preparing.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38It's really vivid, isn't it?
0:50:38 > 0:50:42I think we'll probably go for the reverse of that
0:50:42 > 0:50:46- where the figure is drawn with lights and the rest is black.- Yeah, yeah.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54OK, shall we just try something? I don't know what.
0:50:54 > 0:50:56Let's just see what happens.
0:50:56 > 0:51:01Can you come from a parallel and can you come into it just like this?
0:51:01 > 0:51:04Like that. That's it.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07First day of rehearsals, eight weeks before opening night,
0:51:07 > 0:51:12and Wayne starts making material for his new work.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15He has the pick of the Royal Ballet's finest performers.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18And back. Can you come this way?
0:51:18 > 0:51:22Yeah, exactly, just a little moment, so you just go...
0:51:23 > 0:51:25It's Day One. It's the beginning.
0:51:25 > 0:51:30What I tend to do is have my first few weeks just getting to know the dancers.
0:51:30 > 0:51:34The point of making a piece is to find something out
0:51:34 > 0:51:37that's new for me about those dancers.
0:51:37 > 0:51:41There's no point in doing the same old, same old.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45I'm not that familiar with Ed and Marianela dancing together.
0:51:45 > 0:51:49I know Ed well, but I've only made one little thing for Marianela,
0:51:49 > 0:51:53so this week will be about finding physical signatures of the dancers.
0:51:53 > 0:51:59But I like to be in a state of preparedness in the studio, ready to start, but not to be too fixed.
0:51:59 > 0:52:04My book is empty and over the next six weeks, I'll start to fill that up.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07One of the brilliant things about being a choreographer
0:52:07 > 0:52:12is when you're faced with two brilliant dancers you have to invent something to do.
0:52:12 > 0:52:18It's not something you can do at home, on computer or you can imagine in the car. It only happens there.
0:52:18 > 0:52:24If you can be free enough to experience it in the moment, it can release something new in you.
0:52:27 > 0:52:33I like to try and make at least two, three minutes of material a day, even if I get rid of most of it.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36I like to push myself to do it.
0:52:37 > 0:52:39I don't rehearse things.
0:52:39 > 0:52:44It might be a phrase that exists in a piece, but these dancers may not do it,
0:52:44 > 0:52:46so I'm not rehearsing, I'm making.
0:52:46 > 0:52:52Next week, I should have a bank of material that will take me into the week afterwards.
0:52:52 > 0:52:58So it's just, first of all, trying to get some basic language that we can start to find together,
0:52:58 > 0:53:03what combinations of people will work together. That gives you structure.
0:53:05 > 0:53:09That was a really lovely thing there when you did that last position.
0:53:09 > 0:53:12You fell and then came back. It's lovely.
0:53:12 > 0:53:18I'm trying to look for the maximum intensity and richness
0:53:18 > 0:53:20with the fewest elements.
0:53:20 > 0:53:24The ensemble is going to be my usual band,
0:53:24 > 0:53:28which is a string quartet, but with an additional cello.
0:53:28 > 0:53:33And also the computer, various synthesisers,
0:53:33 > 0:53:36lots of bits and bobs. Toys, you might say.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44I've collected a lot of shortwave radio for this piece
0:53:44 > 0:53:47which has a kind of story-telling quality
0:53:47 > 0:53:53because there are a lot of voices in there, but you don't know whose they are, when or where they're from.
0:53:53 > 0:53:57They just float around the ionosphere, so I've hoovered them up.
0:53:57 > 0:54:04And really what I'm doing is I'm sort of picking out little areas within that that I'm enjoying hearing
0:54:04 > 0:54:09and trying to isolate those, trying to make some sort of musical gestures with them,
0:54:09 > 0:54:15so I've got this sort of background radiation and the music is more like a foreground event
0:54:15 > 0:54:17which sits on top of that.
0:54:24 > 0:54:28Usually, in ballet that's been made before and rehearsed,
0:54:28 > 0:54:34the stage call is the first time where they run everything, it's pretty much finished.
0:54:34 > 0:54:39But with a new ballet, I won't be finished until four days before the premiere.
0:54:39 > 0:54:45I'll still change my mind all through next week, but that premiere deadline comes closer and closer.
0:54:45 > 0:54:50He's picking material from lots of sections of this
0:54:50 > 0:54:53and we have to learn, and he's reversing everything,
0:54:53 > 0:54:58so it looks different than the actual duet was before.
0:54:58 > 0:55:03It might be the same step, but he's developing those steps into something else
0:55:03 > 0:55:06to make a finale with everybody.
0:55:06 > 0:55:10And he's trying to do everything like in a canon which is fantastic,
0:55:10 > 0:55:14but it's very complicated because next Tuesday, we're on stage.
0:55:14 > 0:55:20So we just hope for him to remember all the steps for next week.
0:55:36 > 0:55:39MELODIC STRING MUSIC
0:58:47 > 0:58:51Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd 2010
0:58:51 > 0:58:54Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk