Behind the scenes with acclaimed choreographer Meryl Tankard (formely a principal dancer with Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wupperal), revealing the intricate #dance steps and inspiring collaboration that bring to life her #ballet 'The Wild Swans' based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1838 fairy-tale, she created for the Australian Ballet (video by Philippe Charluet) #ballet #MerylTankard #HansChristianAndersen #danse
00:00Elena and I worked on the Olympic opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in 2000, and
00:07we got on so well that it was a very long eight minutes, we must admit.
00:13We just felt that it would be great to work together again on something, so we decided
00:18to do the story of Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen.
00:30It tells the story of eleven boys who were turned into swans by their evil stepmother.
00:48The only way their one sister, the princess, could get the boys back was to go to the cemetery
00:54every night to take nettles from the cemetery and knit these jumpers from these stinging
00:59nettles with bleeding hands.
01:01She had to throw the jumpers over the boys, and when they got their nettle jumpers back,
01:06they would return as her brothers.
01:08It was a story I remembered from my childhood that I found very moving, and the images in
01:15that story have always stayed in my head.
01:18It's almost like every move has got much further to go.
01:28Energy comes from your centre, you know?
01:32It's like you never ever finish the movement.
01:34Yeah, that's better to...
01:35Some people have an idea of what they want with the movement straight away, but with Meryl,
01:40this comes from you and the dancer becomes not only the tool but the creator as well.
01:47She has a sketch and what she does is she shapes it and reshapes it until finally you get a product.
01:53Huge jump, big jump, bigger, bigger, bigger.
01:57Not so neat, let it just...
01:59The first time I did this I found it quite difficult.
02:03Then when I did it again, I realised that nothing can ever be wrong.
02:10You see, when they get tired, shall we make them really tired?
02:20So when we work through this process of improvisation, they're so used to a style of dance,
02:28they're so used to being a prince and a prince is...
02:31And be careful of that.
02:33It's so much easier if you just use those ballet moves and you just say, do six arabesques.
02:38Sometimes the seniles say, you come in, you come in, you come in, and they don't remember what they did,
02:43but it was just fabulous because it was so spontaneous.
02:46So I almost have to train them to get used to that spontaneity.
02:50So they keep moving, you see?
02:52They still keep moving, they never really stop.
02:55It's been a huge challenge in that way, it's like an ocean.
02:58I feel sometimes like a big, big ocean there, you know?
03:01Trying to choreograph the waves in the surf and that's what I want it to look like, but it's really hard.
03:25We really have to talk about the acting and that's one thing we didn't talk about at all, but from now on, I think you have to start practicing the acting.
03:53If you start getting into it now, you'll just get better and better quickly.
04:00The inside of Jane and the outside of the next one, the inside of Jane.
04:04Is everybody doing that?
04:06Not too crazy, it's still very polite.
04:31It's still very polite.
04:32Okay.
04:33They look like Dodger Cards.
04:34They look like Dodger Cards.
04:35They look like Dodger Cards.
04:36Now it's looking like a crab.
04:40And then Annabelle turns her hair.
04:44Oh, and remember the rolling hair?
04:46You did?
04:47Oh, you did roll.
04:48Yeah.
04:49That's awesome.
04:51There you go.
04:53And bring that down.
04:55And then can that go then into, ba-dum, ba-dum, you know, that sort of junky hair.
05:01Oh, that's excellent.
05:02That's good too.
05:03And you can be on point.
05:04Okay.
05:05Can you feel like you could dance on that before?
05:08Just dance if you can, like you can move.
05:21There's a scene in the piece where Eliza flies with her brothers and I would just love to
05:28have her soaring with the brothers underneath.
05:31But, you know, you have this idea in your head, but you have to deal with the harness.
05:35You have to deal with all these issues.
05:37You should get a lot more rotation than what you've got when you're fully spread out.
05:41Maybe it would be better to, like, work it out so that it was.
05:45So before you can even get to the magic, you have to deal with all the practical things
05:51of making a harness that doesn't hurt, that's safe, that's fitting in the costumes,
05:56or you have the costume designer, you have all those elements.
06:00It's great, it's a bit scary.
06:04It's scary when I go fast, because even though the boys are not turning that fast,
06:07that's like blood, retro blood to their head.
06:10Yeah.
06:25Now?
06:26Yeah.
06:30Sometimes when they get tired, that's when they give you their best.
06:49You know, their ego's gone and you get something really special out of them.
06:53Don't forget about us.
06:54Don't forget about us.
06:55Don't forget about us.
07:02Oh my God.
07:03We could do backflips across.
07:04Backflips.
07:05She wouldn't know this.
07:06Tim, where do you start that dance?
07:07The day for me, in this structure, is very short.
07:19And the lunch is always 2.30, and the finish is, and there's always a 15 minute break,
07:24and it always happens at the same time, and it's hard.
07:28And then do it at 7.
07:29So you come in.
07:30Yeah.
07:31It comes back.
07:32It's starting.
07:33Yeah, that would be good.
07:34That would be excellent.
07:35Okay.
07:36Yeah.
07:37It's hard to work like that, unless you give them steps.
07:42So you give them steps and they learn steps, but I hate to work like that.
07:47I like it really to grow out of something.
07:50Fingers are really important, right?
07:53She wants to hold you and be with you.
08:00So I can't follow, like, how something would grow.
08:04It's like having a flower, you know, and it grows in a certain way.
08:07Like, I have to tell this story.
08:10Come straight across with you, Hungarian.
08:12I'm Hungarian.
08:42No, he's down, yeah.
08:43Down, yeah.
08:44Down, yeah, down.
08:45And can he hold on to the knees?
08:49That one looks good at the knees now.
08:51What if I pose on the back?
08:53Oh, wait, let's put him down.
08:54Oh.
08:55I don't understand what you're saying.
08:57Maybe you should face the other way so we can see his head, yeah.
09:00Please listen.
09:01It's mad, isn't it?
09:17It's mad.
09:17That's only half of it.
09:18They only start doing the ballet at the end of the show.
09:22And the subscribers have left.
09:26They get all their point work at the end,
09:29in the last half hour of the show.
09:31Oh, boy.
09:35That's good.
09:36That's good.
09:38There's just no rain.
09:39Yeah, cool.
09:40That is so nice.
09:41When you bend that leg, and you bend that leg, yeah, that's it.
09:45Now can you do your hip?
09:47Even if you do pique together and then hip.
09:51Down, that's okay.
09:54Try not to get it faster.
09:56If you didn't have to.
09:58But if you have to, do it to the front, please.
10:00When it's slow, like, like that, I can't control it.
10:06And so when you want me to stay on point, I'm going to be going like that.
10:10You know you're like me.
10:11I can't make it go any slow.
10:13Just even if you break.
10:15You can even break.
10:16So is this album on the RBS?
10:19Yeah, I would do that.
10:20Pique, pique, pique.
10:22The most exciting thing for me was to actually create a ballet.
10:25A combo of the steps that keep you busy.
10:28For me, it was a real challenge to actually create a piece with ballet dancers on point.
10:34That's good.
10:35Yeah, I like that.
10:36And then do those drag ones.
10:39And for me then, it was almost as if the pointe shoes and the dancers' legs became the knitting needles and the nettles.
10:46And I started to see the connection between these painful, very painful shoes that dancers are wearing all their lives.
10:54In a way, that pain is what Eliza went through to complete the task, to bring her brothers back.
11:17Yes, that's it.
11:24Yes, that's it.
11:54We only had three days to set up a two-hour ballet.
12:02I mean, you spend so long creating it, putting everything together.
12:07And then you get thrown on stage.
12:09You get three days to see the lights for the first time.
12:13You know, really see the projections for the first time.
12:16And you just have to make decisions so quickly.
12:19It can't be any lower for the boys, Meryl.
12:21So are you happy with that?
12:24You want to keep reworking.
12:31You want to keep developing and reworking the piece because you always feel that it's too fast.
12:36It's too fast when you get on the stage to put all the elements together.
12:39It's just not fair.
12:40It weighs three tons.
12:41Okay, so how big would you like the speed?
12:44Half that size.
12:45Ladies and gentlemen, I'm stoked.
12:47Some of these speeds may feel a bit funny.
12:50And we will possibly stop so there won't be a feeling of flow today, for which I apologise.
12:56We've got to do the flying.
12:57We haven't done it yet.
12:58So we want to do where she starts to fly, the whole lot.
13:02She's just holding the whole seat down.
13:10What was that?
13:35I hate that clicking of that thing, that floor, like it's like cracking.
13:45Where is that?
13:47It feels like it's coming undone, like it's like that every time.
13:51It doesn't go around.
13:52Yeah, because it's square.
13:55Oh my god, that sucks.
13:59Why can't we lift up the light?
14:03We can't re-choreograph the whole company.
14:07Most choreographers are dead, so ballets are made with dead choreographers, and I'm alive,
14:16and I'm still there, and I talk, and I still want things to get better, so that's why I
14:22think it might be difficult sometimes, because I do want to improve.
14:27I do want it always to improve, and things aren't regular.
14:32I guess it's, you know, maybe there's not a tutu, it's a flat dress, it's not a normal
14:38tutu.
14:39For me, it's a tutu, but for the ballet company, that's very strange.
14:43OK, let's do it.
14:44Here we go.
14:45And up.
14:46OK.
14:47Let's do it.
14:48Here we go.
14:49And up.
14:50Come on.
14:52One, two, three, four.
14:55Look it.
14:58That's just here.
14:59Aاذ.
15:00One, Ahh!
15:01One, Ahh!
15:06So where would you like to go from now?
15:10It's insane. What an absolute classic.
15:16Brace the quavers, keep them steady.
15:20Ladies and gentlemen of the Australian Ballet, this is your 15-minute call.
15:24Don't brace the quavers.
15:26How quick is that?
15:29That's great.
15:38Exaggerate the crescendo and then the dip.
15:54Ladies and gentlemen of the Australian Ballet, this is your 5-minute call.
15:58Five minutes, thank you.
16:05I spend my whole life trying to do what I haven't seen before.
16:10If I would just copy what I know, I don't see the point in creating anything.
16:15So I'm spending my whole imagination to bring the audience something they haven't seen.
16:21I can't move my eyes in this suit.
16:25And I felt the story was really magical and I wanted to bring that magic in the piece,
16:30like the silhouettes and the flat dolls and the tiny dolls,
16:34take the audience back to this fairy world really,
16:37this sort of world of imagination that is still important.
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