The Far End of the Garden. A profile of choreographer Jonathan Burrows - ACE229.2

Jonathan Burrows removing make-up; end of performance at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; theatre bar; dancers rehearsing. Burrows’s VO talking about the curious relationship between the Jonathan Burrows Group and the Royal Ballet in which a small contemporary dance group has developed out of a larger organisation; he has stayed linked to the Royal ballet because this allows him the resources he needs to make his own work. Burrows walking through backstage corridors and store rooms; his VO talking about trying "to ignore arbitrary divisions between contemporary dance and ballet". Burrows rehearsing dancers. His VO talking about finding classical ballet too physically challenging; his projects having been done in spare time with dancers giving up lunch breaks, etc.; needing space to work in his own way. Rehearsal. VO says he has chosen to work with particular dancers, each of whom has an individual way of moving, and it prepared to try to do things in a different way. Rehearsal. Dancers talking about some of the differences between classical and contemporary dance. Burrows VO talking about being autocratic and having strong ideas about what he wants to happen. Burrows worries that three recent projects, Hymns, Dull Morning, and Stoics, all reached exactly the same audience and didn’t attract anyone new, and suggests that the contemporary dance audience is suspicious of anything linked to classical ballet. Rehearsal at The Place. Burrows VO says he would like more concentrated rehearsal periods, and to be able to tour more with his Group, but working with the Royal Ballet imposes constraints; he wonders about trying to find funding elsewhere. Jeremy Isaacs, General Director, The Royal Opera House, says that they would be sorry to see Burrows and his Group leave the Royal Ballet. Rehearsal. Burrows VO on wanting to go wherever he could continue his choreography and extend his audience. Kate Flatt, Choreographer, and VO talking about Burrows’s drive to create new work. Programme for performance of Stoics at The Place. People at box office and in restaurant. Dancers preparing. Burrows VO talking about the "violence" of the movement, and the audience response to it. STOICS (1991). Burrows saying that Stoics is so called in reference to ideas of English stoicism.