Matthew Bourne
If your shoulders sag a little at the prospect of going to see another version of Swan Lake or the Nutcracker, take heart: Matthew Bourne has reinvented these ballets. In addition to reworking the classics, Bourne creates new dance for operas, musicals, and more. Born in London in 1960, Bourne used to stage his own versions of Disney classics for family and friends. When he was an usher at the National Theatre he thrived in the artistic milieu, and at twenty-two enrolled in the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance. He then joined Laban's Transitions Dance Company upon graduating. A short time later, he co-founded Adventures in Motion (AMP), where he began to choreograph new work as well as dance. His first full-length work for AMP was Deadly Serious, a tribute of sorts to Hitchcock films. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, he choreographed productions for other companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, and garnered West End theatre credits with Children of Eden (1990), Oliver (1994), and the revival of My Fair Lady. In 1992, he reworked The Nutcracker, keeping Tchaikovsky's score but setting the story in a Dickens-era orphanage. His other best-known rework of a classic is Swan Lake, which appeared first in the West End before moving to Broadway. The all-male swans are transformed into powerful and at times aggressive but always beautiful birds. He won Tony Awards for best director and best choreography. His 1997 take on Prokoviev's Cinderella is set during the Blitz of London, and The Car Man (2000) is loosely based on Carmen. In 2002, Bourne left AMP to form New Adventures. His first work for this group was Play Without Words. In 2004 he co-directed the Cameron Mackintosh production of Mary Poppins, for which he won an Olivier Award. His stage version of Edward Scissorhands won the New Critic's Drama Desk Award for "most unique theatre experience" -- something which could be said of all of Bourne's imaginative work.
