Dance is about portraying and telling a story and whether that be two males, two females, a group of guys, or a group of girls, it doesn't matter as long as the story is beautiful.
Honestly, I am so ignorant of how dance works that I can't even imagine a story that you would want to tell through movement.
The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language.
The reason I think the shows I do are successful with a wider public is because they tap into something that's beyond dance and is about being told a story. That's what people want.
Storyless is not abstract. Two dancers on the stage are enough material for a story; for me, they are already a story in themselves
When I would create a dance, I wouldn't have the luxury that ballet people do when they take a piece of music and impose a dance upon it. What we did in motion pictures was have a song and within that song try to elaborate. My usual method was to do what a writer does: get a plot.
Dance is so prominent, now more than it's been before, but I still feel like there's this void that needs to be filled that tells the story of a contemporary dancer who is in a company - I don't know, just that's my dream to do that.
Dance stories, unlike those in opera, are usually simple.
People know that they're going to see something which is entertaining but challenging as well because of the form it's in. It's dance theatre and it requires you to use your imagination - it's not straight forward.
I think that story ballets, as great as they might sell, they're a really dated and awkward medium to tell stories through. I think there needs to be an updated or different approach to storytelling in dance. There needs to be less of a separation between the storytelling and the dancing.
