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Our first guest of the week is a New Zealand choreographer and dancer, Douglas Wright. Next Wednesday, the Auckland Festival will host a premiere of his latest work, Ramped and Douglas joins us Now. Welcome to tonight's Douglas. Thanks, Brian. You've got the same home town as Sir Hillary. Oh, yes, that's right. Which I only just realised. Um, did you know that? Um, no, it's a kind of thing [00:00:30] in the back of my head that I remember when you tell me it, but I think I knew at primary school Yeah, and had forgotten. I kind of imagine it would be quite important at primary school at some New Zealand hero. Yeah. Yeah. Were you already interested in dance when you were a primary school kid? Yes, I was dancing. When? Whenever I could. Yeah. And what set off dance for you? Was it music? No, I don't really [00:01:00] know I. I do have a a very early memory of, um, looking out through our front window and seeing a woman on a veranda opposite um, dancing back and forth and some sort of long white dress. It's like a dream, but I, I that sort of hovered there and my hovers in my mind like a a sort of a white butterfly there. She probably laid [00:01:30] her eggs in me at the time. Rap raps a great, I think A great title for a dance work. Can you tell us a bit about it? Well, uh, one of the reasons for calling it rapped is because of the rapture. You know, the feeling of rapture, ecstasy, um, and also because we have a half bird, half human [00:02:00] figure in the work. And he is part Raptor, which, actually means comes from the word meaning to rape. So the word has a lot of many different meanings, and the work, I think, reflects all of them but is, um, mainly concerned with the ecstasy of dance itself? Yeah. [00:02:30] I. I saw some photos for Rat, and I immediately thought of Bill Hammond, a New Zealand artist, or at least of his work. Was that in your mind as well? When you were putting it together? Well, you see, I mean, that's the immediate reference for us in New Zealand. Of course, the idea of a bird headed figure is ancient and goes back further than the Egyptians. I mean, they had the Egyptian God Horus, which is a hawk [00:03:00] headed man. And, uh, the Surrealists. Max Ernst did a whole series of collages based on bird headed gentlemen. So it's not directly from Bill Hammond. But of course, he is the most natural source of it here. Well, I guess he was tapping into the same stream. And I do love his work. [00:03:30] Yeah. What what's is it about the bird human figure? What does that represent? Well, yeah, I don't really know In it. In it, the bird headed figures. There's a scene where he comes. And I have thought of him as Zeus coming down to rape the young and beautiful gnome, which is an ancient myth [00:04:00] gnome being a young male. Um, so that happens. Um, I couldn't really say you see, dance is made or I make dance because I can't put those things necessarily into words, even though I'm also a writer. So I I make into dance what I can't put into words. So I can't really explain you to you what the bird symbolises. [00:04:30] I think it's an ancient, um, strand running through human consciousness. The music you've used for ramped there's is quite a contrast between David Long and you've you've You've worked with David Long before, from Martin, the guitarist from From the Martin Birds but also as 1/70 century composer. I hadn't heard of Heinrich Biber. Yes, um, I have a great friend, Rex Halliday, [00:05:00] who is a music, um, expert or maniac. He's wonderful with music, and he often plays me things. And when he first played me, Bieber Heinrich Bieber, I was, um, just blown away. It's solo violin with organ or, um, harpsichord, and it's pre, but some of it sounds incredibly modern. [00:05:30] It's very, very beautiful and strange. Slightly strange Does. Does music set off a dance idea, or do you often find or feel an idea in your body and then find the music to fit it? Well, it's quite strange these days, because I don't even though I was introduced as a dancer, I retired as a dancer in the year 2000 because I'm 54 now, So these days I [00:06:00] haven't quite an interesting phenomenon occurs to me where I actually see a movement sometimes while listening to the music and other times, just when I'm sitting there thinking or, you know, thinking of nothing. I'll just suddenly see someone doing something in my head. And yeah, and I also ask the dancers to improvise, and I choose M movement and [00:06:30] develop it from their improvisations. A musician has manuscript paper. Well, many do. And a poet has paper to write down words. But what does a choreographer have? Blood? Well, actually, there there is a, um, system of notation notation that you can use to copy and record dance. But we mainly use video [00:07:00] to record rehearsals and to refer to Yeah, I remember, uh, the that manuscript being used. There was a dance documentary by Margot Fontaine. I think it was back in the eighties on the tele on on TV. And she explained how how they wrote down dance moves. But does video make it a lot easier to choreograph these days? Oh, yes, I think so. Because you can capture, [00:07:30] um, improvisations and capture if it's in good light. Um, the most minute gesture, which notation? It's very difficult to notate some of the contemporary movement. I mean, ballet is far more coded. You said you retired from and I I was going to ask you when and the the latest I had was 2008. But no, no, no. I retired as a as [00:08:00] a dancer in 2000, but I actually said that I retired as a choreographer in 2007, but nobody took any notice. So I've sort of changed my mind. Yes. Well, they kept on asking for more work. No, no. I put out a press release saying that I'd retired and to all the television, radio, newspaper things and one newspaper ran a little, um, column. And nobody else was interested in the fact that I'd retired [00:08:30] after 25 years, so I thought, Well, they don't care. So I'll just do what I want. Which was to do a bit more choreography. Where did the rap was that? Was that a commission from from the festival? Yes, it is. But I really was trying to stay retired, and I had a couple of meetings with one accidental and one planned with two people who persuaded [00:09:00] me gently back into work. Yeah, but that and and the, um, commission from the festival followed that. How did they persuade you? They just told me that they wanted me to make work. I didn't think anybody wanted me to. So they told me that people did want me to. And I suppose that it again seeded something [00:09:30] in me because dance ideas were already coming to me. But I was pushing them away because I said I. I said to myself, Well, you don't do that anymore. Please go away. I don't want you to the ideas. Why did you retire and or or make write out a press release, a media release, and and say you retired in 2007 because I felt that I was exhausted and I was kind of angry that my last work didn't go beyond [00:10:00] Sydney. And I thought, Why should I expect the taxpayer to continually pay huge amounts of money for making a work that has 11 performances? Was that black milk or black milk? Yeah, and that was with working with David Long in terms of music, wasn't it? Yes. And, um really? Yeah. I always seem to, um, have [00:10:30] a combination of composers. Oh, yeah, in contrast. And that goes back to the eighties because I was you did a dance to sky, the Trinity to the victims of Hiroshima. And I was thinking, as I read that Well, I don't think there's a single sort of solid beat in that whole piece. There's scrapes and and sorts of cracks, but not a beat with a lot of discord. And then the next thing you did was Tom Jones. Oh, that [00:11:00] was years ago. I know it was years ago, but I thought this is a history that it goes back a combination of music. I'm blushing now. I'm glad you can't hear that. I think you should be proud. I was delighted to see this mixture of music direct followed by Tom Jones to see music. Yes, well, I guess I do, in a way. But that's another story. Um, so you you thought about because it didn't black milk [00:11:30] didn't get a run beyond Sydney. What? You felt that asking for money to make new work was not was not worthwhile. Well, I felt like I'd had my chance and blow on it. Really? So why let somebody else try, you know, is doubt something that you have to deal with as as an artist, as many creative artists have to deal with Yes. Well, I'm glad they changed your mind. [00:12:00] Thank you. With how much time have you spent on on realising the ideas and wrapped the images and wrapped? Well, probably two years. But in terms of studio time, only 10 weeks working with the dancers and, um, David, uh, so 10 weeks altogether working. But for two years, I've been working on the ideas. [00:12:30] And what does that mean for for a a choreographer? Does that mean you said you don't dance anymore? Does that mean everything is in your head or do you occasionally? Do you still experiment a bit in your own home? Oh, yeah. I. I made up one movement that made it into rapped, But mainly it's, um I read an enormous amount. I watch a lot of [00:13:00] films, but not so much Hollywood films. I watch a lot of Tarkovsky films that are more poetic. Uh, I look for images, I. I find things in literature that spark something inside me. And I've got a quite a good memory for those things. Although I do keep notes, Um, I probably read a book a day so and I don't read trash. [00:13:30] Isn't that Isn't that I'm, um I'm a snob. I'm a cultural snob. I don't watch television. I think it's a load of crap. Well, not even the arts channel. What? OK, we won't go there. Um, Douglas Tako, the Russian. It's a Russian filmmaker. Now he his his Well, the work I know of is, is very slow and spacious. Takes a long time to move. [00:14:00] Yeah, I, I love it. I mean, I love different films of his better, you know, more than others. But I was watching the mirror the other night, and it's incredible haunting. It's a whole direction that cinema hasn't taken, the path not taken, you know, we've it's just to me, it's magical and it's spiritual art. And that's the kind of art that I'm interested in art that moves [00:14:30] the human spirit as well. As you know. It's all very well to have violence and sex and nudity, But if it doesn't move the spirit, I'm not really interested in it. Are you still writing as well as reading a book a day? Well, I've just finished a new book of poems that should be coming out later on in the year. Are they in any way influenced by raps or the other way around? [00:15:00] Well, strangely, one of the poems starts off. A herd of cows does not need a choreographer, it's the first line, so it's sort of, um, it's not really inspired by rapped, although I am intrigued. Can you remember the next line? Because that's a great start. Left to themselves, they always fall into tableau of the most ineluctable grandeur. Michelangelo might weep. Yeah, that's [00:15:30] the next. That's a great line. Thank you. Are there plenty of talented young dancers coming through? Yeah, yeah, there's they're churning out the The schools which are getting better and better, are turning out a lot of wonderful dancers and not so many choreographers, I'm sad to say, but there's so little room for the arts [00:16:00] here in New Zealand anyway, it's, you know, I would advise any young person wanting to do that, not to really. And then if they have to, then well and good. But if they don't have to, I wouldn't do I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend it. You had to, didn't you? Yeah, it was something that was in in my blood still is. And it won't go away. Even though I've tried to send it away. [00:16:30] Yes, you have. And we didn't listen, and I'm I'm kind of glad of that. Douglas Wright is our guest on nights wrapped as his new work, it's premiering next week as part of the Auckland Festival. I, I know you, you've already mentioned you're not a big fan of of Pop TV, but I was going to ask you about the Did you see the television three series on on apprentices in terms of the Royal Ballet New Zealand Ballet last year? Oh, well, then I won't ask any further because I would have been [00:17:00] interested in that in terms of of young people coming through. It's not any easier, you think for somebody to choose to be a dancer in New Zealand now than it was when you made that choice. Um, I think it's easier in terms of finding small projects to do. There's a lot of, um, sort of underground work going on, which is very interesting, but, uh, when [00:17:30] I started out, there was limbs, which was full time, and I had a wonderful two years with limbs before I went to America, and I don't think many dancers have that opportunity here. Now, I mean, most, most fantastic dances that come out of here do go and live in Europe. Or at least Australia. [00:18:00] Yeah. And you went to New York. And how important was that in developing you as a dancer and later as a choreographer? Well, it was immensely important because I I worked for one of, well, supposedly one of the world's greatest choreographers, Paul Taylor, for 4.5 years and got to see first hand, You know, the front line of dance from Europe and around [00:18:30] America. Um, so it was of immense worth to me, uh, in terms of it being a dancer and a choreographer because I had already begun making my own work and showing it while I was in Manhattan. Yeah. Was that a frightening thing to do initially to show your work in Manhattan? Yeah, but everything is so high pitched there, the the air is like it's like breathing [00:19:00] diamonds or something. It's so, um, jewel like and sparkling with energy. Every everything sizzles. So you just find yourself wept along or dumped at the side. You You mentioned that in New Zealand and and and clarify this if I didn't hear you right, that really, it's not a not a good place to be a dancer in New Zealand, is that sorry? Is that is [00:19:30] that because we because New York is obviously a fantastic place for so many arts, But then New York is such a big city, is it just that we're a small country? Yeah, that's and and our distance from the rest of the world makes touring anywhere else almost impossible. Why did you come home? Well, initially, I came home really to have a a year's break from Paul and to see if I wanted [00:20:00] to go back. And then I became ill and was diagnosed with HIV in February. In 1990 I was given 18 months to live, so I didn't think it was worth going back to New York at that point. Also, I couldn't walk more than about 50 yards at the time, so it is remarkable now in terms of the treatment for HIV how that's changed. I mean, what was a death sentence [00:20:30] for, for for many people, I know people who were diagnosed in the mid eighties and they're just fine now and you're just fine by the sound of it. Well, I wouldn't I wouldn't I think there are people who have got a slight misconception. There are people like me who have had the virus for so long that I mean, I have about a quarter of the energy that I used to have. And I know some of that is due to growing older, but [00:21:00] it's mostly due to the virus. So I'm not. I don't feel particularly healthy. I'm very easily tired. I can only work for three hours tops a day. So it's not really as much fun as it could be. No, no, it still has an impact on your life. Oh, tremendous. Yeah. In fact, we just I think just in our news it was a It was a little bulletin story about the rate [00:21:30] of infection rising a little bit. And that's because young guys and young women seem to think that it is so easily controllable now. And it's still a life sentence to taking, you know, whatever. 5, 10 pills a day, and sometimes they don't agree with you. You know, if you hadn't have got HIV, do you think you might still be overseas. [00:22:00] Yes, I would definitely be overseas. I wouldn't have stayed here. But once you're here, what are the advantages apart from it? Perhaps being a better place to live if if you're a little bit ill, but lean closer to where you grew up. What are the other advantages? Are there advantages creatively for you? Yeah, there are Because I think that this country does turn out a kind of dancer that doesn't come from anywhere else. I think the dancers, the good [00:22:30] dancers here are enormously physical and, um, fearless. And they take up they when they move, they take up a lot of space. They know how to move through space. A lot of they don't play it safe. So I'm very, um, grateful for the whatever that is, wherever that comes from. You know, I feel as if I'm working with the best dances I could get anywhere, Really. [00:23:00] And also, I'm very attached to the land here. I you know it. It's part of me. Where is home now? Well, I live in Mount Albert and Auckland in a housing New Zealand house by the little hill. There, actually by a stream, was is it Oakley Creek? Uh, no, [00:23:30] but I think it feeds into that. Yeah, Yeah, it's just a part of West Auckland. I know. Yeah. Yeah. And the wait is not too far away. Yeah, I have a beautiful garden, and I've lived in the same place for 11 years, so I've planted many trees, even though I don't own the place. Um, I decided to make a garden in anyway, so if I get kicked out, I'll I'll be very angry. But everything is sailing along now. [00:24:00] You've directed other things as well as dance. You've had a go at opera, haven't you? Well, I've choreographed two operas for the Australian Opera. Yeah, not directed them. OK, so you haven't directed the singers themselves in terms of of singing on directed them in terms of movement. And I have also directed a play which my company did in 19 98. I think forbidden memories, which [00:24:30] was a very interesting experience directing opera singers. Now they have to think about using their bodies to produce this. This amazing sound and sometimes moving is not necessarily compatible with that. And I often watch opera and think Well, this is really rather static. And the music is just moving so much. And I often find myself wishing that the singers moved a bit more themselves. Well, often when I mean, when I've worked with the Australian [00:25:00] Opera, I had a group of dancers working with me Who provided that kind of rush of movement, the dance, the singers themselves. I just you know, it was more like take four steps this way. You know, it wasn't I mean, they weren't dancers, they were singers, But there were dance dances in between the, um a Is, was [00:25:30] it successful? Yeah, it was great. We did, um, a and a little vixen. Yes. Yes. Music moves. Oh, I love ya. It was a wonderful experience, actually. I enjoyed it immensely. Do you think this is on an outside of of of performing dance? Do you think New Zealanders are getting better at dancing? [00:26:00] What do you mean? In terms of being more comfortable dancing? I don't know if it's possible for you to answer that question, but just in observations of the way that people move and whether they dance that that image of that woman in white that you remember as a as a child. Were there many other images? Many other examples of New Zealanders dancing that inspired you then? No, no. I mean, if you think about it. If we If you see someone dancing on the [00:26:30] street by themselves, you think they're either drunk or mad? Usually if they're, say over 30 Um, whereas in a place like New York or London, well, you don't think anything. It's natural. They are mad. Probably possibly. Possibly not. But it doesn't matter. When I have been in the it [00:27:00] was Turkey, I think where I was one of the most amazing dancing men. Um, all that, uh, it was I was kept awake and I was in some some cheap motel out east. A hotel, Actually, nobody drove anywhere, um, and was woken up by this this party downstairs, and, um well, there was no point in trying to sleep, so I went down all these blokes just dancing. I'd never seen blokes move like this. Yeah, it was quite amazing. It was quite [00:27:30] beautiful. I, I but I, I think Well, I mean, the image that we perhaps tell ourselves is that we don't We're not a dancing culture in New Zealand. And it sounds to me that you would concur with that. Well, I don't really have that much interest in New Zealand culture. I just I'm interested in world culture. I don't really think in a nationalistic way. I don't feel I feel like I'm part of the world. [00:28:00] And, um, I want to be part of the world's culture. I think obsessing constantly about what New Zealanders are and aren't is, um, pointless and probably part of our problem. Have you always felt that way as an artist? Yeah. Yeah. Who were the dancers, if there were any that inspired [00:28:30] you to dance? Uh, Kilda Northcott, who is actually is still dancing with me. And she was my hero or heroine when I joined limbs. She was dancing with me then and is still going strong at 56. Sorry, Kilda revealing your age over the radio. Um, and there was [00:29:00] a couple of dancers in New York. A woman called Kate Johnson. Ruth Andrian. They're not names. People would know here, but, you know, if R does well, do you think there's more in you more? Uh, if it does Well, yes, possibly your company now Is that still going? Or did that stop, too, when you retired [00:29:30] and two? No, Well, my company was always because I didn't have the energy to make works constantly. I didn't have a full time company. It was more pack up every 18 months and tour for a while. But we really need to get on a circuit where we can make a work and tour it for a year. And then I make another work. So this company there are. Most of the people who were in black milk are in it again, but I haven't worked with [00:30:00] them since, which was in 2006. So that's four years later, and your hope is that Rapped will have a life beyond the festival then. Well, actually, I don't really hope that because I've discovered that it's best not to hope for things, because when they don't arise, you're less, um, tortured. But it would be it would be a good thing. And to that end, it's on Next, premiering [00:30:30] next Wednesday and the venue and the time, Um, it's at the Civic Theatre in Auckland, which I'm really humbled and proud to be able to present to work in that wonderful The beautiful Picture Theatre. Yeah, it's a fantastic theatre. So we go from Wednesday through to Saturday at 7. 30 I think there's a matinee. Yes, on Saturday, the [00:31:00] 19th at two o'clock as well. Douglas. Thanks very much for joining us. You're welcome, Brian.
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