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able to be much more hands-on and can assure youthat the choreography and musicality should be spot-onand as intended. I am proud to say that this revival willfeature some of my favourite and most experienced NewAdventures stars alongside an exciting group of dancersmaking their debuts with us.Swan Lake is probably your most famous production.Has it ever felt like a millstone around your neck?Never! Swan Lake has been a great ambassador forthe company throughout the world. I guess if it wasthe only successful piece in our repertory I would bemore worried. It has actually paved the way for NewAdventures to become a truly international company,with all our work now travelling around the globe. Itcontinues to inspire and to bring new audiences todance, and for that we can all be proud. After 15 years itstill holds a very special place in my heart.INFLUENCES AND INSPIRATIONS• Bourne’s early influences were theatre, film anddance and these memorable references and imagesare weaved through the majority of his work.• Music inspires Bourne and although not musicallytrained he is fanatical about creating a seamless linkbetween the accompaniment and the choreography.• Narratives, characters and relationships interestBourne, rather than a more abstract approach tomovement.• The collaboration process and feeding artistically andcreatively off the thoughts and opinions of others.CHOREOGRAPHIC STYLE• Generally Bourne uses a narrative and theatrical stylewhich in turn creates a narrative or episodic structurewithin his works.• The movement is generally developed out of thecharacters and how they connect and feed into thestoryline or relate to each other within the context ofthe piece.• As a general rule Bourne uses direct co-relationin the way he combines music and movement, sotherefore using specific phrasing, rhythmic patternsand mood changes choreographically that areevident within the musical score.• For the majority of his narrative based work that arecreated from the ballet tradition, Bourne makes thepieces more contemporary and relevant to a newaudience.• Bourne combines humour, often with more dramaticcontent, therefore creating contrast and varying themood.• Clearly Bourne combines dance styles. Althoughat the heart of his work is contemporary dance,he draws on classical ballet, particularly in usingclassically trained dancers in many of his works, thereare elements of jazz or theatrical dance, makingreferences to his interest in musical theatre as well asa variety of social dance forms.ACTIVITYMatthew Bourne Biographical Fact SheetOutline the key facts and information that yourequire and ask each student to research Bourne as achoreographer and produce an A4 fact sheet. Focusareas could be key dates, background and training,choreographic style, key works, collaborators etc.Alternatively students could be allocated a particularwork to research and prepare their findings in powerpoint form. In this case the group could gain a muchwider contextual perspective of his work and depthand breadth of his choreographic style, from his earlyworks, through to the musicals he has choreographedand the variety of large-scale dance works such asSleeping Beauty and Dorian Gray.Choreographic ProcessOne of the key elements of dance within aneducation context is the importance of developingchoreographic skills. Bourne offers a clear insightinto both the compositional process and thechoreographic devices that have been applied tobring the piece to fruition.In outlining Bourne’s approach one has to appreciatethe generic choreographic process, which studentsare encouraged to follow when addressing their owncompositional work at examination level.MATTHEW BOURNE’S SWAN LAKE RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS 24