Matthew Bourne

Early Life 

He was born in Hackney, London and went to William Fitt and Sir George Monoux School in Walthamstow, London. Young and wild, Bourne was really obsessed about autographs. He was waiting by the stage doors for famous theater performers and other celebrities to leave after the show or London top hotels. When he was a child he used to make up his own versions of seen
performances.

Matthew Bourne

He started his career when he was 20, whereas he quit higher education course and tried to build up his career in theater. Although, he got bachelor`s degree at The Laban Center for Movement and Dance at age 22 and kept progressing as a

theater dance performer more and more. The beginning of his career was not as easy as 2+2. He got work for it very hard. However, when he was a teenager he used to teach dancing amateurs, without having any professional experience as a dancer.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. By Herman Cain

He started from lower positions such as filing clerk at BBC, usher and bookshop assistant at the National Theater and he was selling tickets for Keith Prowse Theater Agents productions. After finishing his studies he went touring for two years with the dance company Transitions. When the time passed he did not perform that much as he used to, and focused on choreographing for theater, television and other dance companies.  His name started being recognized for creating his own version of Ballet Swan.

Most popular productions staged by Matthew Bourne are

• Swan Lake. In 1995, the swan lake was staged and presented in London for the first time. It is also known as the world`s longest running ballet show which was performed around the planet: UK, Los Angeles,Europe,Australia, Japan etc. The story line is based on the scenario of Russian swan lake composed by talented Russian director Tchaikovsky. Bourne also used captivating music bits which are very catchy and hard forgettable. Not to mention the male dancing female parts of the swans. 
• The Car Man. It was performed for the first time in 2000 in PLymouth, London and was without transformed at the Old Vic rapidly later on that year. 
• Sleeping Beauty.
• Play Without Words.
• Cinderella.
• Nutcracker!
• Edward Scissorhands

         Matthew Bourne`s Swan Lake 

Company 

After years of dancing on stage, one of the best British directors, Matthew Bourne started his own business. In 1987, collaborating with his colleagues and friends, Emma Gladstone and David Massingham, established new dance company, Adventures in Motion Pictures. Everything was going very well, and later on, in 1991, he became the owner of the AMP company. Tickets were wiped off the counter as people just loved it. The most successful works are: Swan Lake, The Car Man, Highland Fling, Nutcracker and a couple more.

Nutcracker! 

After good 15 years of working for AMP company, he enthralled people with the new his own dance company New Adventures,in 2002, and its productions. Play Without Words smashed ticket selling record, premiered at National Theater and took a tour around the world, winning millions of people hearts. Moreover, it got nominated for Olivier Award for Best Entertainment and Choreography. Very impressive, Bourne, very impressive!

Every year, he got new audiences for his shows, especially on 10th year anniversary Swan Lake when it went on World Tour, including Australia, Russia,USA, Asia and Europe. Bourne kept people
 impressed with his new productions The Car Man in 2007 and Nutcracker! in 2008.

Most of his productions are still on, so it is highly recommended going and seeing it as his work is unique.

Interesting facts about Matthew Bourne and his productions

• Matthew Bourne`s Swan Lake has collected 25 international awards. 
• His big break started after the Nutcracker! came out into the light of the day. 
• He never thought he would perform on Broadway. 
• He won two Tony awards at the same night. 
• As a best dancer he nominates Fred Astaire 
• He was an obsessive autograph collector. 
• Known as a director of the world`s longest running play.
• He stopped eating puddings at age 30, in order to watch his weight. 

Style

Matthew Bourne technique is completely different compering to DV8 and Steven Berkoff, however only DV8 company created their own ideas as for Bourne and Berkoff took ideas and stylised them, making them their own pieces. Berkoff style is famous for its exaggeration. His movements are unrealistic, repetition, assemble and choral work (actors say words at the same time).

Bourne style, ballet with dance movements. As seen in the video above they do not wear ballet shoes, rather they dance in bare foot, using ballet movements. Dancers` fingers are always must be pointy, secure and tight.

I use the talents of the performer, whether they are a dancer or not, The work comes through the piece and the story you are trying to tell. 

By Matthew Bourne.

An exclusive interview with Matthew Bourne

Awards and nominations 

Matthew Bourne (born 13 January 1960, now at age 55) is recognized world wide as an English choreographer, dancer and theater director. He is known as one of the world`s best choreographers and directors. His name is recognized in over 30 international awards around the world. He is also notable as the founder of the world`s longest running ballet show Swan Lake, a five-time Olivier award winner and he`s the only one British director who obtained impressively the Tony award for both Best Choreographer and Best Director. He`s got so many awards and nominations that it is hard to count.


PERFORMANCE

Our performance in groups went very well. I was in the same group with Ryan, Jack, Jerome, Isabella, Matthew and Klaudian. We decided to devise Alice in Wonderland and relate it with Swan Lake. As Matthew Bourne chooses already written play and styles it in his own way, using ballet movements. We did the same thing. We got only 1 hour to devise 5 minutes long piece, which we found really hard as we had plenty of ideas.

Jerome was already chosen the song for our performance. It`s `Black Swan Remix.`
Here is the link to the song  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIbken4b2HQ

There were two girls in our group: me and Isabella so we came up with idea of the girl, having two sides:good and bad. I was playing good side, whilst Isabella was bad. The idea was also taken from the movie Black Swan, staring Natalie Portman. Aggressive and angry, Jack and Jerome were on bad side. Happy and soft, Klaudian and Matthew on good side.

The performance started with me and Isabella going to sleep. As physical theatre skills, we used miming and mirroring. In addition, Ryan was controlling us so it was like puppetry. When the music starts playing Isabella slides off right and crouches down, whilst I started dancing and waking up the other good fairies(Klaudian and Matthew). After the music changed Isabella and her companions starts dancing. Basically, it was a battle between light and dark. We achieved the assessment requirements by adding lifts, different levels, plunge and catching, repetition, spins and exaggerated movements based on Matthew Bourne`s technique.

Finally, all the characters apart me turned into massive chaos. It was like a hurricane of bad souls trying to extinguish the last good one(me). We came up with this idea, me being the last good character as I was wearing a pale blue jumper which associated with goodness and purity, while everyone else was wearing dark clothes.

P.S. I prepared myself for assessment and came to college wearing black t`shirt under but the rest of group members suggested me wearing blue jumper, and so I did.

Improvisation 3

It`s been already 3 weeks since we started working on impro. As we do it on Thursday session, there we have just couple of hours of playing improvisational games. For the start we did warm up: tongue twisters, dancing, shaking our heads, etc. I would say that we could do it every morning as it is very helpful. I tried to woke up earlier to do warm up but there is always just not enough time. It only takes 10 minutes and doing warm up all together is much more fun than doing it alone.

Secondly, we began with easy game: Rob put his glasses` case on the floor and we need to create a few seconds scene, changing the subject of the glasses` case to everything apart glasses. For instance, Matthew came up with idea of using it as TV remoter, whilst Isabella used it as a shot gun and shouted out EVERYONE GET DOWN! It is a good exercise to begin the day with, because it is funny and energetic.

Later on, Rob divided us into two groups: A and B. So A`s were standing in a circle facing outwards then B`s stood in front A`s. The main task for A`s was to think of a short opening line. It could be anything. As I was A, because A is for Amber, my opening line was `You forgot to bring my cookies?` and in my observation almost everyone suggested me another pack of cookies and apologized. This suggests that it is a general opinion of everyone. I would say it just a certain way of politeness that everyone is used to do. Of course, there were some blocking like `no, you didn`t ask me to bring cookies, you asked Rebecca(name is made up as I don`t remember what my partner exactly said). The purpose of this game is just go for it, no matter what the opening line is. It might even be `You`ve got ice cream on your hair, should we eat it?`. The answer always has to be positive. And it is important to remember that attacking other actor is not acceptable as gives just cheap laughs.

Another exercise we done Thursday morning was to get into pairs and create a short, improvised piece related to touching themes such as

• abuse
• bullying 
• FMG
• self-harm 

My partner was Ryan and we chose to work on bullying theme. Ryan pretend to be a bully and I was the one being bullied. I quickly picked up some people`s weaknesses that is often associated with bullying: stuttering, being obsessed about the bully, giving everything to him, worshipping Ryan, forgetting about myself and my needs. I have seen these things happening in lots of teenage movies.

I tried to think of how would I feel if that happened in real life. Basically, I tried to use Stanislavki`s technique Magic If. When we started throwing out our ideas I knew that Ryan does not mean what he says, it just because of the theme we chose. You picked at me, which helped to get under the skin and understand that being bullied people have serious problems.

Improvisation 2

First thing we did today was warm up with Brandon. As almost every morning we stood up in a circle and warmed up our face by keeping it very tight and opening very wide(as much as we can). Also not forgetting body warm up when one person shows any movement and everyone else has to repeat it.

"Deleted scenes game". Our task was to devise couple of scenes which has been deleted from a well known movie. I was in a group with Jennifer and Brandon and we chosen Titanic as everyone knows it. It was very hard to think of something as we didn`t have much ideas but remaining few last seconds we decided to do the bit where Rose is holding Jack`s hands not letting him drawn. I was a cameraman. So I shouted "cut!!" for couple of times as I didnt have much to say. We`ve chosen the movie we all know very well so we already had location and timing as set in film. I think we played this game in order to apply and develop our ideas to already given idea which was challenging as there were too many scenes we can choose and we only need one or two. We was thinking of changing the movie to Bad Neighbors because we thought that we need to add some normal scenes but while watching others` we decided to do some Titanic bloopers.

"One person story, played with different genres." Second task was to devise a short piece of how one of our group member woke up and went to college today. As we were in the same groups as before we decided that we can work on Brandon`s morning as mine`s and Jennifer`s wasnt that interesting. So Jennifer was playing Cashe as Brandon called him in the morning to ask if he`s coming in college whilst I pretended to be Romaine which didn`t pick up the phone when Brandon called him. When Brandon was on the phone speaking with Jennifer(Cashe) genre changed from normal to sci fi and from sci fi to Shakespearean. When the story switched to Romaine(me) on the train as stranger (Jennifer) bumped into me and I got into argument trying to say things Romaine would say which made audience laugh. Next scene was Brandon taking train and me and Jennifer staring at him. When genre switched to romantic comedy I stood up on the left side, Jennifer on the right and Brandon was in the middle. Playing different genres made us add more conversational and slightly change it. For me it was more fun than playing just a normal version of it as it added more humor to it.

Scripted scenes. I was in pair with Ryan and we decided to do scene 1 which was quite easy to devise because there weren`t any subject we were talking about. I came up with idea Ryan saying "Nothing I just... just stole 2 millions.." I tried to play use "magic if" which didnt really helped me because I couldnt focus. However, we didnt show our piece as it wasnt enough time left.

Improvisation

Since we came back from Easter Holiday we have been working on improvisational skills. At first I wasn`t that confident going on and developing new ideas on spot but I belive everything is about practising and being open-minded. Sometimes is really hard to accept new ideas so I just keep saying same words. Or the worst thing is then all words vanish out of my head when improvising. But second time I was on I felt more confident as I just went with the flow.

Improvisation is

like a game and as we all know game`s got rules.

1. Being open-minded. I would say, the rule number one is always accept the idea other actor is given to you. For example, it can be different place, different mood or things. Always ALWAYS say yes and just go for it. That`s the point of the game. Discover new places that you have never been in and most important enjoy whilst improvising. 
2. Listening and reacting is essential as without it you leave other actor misunderstood or confused. But not forgetting that you`ve got to act like in real life. Acting is behaving truly in imaginary circumstances.(Rob always says that) 
3. Not blocking. The worst thing is then other actor doesn`t agree with what is said and tries to imply its own ideas not going with the ones which are already given. For example
   A: Look, there is a flying elephant behind you!
   B: No, there is no flying elephant.
4. There is no fail. We all do mistakes and its acceptable especially while improvising. There is no bad story or bad idea. Everything is acceptable. 

This week we played many improvisational games and did some work in pairs on accept and build. Rules are very simply. A asked any of questions (why,what.who?) and B had to answer using hers/his imagination. I was working with Isabella and I found really confusing but when Jerome and I was on stage it was much more better than before. I felt more confident about what I am doing. 

Another game was called one word at a time. It means that person can say only one word. It was really funny when Ria, Isabella and Brandon improvised. I didn`t expect Isabella coming as a toys` robber. Everything was happening in the tree house, by the way. 

Freeze frame improv is when two or more actors are on stage and some can say stop or freeze, swope with any of the actors and begin a completely new story line which is not related with the one who had been developed before.

Ria and I playing objectives game 

"Objectives" game was both confusing and useful. All of us wrote a place and a phrase on a piece of paper and mixed it. When I was working with Cashe our location was haunted house and my phrase was "Don't touch that meerkat!!!" and Cashe`s phrase was "you said you love me". So it`s two completely different phrases which we had to fit in in our conversation. It`s hard because you`ve got to think how to fit the phrase in smoothly, without others noticing and don`t forget about the location.

When second time we played objectives I was working with Ria and our location was driving lesson. She was an instructor while I was her student. In my opinion, it was easy for Ria as her phrase was "It`s too big!" so she was shouting all the time that everything I do is too big! My phrase was "How can I show up without an invite?". So to save myself I started randomly talking about the party and how can I show up without an invite. It was that noticeable as I thought it would be but at least I said my objective.

Goalkeeper (Ospina) game is when 1 actor stands in the middle and others have to create a short scene about 5-10 seconds long and goalkeeper has to accept all of them. I haven`t been goalkeeper but Shadey mentioned that it was hard. I think it`s really important being open minded and going for different ideas. For example when Carlos was goalkeeper my idea was playing basketball which Carlos has changed to football. after me was Romaine`s turn and his idea was fighting with swords. 

The language game is very easy to play. Two actors are on stage and two actors are translators. So I was the actor on stage who says "bla bla" and Sam was the translator. Our location was the elevator. That happened that elevator stopped working so I went "blasnlkaslasdo" and Sam translated "Oh no! The elevator broke." It was easy to improvise because all you ahve to do is to thing about your body language and listen to translators. 

Ria and I playing the language game 

Another game we played was "emotions game". I was in pair with Nurray, I was a dentist and she was my patient. Meanwhile we improvising emotions Queen Mara or Rob gave us different emotions and we had to improvise the scene using those emotions. For example, it was hard for me thinking of how to play neglected emotion and when immediately change it to happy, not forgetting that I`m a dentist. 

Party quirks is one of my favorite games so far. We watched a video of actors playing that game on TV show which is hilarious. So it`s very similar to objectives game. There is a host and 3 guests with different objectives. My objective was singing Christmas songs and I found it very enjoyable, though I sang only two songs. 

"Boris" game  is about an imaginary guy called Borris that comes if the actor playing criminal excuses is not believable enought and he "beats" him/her up. But Borris doesn`t actually exsist so the actor has to improvise how he/she get punched in the face etc. For example, when Brandom was playing criminal he improvised that "Borris" was strangling him and kicked him off the chair.

Post show

My costume and you can see Isabella
getting ready for the show

The show was great. I really enjoyed that moment when you are nervous and excited at the same time. The last time I performed in front of big audience was last year when we performed Our Day Out and my playing role was Carol. However, I didn`t expect that our and other groups performance would be that good as one week to performance we haven`t run through the whole play with all members of green group. It was always someone missing or we were running out of time to rehearse it. Most of the time I was working with Trinculo and Stephano
 as most of my scenes are with them. On Monday during our technical rehearsal we decided to add some jokes to make it more funny and it worked. Even though we did it last minute the response from the audience was great. They were laughing and cheering when Odinelsa said something funny. For example, they really liked when she started singing at her first scene. The audience loved Carlos behaviour, most of the time he gave lots of energy to our scene as he was obedience to Stephano. I think, that I did really good getting under the skin. The time I was "sitting" in the cave I was concentrating and tried to think what would I think "if I was Caliban" and it really helped me to focus because I sat there for at least 15 or 20 minutes as I had got there before the audience started arriving.


The only thing that went wrong in the afternoon performance was when the fire drill went off and we were about to go on and the so everyone had to leave the premises.
I think it slightly helped us as everyone calmed down a bit and weren`t nervous as we were before. The performance went well. We didn`t make any big mistakes and got really good feedback from tutors and friends who came to watch us.

In my opinion we got relaxed during the day and wasn`t so focus. After I said my line Odinelsa or Carlos forgot theirs or skipped straight to the next part which made confusion. We stayed in quite for at least 30seconds which feels like 5 minutes on stage and then Carlos tried to fix the situation by saying "You know what I`ll go further off" then Luis helped us out by playing the music of Aerial which meant we`ve got to follow it and we exited the stage. In our very first scene we forgot to take lid of the bottle that Odinelsa had to get us all drunk and the cloth
I was hiding under. But we easily figure it out  and Trinculo grabbed it in our next scene. We smoothed it out so the audience could think it supposed to happen like this. But everything else was great. We put a lot of energy in it so the stage didn`t look dead. Also Rob gave each of us some notes after costume rehearsal in the morning which I used later in the show. My notes were roar when I came out of the cave, laugh and then say "you taught me language and my profit on it is...", pick up the cues and add tempo to my speech "Why, as I told thee..". However, it`s good to relax after long months of working on the Tempest.

Starting from the righ to the left Odinelsa (Stephano), me(Caliban)
 and Carlos(Tinculo)

Technical rehearsal, the end of the play 

The Tempest Rehearsals

We have been rehearsing The Tempest for about 6 weeks. The progress is clearly visible: we all are moving forward. Rehearsing is much easier when pretty much everyone is off book. There are some classmates, including me, who goes `Line... Line... Line...` but at least we start bringing the life off stage and on stage to life.

I found hard moments when I am on stage and don`t have any lines to say. In this situation, I must not forget that life still goes on and I have to stay in my character. Most of the time it`s the thought process because sometimes I forgot to think about Caliban`s life and his thoughts: what happened to him, why I am angry or why do I want Stephano to destroy Prospero. But the more we rehearse the more confident I get because every time we rehearse we try new things and apply some of them to our performance. For example, yesterday Rob suggested Caliban to start shaking when he hears Trinculo and Stephano coming for the first time. It`s because he thinks Prospero send his spirits to torment him for bringing food in slowly.

Also I started moving my voice which is good because my character is always angry and aggressive so the audience can clearly understand that Caliban is a bad guy. My voice should sound desperately angry when I say `This island`s MINE!` I emphasized Mine showing that the island some time ago was mine and I really want to get it back. But it shouldn`t be exaggerated it because Prospero is standing right next to me and can cause me pains by just clicking his fingers.

Today rehearsals went very well. Finally we went through the whole play with all cast members from our group apart Sheeryce because she wasn`t in today. Rob feedback was that we had very good concentration and energy at the beginning. Said that we should keep the same energy from the beginning to the end so we won`t lose the engagement with an audience.

Costume, props and set 

Our green groups haven`t decided yet what we are going to wear for the performance. I started thinking that my character should be wearing loose and ripped clothes as he is an islander who has been living in the island where is no shops for a long time. Also I was thinking of using little bit of body painting to give my character dirty look. I will rough my hair up so it looks like I haven`t brushed my hair for a long time. 

For set we using bunch of chairs in the middle to show where the island is. We will discuss about set, props and costume son coming Thursday. Most of my scenes are together with Trinculo (Carlos) and Stephano (Odinelsa) and they use a bottle of wine for props as they drink all the time.

A bit more of The Tempest

Rehearsals with Rob 

Rehearsals are going very well. I start getting under the skin by using Stanislavski technique. I wrote down what my character Caliban (I) thinks of particularity situations.  For example, "Why, as I say, `tis a custom with him I`th`afternoon to sleep." (p 52).  I reveal Prospero`s secret to Stephano so he could "destroy" him. Stephano and Trinculo doesn`t take seriously. They are just happy to think of they may be the Kings of the island. Though everything what
Caliban believes in is just a joke for them both.

Rehearsing

However, Caliban hates Prospero and Miranda, and he wants his island back. Rob suggested to use "emotional recall" method by remembering the biggest fight in my life and how did I feel. So I went back home, lied down and closed my eyes. Slowly by slowly I went deeper inside my memory. I asked myself a few question: what did I do to achieve it? Have I changed? Exercised more? Ate healthy food? I remembered the food I ate, running every day, going to sleep early. All this actions has changed my routine and I achieved what I wanted to. Caliban is in the same situation. He wants to kill Prospero so badly for taking over his island and making him a slave. Seeking revenge in every step he takes. This feeling is about to blow his mind.

Glad I`m nearly off book but still need to work on some lines. Going over the lines again and again helps to remember it quickly. If someone is not in, I go through the lines with Isabella. Reading the text many times helps to remember clues.

Rehearsing

I haven`t rehearsed with everyone in my group because someone always is missing. However, it`s fine by me working with other people but I think it would be better if us all could rehearse together because each of us might have different ideas we want to use whilst other groups might not want to use them. For example, Jack or Toyo is not in or comes in late so I replace them. I don`t mind doing that as it gives me a chance to rehearse more. The more we rehearse the better we get.

On Thursday afternoon few of us were rehearsing. We ran over the scene 4 the one where Stephano pokes Trinculo in the eye. Jerome and Jack was watching us and gave us critical feedback which was very helpful. Jack (plays Caliban) suggested to raise up a voice whilst saying `tyrant` and `sorcerer`. What does those words mean to Caliban (me)? Tyrant is an absolute ruler who governs without restrictions. In other words tyrant is a dictator. People don`t like dictators as they seized power illegally. Caliban compares Prospero to a tyrant by saying the words loathly.

Physical Theater class with Sharon

In Sharon`s class we were reading and analyzing Caliban`s speech about the island, it`s beauty and noises in the island. First all 6 of us were lying down in circle touching shoulder to shoulder.

Dance class

Then we thank of different noises and sounds made in the island and bit by bit kept raising our voice by doing our chosen sound. In the middle of class we had put down 4 big blue mats so it can be the island.
Analyzing the text was really helpful as we don`t do any physical theater stuff with Rob. In class with Rob we more working on the lines, blocking and just rehearsing the whole play.

As we discussed all sounds, airs and noises doesn`t scare him but give him delight. He enjoys all that unpleasant, kind of scary things. The speech reading helped me to get the right rhythm. We looked at the comma, that famous slow-down signal. Without this little piece of punctuation, text would have sounded completely different. Enjoying reading the text is one of the most important things in Shakespeare`s works.

As an actress I benefited as my playing role is Caliban and we spent the whole lesson working on Caliban`s speech. It helps me to understand my role even more. Though physicality we did was closer to Aerial than
Caliban I picked some noises and moves which might be useful for performance. And I really like the idea that actors who stands behind curtains could make different sounds so it will give a clue to Caliban to reassure Stephano and Trinculo that island is safe "Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises, sound and sweet airs...".

Coming soon Jerome`s and mine duet dancing