April 2016 saw the legendary choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne announce a new adaptation of the iconic Powell and Pressburger film, The Red Shoes. His company will present the production at Sadler’s Wells this Christmas, as a world premiere. The show will reunite the award-winning creative team behind the New Adventures’ world-wide hit, Sleeping Beauty, made up of Lez Brotherston (set and costume), Paule Constable (lighting) and Paul Groothuis (sound).
Bourne’s choreography will be set to a new score arranged by Terry Davies using the mesmerising music of golden-age Hollywood composer, Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann is most famous for his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and Martin Scorsese, this time played live by the New Adventures Orchestra for the talented cast. Through the soundtrack and talent of Bourne’s dancers, The Red Shoes will present its drama where life imitates art with fateful consequences.
The fairytale story – where fairytales are common amongst Bourne’s work – will be set in the theatrical world of a touring dance (ballet) company, about dance and dancers. For Bourne, the film’s genius is to make that theatrical world surreal, larger than life and highly cinematic, and he aims to capture that surreal quality within a more natural theatre setting. The show is based on the Academy Award-winning movie which seduced audiences and inspired generations of dancers with its tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world.
New Adventures recently auditioned 300 talented dancers, whittled down from the 1,100 applications the company received, vying for a place with Bourne’s company. In light of this, the lucky dancers who are successful will find themselves swept along with this dancing fairytale too.