The Influence
Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet was the first experience of intoxication for French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, who makes his Australian debut at the Sydney Opera House next month. By Neha Kale.
Benjamin Millepied on Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet
Benjamin Millepied traces his affinity with dance to his childhood in Senegal. “My mother was a dance teacher,” he says. “Dance is how kids grow up there. It was a naturalistic, organic way of living.” The world-renowned choreographer, who was born in Bordeaux and attended the Conservatoire national supérieur musique et danse de Lyon, spent a decade as principal dancer for the New York City Ballet, dancing works by Jerome Robbins, Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon. He went on to choreograph and perform in Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-winning Black Swan and in 2012 founded the L.A. Dance Project, as part of a mission to transform what an American dance organisation could look like.
At L.A. Dance Project, Millepied often collaborates with photographers and visual artists and makes films that blend dance with the moving image. Last year he shot a feature-length version of Carmen. In June, the artist makes his Australian debut at the Sydney Opera House with Romeo & Juliet Suite. The work, which revolves around male-male, female-female and male-female couples, draws on live film – a medium he associates with immediacy – to translate the classic story for the present day. For The Influence, Millepied spoke about Romeo and Juliet by Sergei Prokofiev, the legendary Russian composer whose life and work was shaped by political tumult.
The production, which unfolds to a lyrical and brooding score, premiered in 1938. Millepied, who first heard it as a teenager, still finds it revelatory.
Prokofiev, who started composing as a five-year-old, was originally commissioned to make Romeo and Juliet by the Kirov Ballet. It’s one of the 20th century’s best-known scores. What do you recall about first seeing it?
I was 14 years old. I saw the English National Ballet on tour, in a theatre near Lyon. It was my experience of being drunk for the first time – not drunk with alcohol but [on] music and performance. I think it was [Sir Kenneth] MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet and it was a really powerful thing to witness when you are studying ballet and you hear that music. I was overwhelmed by it, I have to say.
It’s funny, because it’s not something that ended up being so dear to me over the years because it’s done so much. I was offered to make [a version] – I never wanted to because I felt so sick of the music. But eventually it came back to haunt me with this idea of making a film with music.
I think it is actually amazing film music. I made a short film with Margaret Qualley, which had the Shakespeare text and the dancing of the balcony scene. For a while I contemplated making a Romeo and Juliet film with the music and then started to see maybe there is a way that I could combine cinema and stage. I had done work with video and stage for a long time and the reason for that is the most dramatic moments, those that are the hardest to believe onstage, I could create on screen. And then I could combine them. Cinema happens before your eyes. It’s always live so it has a different sort of an impact. It’s about the ability to control the eye of the viewer and create something lasting.
Prokofiev’s score was completed in 1935 but it was rejected by the Bolshoi Ballet – the dancers, who were used to Tchaikovsky, really struggled with Prokofiev’s unusual rhythms and orchestration. What possibilities do you think it opens up for dancers?
I think what is most interesting about the score is the atmosphere it creates – it is a very particular kind of atmosphere. It has nothing to do with Tchaikovsky – it is a theatrical atmosphere, very much. There is a sense of danger and mystery and sometimes a really fantastic combination of sounds. There is a section that comes back three times where the horns really build this series of scales – and it builds and builds. It is really stunning. I would say that for me the atmosphere is really unique. I think it’s its emotional quality and how grand and sweeping it becomes. Film scores are inspired by it.
Your new work, the Romeo & Juliet Suite, blends ballet with cinematic conventions to create a contemporary presentation of Romeo and Juliet. It sounds like Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet helped you land on an artistic vision?
I ended up being very inspired by the music and the rhythms – that ended up coming up naturally and being really fun. The whole approach of combining video and dancing wasn’t something that I had seen. It was something that I wanted to do. I don’t really do something because I feel like it – I do something because I have a certainty that I want to make it. I just had the desire to tackle it.
It’s an interesting way to tell narrative, where you go from live performance to video and make it completely organic. The audience doesn’t realise that they are watching cinema and have been disconnected from a live performance. That was very interesting. There is something about following characters in the flesh and having the intimacy of the cinema which is very powerful as well.
The play takes on the identity of the theatre you are [performing] in – we are using the spaces upstage. The more interesting the theatre is the better, and every theatre is different. The Sydney Opera House is going to be spectacular for Romeo and Juliet. You start with the balcony stage – it begins onstage, they leave, and they might go outside for all we know [and] that becomes a moment of cinema [that is] live for the audience. It takes on a whole life of its own.
Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet almost never got made – it was postponed by the Bolshoi, caught up in Stalin’s Great Purge. He would die in the years to come. Do you think often about what it takes for you to persevere as a choreographer?
I don’t know. I’m just driven by what interests me and that it has its own evolution. The reality is that I’m still excited by what I do, that’s for sure. I go along with what interests me or what needs to be expressed. I think if you are an artist, you can’t worry too much about the response. You have to have a certain amount of success to make your own work and do it time after time after time. But the more you sort of focus on the quality, on your craft and the quality of what you are making, the better and better it is. That is all you need to worry about.
When I decided to make Romeo and Juliet, I realised that I didn’t have the authority to decide that it should be a man and a woman. I just think today there is no reason that it has to be a man and a woman. It is a story about love. With the Romeo & Juliet Suite, I really just want people to come and enjoy it and listen to the music and enjoy the experience. Everyone takes away what they want. Everyone has their own perspective and their own history. Everyone will take something away from it that is particular to themselves.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on April 27, 2024 as "Benjamin Millepied".
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