The choreographer behind one of the three in the RNZB's Stravinsky Selection, which opened last night, talks about ballet for the 21st century.
Cameron McMillan is a New Zealand dancer and choreographer based in London. He joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 1998 as a dancer, the following year choreographing his first work, Unsuspecting View, which was toured nationally as part of the company’s 2001 Tutus on Tour programme. McMillan left the RNZB the same year to join the English National Ballet as a soloist, later moving on to the contemporary Rambert Dance Company, for whom he also choreographed four works. Since 2007, McMillan has been busy throughout the world as a freelance dancer and choreographer, as well as working on music videos and magazine fashion editorials. His specially commissioned Equilibrium was performed by the RNZB in 2007 and in 2008 he danced in the company’s Romeo & Juliet. McMillan’s first full-length work, In the Garden of Good and Evil, was commissioned and performed by Hungary’s Pecsi Balett to celebrate its 50th anniversary last November, and his Satisfied with Great Success, with costumes by Karen Walker, is one three works in the RNZB’s touring Stravinsky Selection, which opens in Wellington tonight.
Cameron McMillan
Why Satisfied with Great Success? I know, I’ve set myself up with that title. It’s a direct quote from Stravinsky and it is a quote that was arguably one of his most famous. It was linked to this piece of music I’m using, which is a piece he wrote in 1944 called Scenes de Ballet. It was written for a Broadway revue and he was commissioned to make a short ballet score for one of the sections. And, of course, Stravinsky was quite a modern composer and even though it was a commercial job and ultimately a neo-classical piece of music, there was a telegram written by Billy Rose, the impresario of the time, and the telegram went on to say: “Your music great success. Could be sensational success if you would authorise Robert Russell Bennett retouch orchestration. Bennett orchestrates even the works of Cole Porter.” And Stravinsky shot back very quickly: “Satisfied with great success.” So I was, like, “That’s great, that’s fantastic.” The show for me is very much about including the worlds that Stravinsky created for dance. He was a huge part of changing the face of ballet and creating the legacy of what is contemporary ballet and contemporary dance. The work is about, for me, acknowledging that contribution and also looking back at ballet as an art form and as a technique and as a craft, but looking at it very much from where we stand now in the 21st century and how to take all those ideals forward and the expansion of the technique and the growth of the art form. That’s what Stravinsky did with music and with dance in the early part of the 20th century.
Did you get to choose from any Stravinsky score? Was it your choice to do this particular score? We came to an agreement on this particular score. When we were looking over his catalogue, you realise how many pieces of his are associated with very important pieces of work historically. So it’s hard then to go in and say, “Do I rework or remake Apollo or do I remake The Rite of Spring, which is already being done in this programme?” Really significant pieces of work. Then there’s orchestral configurations and programme balance and all these things to take into consideration. It was [former RNZB artistic director] Gary Harris who suggested I use this particular piece of music and under all those considerations we agreed that that would be right. It’s an interesting score. I like it. But it has been a challenge to work with, as expected for any Stravinsky score, though, because his music is very complex.
In what ways a challenge? It’s very episodic, because it was written for a ballet. Imagine what a traditional ballet was in the 1940s. It has a very tight structure to it and the pieces of music are very short and very episodic. And they change very quickly. So dynamically, in a space of time, you go through very fast changes of pace and changes of mood and all that stuff. So the challenge has been identifying a common thread throughout that work whilst not following the formulaic nature of the music. I didn’t want to be obvious in going, like, “Okay, now there’s a group dancing, now there’s a solo, and now there’s a pas de deux and now there’s this”, like it says in the music, because the music itself can say something else, and that’s what I’ve tried to do, identify something else in the music than what it is on face value.
You spoke about remaking it for the 21st century. How well is ballet as a whole at doing that and how receptive are audiences? Do they want that? I think it depends. I think it’s about cultivation. You’ve got to cultivate your audience because ultimately ballet is seen as a form of entertainment. It came from a form of entertainment. And for a certain part of the audience that’s what it’s seen as. People want and go and see the classic stories, the Cinderellas, the Nutcrackers, the Swan Lakes and all that stuff. And that’s a very important part of our history and a very important part of the craft. And those roles need to be presented and those ballets need to be presented to people. But I believe there’s also a context to them. Whilst they need to be seen, the art form needs to move forward or else it’s going to become a museum art form.
You travel around the world – are companies doing that? I think it’s very much a current debate at the moment internationally, the survival of classical ballet. I don’t believe ballet will ever die. It’s not about that. It’s about being really aware of the times. The world moves very quickly now. And expectations along with that move very quickly, and younger audiences have just an expectation. I think it’s about recognising that and also looking at the ways ballet is made and about the types of work that are presented. And bringing your audience along and cultivating them along with you. So there’s a broad range of work that’s being presented. So you acknowledge Cinderella, Swan Lake, all the classics, they’re beautiful and important to show and [you can say], “I’m going to see a lovely story ballet and it’s wonderful and hopefully going to be performed amazingly.” But on the flip side [you should be able to say], “I’m going to go and see a new programme and it’s going to be new work and it’s going to be exciting and of the day and really current and I’m going to see some dancing that I’ve never seen before.” For me, it’s about not pigeonholing something. I believe everything has a place.
What skills does a dancer need to go from being a performer to being a choreographer? I believe that as a dancer you are, for want of a better word, sometimes, to quote a friend of mine, a violin with legs. It’s a big shift to become the creator in the process rather than the person adopting everyone else’s creative intentions. And it’s about learning how to develop your own creativity. I always knew I was creative and I wanted to make work and I wanted to explore different things. But over the years I’ve had to really work hard at learning how to be that creative person. Teaching myself and learning as much as I can and observing people and reading and doing lots of things just to inform myself so I know that when I start to put my work on stage it has a place, it’s saying something, and I know where it stands. And the audience knows where it stands.
The first piece you choreographed was Unsuspecting View for the RNZB back in 1999. What would you make of that now? Well, to be fair, that was the very first piece I’d ever done. So I just pretty much went in there and got in the studio and said, “I want to give this a go.” I went in with an idea and did it. Of course, especially with an early work, I took each step as it came and it was never about putting myself out there and saying, “Here I am as a choreographer and this is what I have to say.” At that point, it was more like, “Let’s just take this thing step by step. I’ve got an opportunity and let’s put something on. Let’s do it. Let’s try and see what happens.” I remember at the time realising how much I enjoyed every part of the process. It was a wonderful experience, and I will look back at that work and I’ll say, “Yeah, naïve as anything, but I was able to take away something from that.” It was, like, “I want to do this again and I think I understand that I can possibly have the potential to do it more.” It gave me the confidence to try again at least.
It’s good for a company of the scale of the RNZB to provide those opportunities for a young choreographer within the company. I think that a lot of companies all over the world like to, when they can and when possible, provide the platform for people. Because it’s about developing new voices and it’s about developing an identity for a company and it’s about investing in the future. Otherwise you get back into restaging all those old things that have always been restaged and you get back to the museum comment I was talking about. I believe if you want to really make it [as a choreographer], you’ve got to want to make it work for yourself, though. As a young creator, it’s about stepping outside of what you think you know and learning from everything else. A big part of the reason why I left and became a freelance dancer in England and why I still am now is that because while you are nurtured and looked after to whatever extent when you work under an umbrella or in an institution or a company, you are only ever seeing something from the inside of a bubble ultimately. For me especially, I found it very important to get out and work with as many different people as possible and look at as many different perspectives as possible. Because everything informs what you do. You are a product of your own experience.
You seem to have managed a huge variety of companies and places to make work since becoming a freelancer. Yeah, I’ve been lucky in the respect that I’ve had quite varied places to make work on very different types of dancers. So it challenges you in a very different way. This is one of my most classical works and it’s part of what I wanted to do with this work: work with these very strong classical dancers and look at the lineage of classical ballet; modern classical ballet, anyway. One of my objectives for the work is about revisiting that side of me and revisiting that side of dance from a contemporary perspective using contemporary dance generation techniques, using very modern approaches to dance creation but applying it to a classical vocabulary.
How receptive have the dancers been to that? Have they had much experience of that in the past? It varies. I think I came in with very strong objectives and I was very clear, and we did things and I know I put them out of their comfort zone, and there was a lot of discussions going on working out what to do and a lot of communication. Naturally, during any process, you build rapports and the information grows. With any new creation, I think it’s about building a relationship with the choreographer and the dancers. It was always going to be that way. I think it was a challenge, for both myself and the dancers. But in a very good way. I wanted to really push the boat out and see how far I could push the process for them, and I think it’s made them aware of themselves in a very different way, which I think is important.
You’ve just choreographed your first full-length work, In the Garden of Good and Evil. How much of a challenge was that and once you’ve done a full-length work, once you’ve had a taste of that kind of canvas, is it hard not to have other opportunities for those kinds of works? That was a huge opportunity I was given. It was one where I just went in, not blindly, but having to trust everything I’d ever done before. Because it was something three times as big as anything I’d ever worked on. While we had a lot more time – I had up to 10 weeks’ creative process – and I had more of a support team around me to facilitate it, to think on that scale, to think on a full evening work scale, was something I’d never done before [as a choreographer]. I’d been involved in a lot of that kind of work [as a dancer], so I know what it’s like to be in it and I’ve seen a lot of that kind of work and seen the process of it, but I’ve never actually been the one to start it from the bottom up. So it was a great experience. It taught me a lot about what is important and what needs to happen. The journey of a work as opposed to the details. The overarching concept and information that gets imparted. You just take one step at a time and one brick at a time and you just do it.
Having done one, does that make it easier to find people prepared to stage other ones or commission you for them? Hopefully. But I think it’s one of those things where you never know, especially as a young maker, where the next opportunity is going to come from. You hope you build relationships and you push forward. I know I was very fortunate at this point in my career to have the opportunity to make something on that scale, because it takes a lot of trust and a lot of money and all those other kinds of things to invest in somebody to do that and especially somebody whose not done that before. I think I was very lucky to have that experience, because I know not a lot of people my age would have had the opportunity unless they’re putting their own work on. But to have a company of 18 dancers to make a work in a large theatre with sets and designs and new music was a huge gift, actually.
You seem to have kept your options pretty wide open workwise: as well as dancing and choreographing, there’s the fashion spreads you’ve choreographed for magazines and you’re on the books of a modelling agency. Is that purely for the fashion spreads or for other modelling work, too? Everything. Fashion, commercial stuff, all those kinds of things. I’m just never around, though, I’m always busy, so my agents are always knocking on the door going, “You’re never here.” I’m interested in so many different things; I like to be fed by so many different things. That’s why I love being in London and love being in a major centre, because I’m always looking for something new to learn or to grow from. It’s a wonderful place to be because it’s an international centre of art and culture and life. I don’t want to limit myself to one thing. I know what my experiences are and I know what I can offer but I also think that I want to be open to as many experiences as possible because, like I say, you’re a product of your experience. Who knows where it’s all going to lead to? It’s not about spreading myself thin but it’s about having as many experiences as possible and opening the doors. I think there’s a lot of potential for dance to go in many different directions. And it can be well utilised or better utilised in commercial sectors, whether it’s fashion or music or whatever. So I’m interested in that as well, taking the art form forward in many ways.
Was it your idea to bring in Karen Walker for Satisfied with Great Success? It was.
That sets the bar high costume-wise. Did you know her? No, I didn’t. It sets the bar high but for me it’s more about the collaboration. The right collaboration for the work. Ultimately, we’re making a piece of dance. Karen’s a wonderful international designer but it was never about attaching a name to the project. But the nature of this programme is heavily based on what was created in the early part of the 20th century, and what Ballets Russes and Serge Diaghilev were able to do was to be able to bring together collaborative artists of the day, wonderful artists of the day. Whether it was music, composers, design, choreography, all of those elements. Diaghilev was able to bring together people and it was very avant garde. It was sensational. We’re talking about Coco Chanel. We’re talking about Pablo Picasso. Were talking about Leon Bakst. We’re talking about lots and lots of very significant people working together. When this opportunity came up with Stravinsky, I was starting to look back at that period of time, as I was looking back at my own career in ballet, and I was, like, “What a wonderful opportunity to go and use that as a point of reference for the choice of design team we get together.” I was, like, “Right, who? Let’s just go to the top.” It was approaching Karen because I’ve always respected her as a creative artist. She has an edge to her work. It was something I wanted to explore. It was just about initial discussions in the beginning and the creative relationship blossomed and we got on the same page and talked about ideas. She was very keen on seeing, and loved, the context in which it was in, so was very inspired coming in to work in a new medium for her.
What’s the story behind the footage of Stravinsky in New Zealand you use? Back in my research process, scouring the Internet for information and inspiration, I just randomly came across a film of Stravinsky and went, “Oh yeah, let’s have a look at him”, and was just observing his movement and then I looked at the bottom and it says, “1961, Stravinsky conducting the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra,” and I just went, “Oh, that’s gold.” I couldn’t have landed a better piece of footage. In its entirety, it’s eight minutes of Stravinsky conducting the last two movements of The Firebird suite with the NZSO. It’s very raw footage, it’s lovely beautiful 8mm black and white flickery footage. I’ve used edits of it. It’s not the eight-minute piece and it’s not The Firebird [I’m using it for], but I’ve used it as a point of reference for the whole work and it’s very beautiful.
STRAVINSKY SELECTION, including Javier De Frutos’s Milagros, Cameron McMillan’s Satisfied with Great Success and Michel Fokin’s Petrouchka, Royal New Zealand Ballet, St James Theatre, Wellington, May 20-22; ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland, May 25-28; Napier Municipal Theatre, May 31 and June 1; Civic Theatre, Invercargill, June 8-9.