Power, corruption, intrigue, romance and above all swashbuckling come to Bradford\u2019s Alhambra when Alexandre Dumas\u2019 classic tale, The Three Musketeers, is brought to life as a ballet for the very first time.
\nDavid Nixon, who has choreographed this new production for Northern ballet Theatre, explains what drew him to the story: \u201cFirstly, the opportunity to work with different collaborators stimulates something new in our work. Also the action-orientated plot is beautifully simple and a perfect vehicle to develop new techniques with our male dancers in some truly exciting fighting scenes.\u201d
\nOne very important collaborator has been fight director Renny Krupinski who has been bringing realistic fight scenes to stage and screen for a number of years as well as continuing his award-winning career as actor, writer and director. He is probably best known to TV audiences as Brookside villain Sizzler.
\nThis is the first time Renny has worked in ballet but it\u2019s certainly something he can\u2019t wait to repeat: \u201cThis is an extraordinary experience because the dancers have a fantastic muscle memory. You show it to them once, maybe twice and they\u2019ve got it. The working process here is very different.\u201d
\nBut what exactly does a fight arranger do? For Renny there is a certain similarity with dance: \u201cI arrange fights, I choreograph violence. It\u2019s a strange job doing simulated violence around the Country. I make it safe. I make it realistic. I make it work in the context of the production so it\u2019s not just coming in and doing a punch-up. It actually has to be choreographed and I have to say I never thought there would be as much demand for someone who does what I do but I never really seem to stop working\u2026so I must be doing something right.\u201d
\nCertainly The Three Musketeers is a story that can\u2019t be told without a bit of stage fighting\u2026Renny says: \u201d I think the audinece coming to see The Three Musketeers expects there to be fighting and that\u2019s what we\u2019ve given them. The dancers really have their work cut out, but it\u2019s not a fight from start to finish\u2026there\u2019s a lot of really beautiful ballet in there. It\u2019s never been done as a ballet before, and that\u2019s very exciting.\u201d
\n\u201cI have to say David (Nixon) and I had no real idea of how this was going to work and we didn\u2019t know if he was going to choreograph and I was going to put fights in there or I was going to choreograph and he was going to put some ballet moves in\u2026but it\u2019s not worked like that at all. I work with the music, I work with the dancers and we\u2019ve created and fight that works with the characters. I asked the dancers, \u2018what do you think you can do?\u2019 and they\u2019ve given me fantastic leaps and jumps and have really brought the ballet into the fight. We presented it to David and he liked it.\u201d
\n\u201cYou find when you are working with music you haven\u2019t got enought fight so you have to put more in. You\u2019ve got the perfect ending and find you\u2019ve got to insert bits int he middle. I suppose it\u2019s like kneading dough\u2026you eventually shape it, cook it and present it.\u201d
\nFor most of us dancng and sword-fighting at the same time would be something of an impossibility. For Renny precision is the key to safety:\u201cThe swords are real swords and the reality is they can kill you. They\u2019ll go in you if you get it wrong and go through you if you poke them hard enough. That\u2019s the reality\u2026but we have to make the audience aware that the dancers are not using little bits of plastic or wood. The swords are heavy. I\u2019m teaching the dancers to fight in a way that looks real and looks dangerous but actually isn\u2019t. Everything that happens on stage has been carefully choreographed, nothing has been improvised. Every step, every nuance has been put in and made to look as though it\u2019s a fresh thought – that\u2019s the trick of it.
\nIt\u2019s the first time real fights have been used in a ballet, usually the fights are just \u2018danced\u2019. But, Renny points out, this production is different: \u201cWe have the ballerinas looking as though they\u2019re really going for each other with a knife. It\u2019s a real tussle of a fight. The dancers all seem to love learning a different discipline, But it\u2019s hard for them and they are having to learn to pace themselves and build up a stamina for it\u2026which I find surprising.\u201d
\nBut being a fight arranger doesn\u2019t seem to be such an easy job. Renny is a qualified fencing coach and a senior grade in Iwama style Aikido. His first experience of stage fighting was at drama school but after his first few roles on stage he didn\u2019t pick up a sword for ten years: \u201cI always wanted to but I was always the character who went, \u2018there\u2019s a fight going on over there\u2019 or I\u2019d run off and get the police and I\u2019d never get involved.\u201d The day came though when touring a production of Macbeth Renny offered to look after the fight scenes during the tour. After a year or two he was encouraged to join the Equity Register of Fight Directors and discovered he had to have qualifications in martial arts, first aid and have reached coaching level in fencing.
\nRenny adds: \u201cEven when I qualified I didn\u2019t think it would be a career but it changed my life. I still act, but the fight side has really taken over and I seem to work every day of the week doing a fight somewhere, which is extraordinary. I never thought there would be that kind of demand. It\u2019s a good job and I like it. It\u2019s not for everyone, but it suits me.\u201d
\nSo why does Renny spend his days making an art out of fighting? It\u2019s certainly not because he enjoys a good brawl: \u201cI have to say I\u2019ve never had a fight in my life and I don\u2019t want one. I suppose what I do is revert to my childhood and play. My imagination takes me places and I always ask my cast and the director, \u2018in an ideal world what do you really want to happen?\u2019 because people tend to think within the confines of the theatre and of what they think is possible. That\u2019s what\u2019s exciting, the creation of an image of violence rather than being violent.\u201d
\n\u201cI also believe if you\u2019ve got violence in a production you can\u2019t glorify it. Violence is ugly, it\u2019s nasty, it hurts, it causes death. It\u2019s all those awful things. You have to show it for what it is and satisfy the story. The characters can\u2019t be playing at it.<\/p>\n
Northern Ballet Theatre\u2019s The Three Musketeers has it\u2019s world premiere at the Alhambra, Bradford on Saturday 23rd September 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Power, corruption, intrigue, romance and above all swashbuckling come to Bradford\u2019s Alhambra when Alexandre Dumas\u2019 classic tale, The Three Musketeers, is brought to life as a ballet for the very first time. David Nixon, who has choreographed this new production for Northern ballet Theatre, explains what drew him to the story: \u201cFirstly, the opportunity to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"yoast_head":"\n