MARK MORRIS

Q: The Nutcracker story has inspired so many choreographers. What do you think it is about the story that lends it so well to dance?
A: It’s not just the story. It’s the great, thrilling music! Tchaikovsky wrote wonderful music for dancing.

Q: Did you see many productions of The Nutcracker as a child, and what was your reaction?
A: Not really. It was in my mind from when I was probably fourteen...fifteen years old to choreograph the Nutcracker. I heard the music. I remember hearing a recording, an actual record, listening to it with a friend of mine and deciding that I actually wanted to compose a dance to the entire score someday. The best Nutcracker I know is the Suite in Disney’s ‘Fantasia.’

Q: In The Hard Nut you have kept true to the original E.T.A Hoffmann story, with the scary parts left in. What drew you back to this interpretation of the story?
A: I was with a group of friends in Brussels and we were talking about doing a big project and I realized that I wanted to do one of the big Tchaikovsky ballets: ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Swan Lake,’ or the ‘Nutcracker’ and I realized that the music of the ‘Nutcracker’ was so overly familiar to me and to all my dancer friends that I wanted to go back to it and find out why it was so beautiful and moving and why it drives you crazy. If you hear it so much it gets stuck in your head and I wanted to purge myself of that. That’s why I went back to the E.T.A. Hoffman story and set out to make, from the ground up, a fresh production of this piece.

Q: Did Charles Burns’ pop art set inspire the kind of choreographic style you created for this work?
A: Believe it or not, my first notion of a collaborator, a chief collaborator, was Edward Gorey, the very great illustrator and friend of New York City Ballet. I learned that he had been to many of my performances. I love his work so much. I could have asked him, but I decided that I wanted something newer and that was more my generation. I was drawn to the beautiful and upsetting comic books and graphic novels of Charles Burns. I was familiar with ‘Big Baby’ and a lot of his other work and he seemed to be the exact person to get the period of this; someone to design the overall production.

Q: One of the highlights of the ballet is the Dance of the Snowflakes. Why do both men and women appear in tutus and at times en pointe. What was the thinking behind this scene?
A: As I understand it, flowers have different genders. There are male and female flowers. Snowflakes, I don’t believe have sexual characteristics of any kind. I wanted a stage full of people and my company is fifty percent men and fifty percent women so I use everybody. That became a socio-political thing, when in fact it’s just: Bring on the snowflakes!

Q: You often cast men in women’s roles and vice versa in The Hard Nut. Do you think that this gives the roles a different edge?
A: Not really. It’s just the best dancer for the role. Often times the understudies or the covers for some of these same “gender-bending” roles are members of the opposite sex from the dancer that has been cast.

Q: You have appeared in productions of The Hard Nut yourself. What roles have you taken?
A: I originated the role of the beautiful Arabian princess (which does not appear in the broadcast recording) and one of the party guests. I still appear in the Party Scene.

Q: The Hard Nut has been described as one of your best-loved works. Is it one of your favourites?
A: Yes.

Q: Your work appeals to dance aficionados as well as more general audiences. Is that your intention?
A: Well, outside of mainstream appeal – whatever that is – I know that my work appeals to music audiences...sometimes more than dance audiences. My only intention is to make interesting dances to gorgeous music for people to enjoy.

Q: Are there any plans for a touring production of The Hard Nut in the near future?
A: We usually perform ‘The Hard Nut’ at Cal Performances, our West Coast home in Berkeley, California, every other year. And we hope to bring it back to New York City at some point. I want everyone to see it. For all of our upcoming performances you can check out www.mmdg.org

Mark Morris’s The Hard Nut (NVC Arts 51865-0349-2) is available from www.amazon.co.uk.