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New ideas for Cinderella

14 April 2010

David Bintley talks about his ideas and inspiration for this new production.

How are you approaching the story of Cinderella?

I've known and loved Frederick Ashton's version of Cinderella all my adult life – I danced in it at Covent Garden many times – but I've always felt that the more effective the roles of the sisters are, the more Cinderella herself becomes overshadowed.

My version is based completely around Cinderella. Every other character is there to have an impact on this one central figure – she isn't overshadowed when the other characters have more to do. There are a lot of Cinderellas around the world, but I don't focus on what's gone before.As I choreograph, I'm thinking 'how will I do this part', not 'I'd better avoid making it too much like that!'

How important is your choice of collaborators?

Right from the start, the choice of collaborators is paramount, absolutely paramount, especially when you are creating a big piece.The music is obviously a vital factor, but the look of the production is so important as well.

I've never worked with the designer John Macfarlane or the lighting designer David Finn, although they've produced work for the Birmingham Royal Ballet before, most famously for Peter [Wright]'s Nutcracker, created for the Company the year it moved to Birmingham.

I've wanted to work with John in the past, but one of us has always been busy with other projects at the wrong times. As soon as we started work on the ballet, John and I established that we were going to do a 'proper' Cinderella. John immediately went to work and everything that he has produced is utterly beautiful and wonderful.

Have John's designs informed your choreography?

Yes. For example, John was worried that his scenic designs might not provide enough room in Cinderella's kitchen. But I just said to him'it's a kitchen!' I don't want a 300m-square kitchen, it doesn't look real! The size of the performance space then dictates what I do, and I like that kind of restraint sometimes.

So the 'Seasons' divertissements for instance are all solos. It's hard to fill a stage with a solo,which is why in a classic ballet you have 100 people sitting round on chairs watching. In these divertissements, you've only got one spectator – Cinderella herself. So to have the Seasons' invading this small kitchen was not only an interesting idea dramatically – visually it looks beautiful – but for me it really focuses the audience's eyes on that one single dancer.

Has your approach differed considering this is traditionally a children's story?

I try not to let this directly influence my work beyond my usual concerns of maintaining a strong sense of narrative. I was personally thrilled that Beauty and the Beast – which was not made with children particularly in mind – attracted a lot of children who were absolutely engaged from beginning to end.

This Cinderella will have all the wonderful things that make the story so well loved, but it will also retain the darker elements. I'm not going to the extremes that the Grimms did, but I do want the audience to realise that at the beginning of the story, this girl is all on her own.

Her mother died when she was a baby, and in my version her father is now gone as well. She starts with nothing, with absolutely nobody. She's kept in a cellar by her stepmother and the only daylight she sees is from a high window up at street level. These are the lowly beginnings that she dreams of escaping.

That's what Cinderella is supposed to be about and most of the versions I see, you never really feel the weight of that loneliness. She is a girl who begins entirely without love, and that's what makes the story of her finally finding it so powerful.

With something that is familiar, I always go right back to the roots and avoid all this secondary, received wisdom. My Cinderella won't be sweeping the kitchen, looked down upon from above the fireplace by a big oil painting of her dead mother – she'd never be allowed a great big oil painting of her mother, her stepmother would have got rid of it long ago!

So instead, I've got something hidden under a cupboard, in this case a pair of slippers to tie the story in to the shoes later on. And my Fairy Godmother is the spirit or the feeling of her own mother who died when she was a baby.

Cinderella is a child herself, and her trials and the eventual accomplishment of her dreams – she finds love, she is reunited with the spirit of her mother – is something I think everybody, young and old, will definitely understand.

ENDS

Performances of Cinderella are on sale now. Click here for details.

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