Sir Matthew Bourne is a huge name in dance. A well known and much acclaimed director and choreographer, people who are not familiar with his work or ballet in general could be forgiven for thinking his work would not be accessible to the mainstream. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

In all honesty, ballet had never really interested me. As a child, I didn’t yearn to join a ballet class and much preferred individual, quiet activities such as reading to high energy ones like dance. I also thought that, being working class and Northern, ballet wasn’t really for people like me (I know, Billy Elliott vibes or what). So when I watched my first ballet at age 21, I couldn’t have chosen a better introduction than Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. 

The appeal of Matthew Bourne’s ballets lies in their accessibility to the masses. Bourne himself admits he never took a dance class until he was in his 20s. until he started to get into ballet, his parents hadn’t any real knowledge about it. They shared the journey with him and supported him along the way. 

Maybe it is this self-introduction to dance and family enjoyment of it that has influenced the accessibility of his performances. Bourne has often been quoted as saying he feels it is his job to make pieces accessible for a modern audience and he seemingly does this with ease. 

The staging, costumes and characters are updated and seem more like the costumes from a film than a ballet; bridging that gap between film, performance theatre and dance. Gone are the stiff, heavily adorned outfits and tutus, replaced instead with costumes which enhance the theme.

In his Swan Lake for example, the female character’s outfits look more like a catwalk from a 1950s Givenchy collection than a traditional ballet and the men wear uniforms or high end suits. 

Bourne also isn’t afraid to take risks. In his production of Swan Lake, the swans are actually a team of male dancers (rather than female in the original story), led impeccably by Adam Cooper, who actually left his position at the Royal Ballet to lead Bourne’s Swan Lake. 

The themes Bourne explores in his productions are also more appealing to a wider audience: there are homoerotic undertones to his Swan Lake; a gothic-vampire twist to his Sleeping Beauty and 1930s Hollywood influences in his version of Nutcracker!

Research plays a key role in making his performances accessible too. There’s an understanding of the undercurrents of each piece, as well as their well known tones that give audiences an insight and understanding of the piece that is more difficult to achieve in a classical ballet production (which still has an air of class-system and snobbery about it in some cases). 

This research continues through Bourne’s use of influence and inspiration. His work in film and theatre provide a substantial backdrop to revolutionise the arena of dance and he approaches ballets with a view that is often missed or overlooked in the traditional ballet world. Bourne quotes Hitchcock’s film The Birds as one inspiration for his Swan Lake, an iconic film with cult status. 

His Cinderella is even set amongst the Blitz of World War II, something all audiences are familiar with through either experience or education. 

Bourne also isn’t snobbish about where his performances are staged. They have been hosted in venues ranging from The Old Vic Theatre to the Lowry and everywhere in between, making them physically more widely accessible to audiences than most traditional ballets have ever been. 

The ballets are housed in theatres people know and love; and during lockdown they have been accessible through live stream. 

If you’re a newbie to ballet like I was, I would fervently propose you start with Bourne. It doesn’t have to be Swan Lake  (although it is the one that brought him to the masses, it isn’t the most well known story). Bourne has choreographed and directed performances of Romeo & Juliet, Nutcracker!, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Edward Scissorhands to name a few. 

The four shows currently streaming are: ‘Swan Lake’ (2019), ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (2019), ‘Cinderella’ (2017) and ‘The Car Man’ (2015). Priced at £9.99 each to buy and £5.99 each to rent, these are available through the New Adventures Website. What better way to endure lockdown than through a little bit of ballet magic?

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Written by Jenna Tomlinson