Popularity: 1
Vote:   | A lot of the people who have come to know the company in the last few years will not have seen this piece. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | All the kids that see it love it because it's such good fun, but it's multi-layered and the majority of people who come to see it are adult. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | I do think it's got a lot to do with story-telling. Dance is popular these days but not as popular as musicals, straight plays and cinema, etc. The reason this company has gone a bit beyond the dance following is we always tell a story and at heart, what people like about going to the theatre or cinema is that. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | I saw the Nutcracker to be a dummy as I thought of its mouth moving like a nutcracker - and also find them pretty scary as they almost have a life of their own. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | I wanted to be involved in Mary Poppins when it happened. I talked to Cameron Mackintosh 10, 15 years ago and said, 'Please, if you ever get a chance to do it, can I work on it some capacity?' And I've been working on Edward Scissorhands which is coming out later in the year. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | I'm very conscious that I want the dance audience to respond and respect what I'm doing, so I'm always very true to the music and I honour the music in the way I see it - I don't mess around with the music. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | If it's a ballet... I try and make links which the dance audience will appreciate and they'll think, 'Ah, I can see what he's done there with that idea, that was in the ballet.' I try to steer away from being accused of vandalising the piece. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | It's like a new production, it's not really a revival in many ways. It's got a lot of new choreography and a larger cast. Also, in the years since I made it, I've learnt so much more about audiences and story-telling without words, so in many ways there's a lot more in it than there was. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | It's one of my strongest dance pieces - having just done Play Without Words which was veering away from a lot of dance - I thought it would be nice to go back to something with almost the most dance I'd done. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | It's one of the things that looks good written down, but the reality is that you think about the pieces you're doing and try to bear in mind everyone in the audience. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | My company is known for being funny as well as moving. You get a bit of everything in these shows. I think people know they're going to have a surprising experience. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | People know that they're going to see something which is entertaining but challenging as well because of the form it's in. It's dance theatre and it requires you to use your imagination - it's not straight forward. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | Some people have written that our work has a shockability value, but I never think that is the case. It's full of surprises and the audiences have grown to really enjoy that. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | Sometimes you don't know what you've got until you put it in front of an audience - and the enthusiasm for the show from the audience has been just incredible. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | The Drosselmeyer figure is turned into Dr Dross who runs the orphanage and has the spoilt brat children, Fritz and Sugar. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | The reason I'm travelling so much is because of reasons that weren't completely planned. Several of the shows became successful and were invited to go to other places and they've all happened at similar times. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | There are only 11 people in the show now so there are an extra four, so it's bigger in that sense and it had to be re-choreographed quite substantially. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | We've got a really good relationship there with Peter Wilson [Norwich Theatre Royal's chief executive] and all these people who come back and see us. Every time we go there we seem to build on the audience... so it's always nice to come because we've got such a history. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | Well, it's not modern day now. We set it when we made it which is about 10 years ago - the late '80s, early '90s was the time we set it in. One of the themes is the drug and club culture of that time, which may be less relevant now. They all play characters and in the second half they all become Sylphs. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | When it comes down to it, it's giving people a good night out in a basic way and I think my company guarantees that. There's always something new and something to excite us and surprise us, and that's why people come back, I hope. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | With any project there's one or two things that you really want to do and that's going to crack it. |