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Transcript

Christopher Bruce's 'Rooster' (1991)

Presented by Connor Humphreys

Contextual Information

Choreographer: Christopher Bruce

Music: selection of eight songs by The Rolling Stones

Costume design: Marian Bruce

Lighting design: Tina MacHugh

Dance Company: Ballet du Grand Théatre de Genéve

(10 October 1991)

Danced by London Contemporary: 28 October 1992

Danced by Rambert: 8 December 1994

Contextual Information

DVD Dancers

Rambert Dancers

Lucianita Farah

Kate Ketchum

Karina Silverio

Aya Sugizaki

Didy Veldman

Lucas Crandall

Christopher Chang

Giorgio Mancini

Gabriele Manferdini

Robert Russell

Rambert Dancers

Analysis Summary

Starting Points

Analysis Summary

  • The music of The Rolling Stones
  • Autobiography and nostalgia - memories of Christopher Bruce's youth in the 1960s.
  • Popular culture in the 1960s.

Sources for Vocabulary

  • The Rolling Stones music; the words, mood and structure of the songs
  • Popular dances of the 1960s
  • Bruce's particular blend of Contemporary and classical dance vocabulary.

Style

  • Bruce's particular distillation and blend of Classical and Contemporary dance actions mixed with more realistic every-day gestures, mimetic and anthropomorphic actions, social dances and jazz influences
  • Significant use is made of solos, trios and duets
  • Some of the props (scarves and feather boa)
  • Humorous; although sometimes emotional and aggressive atmospheres
  • Lighting enhances mood/atmosphere, drives the movement and its structure, and offers themes and images
  • Episodic and rondo structure linked around the theme of the songs

Christopher Bruce

'Rooster is a celebratory work in that it celebrates the sixties and, of course, my youth. Some of the tracks, such as Ruby Tuesday or As Tears Go By, are more reflective but even in these sections I have tried to find humour and a sense of fun. One of the main themes I explore is the male chauvinism that comes through in the lyrics of some of the tracks and it is also interesting to see these behavioural patterns beginning in the playground where children can be so cruel to each other.'

Rooster in context to Bruce's choreography

Rooster continues a trend that developed Christopher Bruce's work in the 1980's of choreographing to cycles of songs, usually compilations he had chosen himself. This began in 1981 with the Holst songs for Dancing Day created for the students of the Rambert Academy, and was followed by the highly acclaimed Ghost Dances for Ballet Rambert to Andean folk music.

Rooster is the third work that Bruce has choreographed using music he grew up with. As he put it in an interview in Dance and Dancers (1993), 'I did the piece because I just loved the music - eight songs by the Rolling Stones, mostly numbers I've lived with for twenty years.'

Design

The dance is set on an undecorate stage in which areas are picked out in light. Initially the centre of the stage is illuminated and it is into this pool of light that the first dancer walks performing the 'Rooster strut'. Sometimes light fills the stage ans at other times just picks out an individual performer. Christopher Bruce is aware that dancers need pleanty of space in which to perform.

Costumes

For the most part the costumes reflect rather than literally reproduce 1960s dress, though the men's velvet jackets, colourful shirts and co-ordinated ties - all suggesting Jagger's 'dandy' phase - are original 60s garments bought from secondhand shops. The mens trousers wre specially made from strong stretchy fabric to give the impression of jeans. Their appearance is varied even further when they discard their jackets for 'Paint It Black' and 'Sympathy For The Devil'. They all wear black jazz shoes

While there is individuality in the mens colourful costumes, the women's are identical. They wear simple, chic dresses, with a black and red colour-scheme. Initially they wear sleeveless black dresses, with skirts that have box pleats with red inserts. For 'Paint It Black' and 'Play With Fire' the women are in sleeveless black mini-shifts evoking Mary Quant's 60s fashions. The women also wear red scarves in 'Paint It Black' and the female dancer has a feather boa in 'Play With Fire'. In 'Ruby Tuesday' the solo female dancer wears a long sleeve, full skirted red dress to appear and get across a hippy vibe in the dance. All the female dancers wear sheer black tights and black jazz shoes.

Costumes

Dancers costume

Mick Jagger

Sir Michael Philip Jagger, (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and actor who gained fame as the lead singer and one of the founder members of the Rolling Stones. Jagger's career has spanned over five decades, and he has been described as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll".

Dropping out of the London School of Economics in 1963 to pursue a career in music it was initially as, ‘just another beatboom band’ that the Stones were perceived, but all too soon Mick’s on stage and on camera persona, particularly on numerous 1960s TV shows, marked him and the Stones out as being different from the other bands – the others mostly liked to wear suits.

His Style

The rocker was known for his provocative stage gestures, adventurous style and androgynous appeal. Staying the course as one era transitioned to the next, Jagger’s style evolved. The English singer seamlessly mastered a variety of aesthetics, taking on dashing, slim-cut mod suiting, glam form fitting stage outfits and embellished, detail oriented ensembles.

His Style

As seen in the piece lots of the men wear different suits which take a direct link to Mick Jaggers looks which included colorful and exciting suits. Lots of other bands of the 60's wore similar things but none of them made it look as good as Mick Jagger.

Mary Quant

The miniskirt, described as one of the defining fashions of the 1960s, is one of the garments most widely associated with Quant. While she is often cited as the inventor of the style, this claim has been challenged by others. However, skirts had been getting shorter since the 1950s—a development Quant considered practical and liberating, allowing women the ability to run for a bus. She gave the miniskirt its name, after her favourite make of car, the Mini.

Later in 1988, Quant designed the interior of the Mini (1000) Designer (originally dubbed the Mini Quant, the name was changed when popularity charts were set against having Quant's name on the car). It featured black and white striped seats with red trimming. The seatbelts were red, and the driving and passenger seats had Quant's signature on the upper left quadrant. The steering wheel had Quant's signature daisy and the bonnet badge had "Mary Quant" written over the signature name.

Designs

Marian Bruce

Rooster was the first dance-work that Marian Bruce designed. She trained as a dancer at the Ballet Rambert School (where she met her future husband) and as Marian Meadowcroft danced with Ballet Rambert from 1963 to 1966. She then danced with other companies but in 1967 married Christopher Bruce and preferred to settle with him in England. In 1970 she began her art training at Richmond College and Morley College later taking an MA in Printmaking at Wimbledon School of Art. Marian Bruce followed-up her designs for the Ballet du Grand Théatre de Genéve's Rooster with Christopher Bruce's Nature Dances for Houston Ballet in 1992

Lighting

Tina MacHugh has designed for a variety of companies, including Arc Dance Company, DV8, Second Stride and Adventures in Motion Pictures. For Ballet du Grand Théatre de Genéve she designed Rooster and a version of Le Sacre du Printemps in 1991.

Lighting is relatively unobtrusive in that it does not distract attention from the dancers. It is mainly of lower intensity around the edges of the stage and frequently provides a central pool of light to provide a clear focus for the main action; for example, at the opening of Rooster in the live version the male soloist steps into this pool of light and the other male dancers are placed just around the edges of it. Side lighting provides a sculptural, three dimensional sense of the dancers' bodies so that they are always clearly visible and solid.

The Music

Christopher Bruce used a selection of eight pieces of music by The Rolling Stones. Two of the pieces are rhythm and blues standards, the other six are by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The songs are often challenging, subversive, politically incorrect and even offensive at times in use of the lyrics, and the aggressive attitude and sullen presentation by the lead singer Mick Jagger

The Music

The Rolling Stones

Throughout their history - from the time they were caught urinating in public to the brouhaha over their drug bust - the stones epitomized rebellion and disrespect to both fans and detractors, and they had long been the band that many parents and authority figures hated the most. The Stones flirted openly with questions about evil and violence that aimed to reveal both themselves and their fans as accomplices in all the modern terror and chaos.

The Rolling Stones

“But suddenly popular music became bigger than it had ever been before. It became an important, perhaps the most important, art form of the period, after not at all being regarded as an art form before.”

Mick Jagger

The Band

The Band

The Lyrics

Mick Jagger wrote most of the lyrics for the Rolling Stones music with help from Keith Richards. The lyrics weren't always representative of the songs sound but they were very representative of the world they saw around them and how they felt at the time. They are very shocking and dark at points in time, but they told it how it was. For example in 'Ruby Tuesday' Mick sings;

'There's no time to lose, I heard her say

Catch your dreams before they slip away

Dying all the time

Lose your dreams

And you will lose your mind.

Ain't life unkind?'

The Songs

Song Written by Recorded date

Little Red Rooster I Willie Dixon I 1964 not orig

Lady Jane I Mick and Keith I 1966

Not Fade Away I Buddy Holly and I 1964 not orig

I Norman Petty I

As Tears Go By I Mick and Keith I 1965

Paint It Black I Mick and Keith I 1968

Ruby Tuesday I Mick and Keith I 1967

I also Brian Jones I

Play With Fire I Mick and Keith I 1965

Sympathy for the Devil I Mick and Keith I 1968

The Songs

The Dance

The dance is constructed of eight distinct numbers, each performed to a seperate song. As with some of Bruce's other works these could easily stand alone, but as a sequence they build up the atmosphere and feel of the swinging 1960's and contemporary attitudes. The men deliberately perform the most energetic choreography and show off but sseveral sections end with the men being put down by the women. Although each song provides focus for a distinctive theme or mood they are sometimes linked and lead into each other

The Dance

Section 1

Little Red Rooster: 5 male and 1 female dancer. (full company on stage at the end of the dance), running time 2' 55"

The dance starts with five men stationary on stage. The man downstage comes to life and moves into the spotlight with the start of the music. His initial dance phrase is the Rooster strut. After a solo he leaves stage right as a woman enters upstage left and approaches the two men at the back who, one by one, reject her and depart performing the Rooster strut. She then approaches two men downstage right who after lifting and danceing with her, similarly reject her.

At the end of the section the full company comes on stage, walking very deliberate paths either parallel to or at right angles to the front of the stage so that the section ends with eight dancers lined up at the back with one couple downstage in the centre.

Section 2

Lady Jane: Full company (10 dancers), running time 3' 5".

This gives the intial illusion of a courtly dance with attention focused on the central couple. Although the full company is on stage, for much of the time the other four couples shuffle in a more contemporary social dance at the back or side of the stage from which some of them emerge briefly. Only at the very end of the dance, when they come together in a circle, do they all fully participate in the dance rather than provide an animated background.

The central man and his partner 'Lady Jane' perform the minuet-style steps and bow to one another. As the words of the song proclaim the man to be 'Jane's' 'servant' he provides his knee for her to sit on. Her gestures and way of moving with her arms crossed over her body suggest a modest demeanour. As the song progresses to the second verse a more pushy woman 'Lady Ann' takes 'Jane's' place and the couples on the fringe realign, but 'Jane' returns for the musical interlude. This ends with the couple reclining facing one another. 'Jane' is lifted away and 'Sweet Marie' takes her place; but at the end of the final verse, as the dancers link hands in a circle, the man again turns to 'Jane', whom he lifts into the centre of the group, her hands raised ready to give the introductory claps for the next number.

Section 3

Not Fade Away: 2 dancers, 1 male, 1 female, running time 1' 48"

The group disperse, walking backwards off the stage leaving only one couple. Their duet is based on social dancing but the girl expends only a minimum of energy while the man shows off. At the end he departs with three other men while the girl, upstage left, traces a vertical wave of air with her hand as she crouches down and in the diminishing light fades away.

Section 4

As Tears Go By: 8 dancers, 4 male, 4 female, runtime 2' 45"

One man and one woman stand outside a group of friends who clearly want nothing to do with them. The other three men and three women make two gender cliques and occasionally form cross group partnerships. The women seem to be interested in the isolated man but neither clique is interested in the isolated woman.

There is a telling moment when the women link outstretched arms as if going into a folkdance, typical of Bruce's choreography in the 1980's. The outsider woman joins the end of the line, but the others stare at her and she drops away giving a visual image of an individual rejected by the community. There is a child-like quality to the isolated woman's skips, turns and little runs; and a selfishness to her behaviour. The outsider man periodically goes to her support but gets his face slapped for his pains. At the end of the song she is left crouching centre-stage and attracts his attention by waving her arm. He pulls her up and carries her off over his shoulder

Section 5

Paint It Black: 4 dancers, 1 male, 3 female, runtime 3' 10"

This is an energetic solo for a man, supported by a female backing group moving in unison with a provocative dance routine that resembles those for the former television dance group Pan's People. The woman's dance routine is repeated with the repetition of the words. The tall, long haired woman of Geneva Ballet look like Amazons in this section, but to achieve the same effect Bruce has made the LCDT dancers more aggressive: instead of just waving their red scarves triumphantly as they exit, they now also use them to whip the male victim.

Section 6

Ruby Tuesday: 5 dancers, initially a solo for a woman, later joined by 4 men, running time 3' 10".

Just as Paint It Black is primarily a solo for the man, this is a solo for the woman although towards the end she is joined on stage by four men who similarly perform simple dance routines in unison or pairs giving the impression of the conventional movements of a standard vocal backing group. The choreography for the woman is very typical of Bruce's style with a low centre of gravity and flowing movements. There is an emphasis on yearning arabesques and off-balance, turning movements which propel the dance along. During the dance the soloist fiddles with her hair, picks something from the ground and twists her arms and hands with the suggestion of underlying tension. Towards the end of the dance the soloist throws herself into the men's arms and they manipulate her in more twists and turns developing the material she previously performed on her own.

Section 7

Play With Fire: 2 dancers, 1 male, 1 female, runtime 2' 10"

In some respects like the 'Not Fade Away' duet, this section draws on social dance, giving the male dancer more flamboyant steps. The introduction of the red feather boa as a prop and a more varied use of popular dance forms provides a contrast to the earlier duet.

Section 7

Section 8

Sympathy For The Devil: Full company of 10 dancers, running time 7' 20"

This is a fun and energetic dance with repeated entrances and exits for all the company although the focus is on the men who begin the number. It features elaborate bows of introduction and the placing of forefingers immediately above the head (to represent horns of the Devil). Dancers enter and exit picking up movement material from one another, performing in unison both paralleling and reflecting one another's gestures. Just as the words 'Pleased to meet you' are illustrated by courteous bows so, for example, the words 'made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate' are depicted by a solo dancer 'washing' his hands round the others.

The final section of the dance is a quick reprise of all eight preceding numbers. Inevitably it opens with the Rooster strut followed by a girl lifted by the two men as at the end of 'Little Red Rooster'. The dancers then perform in quick succession the minuet-style movement from 'Not Fade Away'; the face slap from 'As Tears Go By'; the male soloist's encounter with the Amazons from 'Paint It Black'; the woman's leap into the four men's arms from 'Ruby Tuesday'; and dueat material from 'Play With Fire'. Finally, after reprise of the elaborate introductions by the Devil, the soloist of the first piece goes into the Rooster strut and, as he adjusts his tie yet again, the lights go out.

Section 8

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