in a repertoire company like Rambert full time, you have a
very good team of dancers that are there all the time.  At times it’s boring because you are not making a new creation or you are doing the same thing again and again.  So instead of getting bored, I would say “Come on, let’s keep going, let’s do something and make a dance.”  Whenever I felt a little bit down or a little bit bored, instead of letting it get to me and become a dance complainer, I’d say, “Let’s just do a dance.”  It all happened slowly.

Tell us about working with Kylie Minogue and her creative team.
I was working with Rambert on a work that I made in 2002. It was all going well and it was at the end of Rambert’s season. By that point I wanted to start pushing the choreographic thing. I was home making myself copies of the DVD because I wanted to send it everywhere.  I got this email and it said “subject: Kylie”. Then I opened the email and it said, “My name is William Baker. I would like you to make a work with Kylie for the Brit Awards and for the World Tour. I thought it was a joke. I didn’t understand it; I just didn’t know why. So I asked my best friend if they had sent it as a joke. They said “no”.  I remember when I came here with Rambert and I bought a CD of Kylie as a souvenir.  She was such an Australian icon.  I was looking for it at home to listen to it and thinking I could make a dance to this. So I just replied.  Suddenly that week, I was meeting Kylie, William and everyone.  I thought it must be like a TV program with hidden camera and my family was going to come out, as a joke. But no, this was for real.  I met them and I said to them, “Look, I have never really done Pop.”  They said, “No, no. We don’t want you to do Pop. We want you to do what you do. We are looking for something different.  We want to move away from the traditional synchronized Pop songs and Pop culture and would like to do something more futuristic, something more contemporary.”  I wanted to know if could I use my dancers and they said I could do what I wanted. Then they said  that they wanted me to do the World Tour. I said, “Now listen, let’s do the one thing first. Then if you like it and are happy we can talk about the World Tour.”  Because for me, it was something I didn’t even expect or think of doing. So I did the Brit Awards and we had 21 dancers and it was a hit in England.  Everyone was talking about it and wondering who the choreographer was. I didn’t come from the commercial world, I came from the dance world. No one could work out what was going on and immediately Kylie was really happy.  It was like a new energy. It was a new way of seeing things. Then there was the Fever Tour. They let me have my own dancers and gave me a lot of freedom. 

I just enjoyed it.  I actually really enjoyed working with them and the challenge. It is amazing to be in a stadium with 20,000 people watching you dance.  The feeling! So the relationship grew.  It’s been on and off.  Sometimes she doesn’t just work with me, she works with other choreographers.  Then sometimes she’ll be with me and then I don’t see them for a year and they call me and say “we want to do this.”  And then I go back.  It’s been a very, very nice affair.

How do you find exploring dance in the different arenas, like contemporary dance verses commercial mainstream dance, and dance on film?
They are three very different things.  For me the contemporary dance world in a way is more freeing.  When I did 360 Degrees, I could do whatever I wanted.  No one said you have to use this music. You have to do this, you have to do that. No, it’s total freedom.  If I wanted to have them lying on the floor for twenty minutes, I could.  There would have to be a reason for me.  I believe in having a reason at least for myself, not just anything for the sake of it.  It is a world that I create from scratch. It is a world that allows me to explore new ways of communicating, new ways of pushing dance and stretching dance, using new flavours of music, lights and technology. It’s infinite, it’s never ending. It’s where I really explore the most.

So you enjoy choreographing with complete freedom?
I also love it when I am being directed.  Like when I am working with Kylie, it’s not about the dance only; it’s not about the movement only. It’s about her. It’s about entertaining and creating a spectacle to enjoy. It’s really about the song and the section.   They come to me and say “this section is about China, or this section is about sailors.” The way I see it is that I have to use my skills as a choreographer to make her and her show amazing. It’s very focused on entertaining the audience and very focused on Kylie.  When I am working with her, it is about her singing. She likes to sing and like many Pop singers she really truly sings from the beginning to the end.  You can’t have her jumping up and down and going crazy unless she is miming. She doesn’t like to do that. So I have to respect that she is a singer.  That is what she loves doing. That’s why people go there to see her. I can’t expect her to be standing on her head. What she’s going to do is keep the best voice and sing to her audience.  That’s a very different approach to contemporary dance.  I love what I have learned in contemporary dance because that is where I explore things and then use them in my other jobs.  I haven’t done a lot of dance on film, but I have done a little. I would like to do more, but right now I am so focused on the live performing arts which is another entirely different role, entirely different art form in itself.  I think the more and more I see dance films the more I think my dance has too much dance.  It’s about seeing things through the lense, through the camera and the editing.  It is something I would like to do more when I have time. At the moment I am just trying to get better at this stage business.

How did your dance company Bonachela Dance Company begin?
I left Rambert about four years ago. I had a call from Barcelona, which is where I am from. The main theatre contacted me and said that they had heard of my work and that they would like me to come over with my company.  I said that I didn’t have a company and I didn’t want one, because I just left Rambert which is like being in the military service for 18 years.  It is a very regimentally structured and I wanted just to be freelance and have a few years with no bigger responsibilities. Then they said “how about if we coproduce you?” I asked them what they meant and they said, “We’ll give you money.” So I  said, “Ok, then give me a couple of weeks, and I’ll think about it.” In London because everyone knew I was going , the director of the South Bank Centre, which is where I am now Artist in Residence,  asked me what I was going to do in life after Rambert. I said that I didn’t know, I just wanted to relax, but actually I got a phone call from Barcelona and they would like to coproduce my work. Then Julia, who is the director, said to me, “I will do it too.” So I had two doors that opened in front of me that actually would  be able to support me and help me to have a project and do a piece.  Then I thought I couldn’t not do it. I had to take that offer because it is so difficult to get support in the arts and support in the dance world. 

What I thought at the time was that I was going to do a project.  I was going to get some dances together and some performances. But even before the project was ended, I already had a company.  Everything came together. It was very hard work, I can tell you now!  I can say thank you to a lot of people because I couldn’t have done it by myself.  A lot of people in many ways, not just dancers. People helped me to find money and apply for money.

With the last project we had in June we actually opened the Venice Biennale in Italy. That is a very prestigious thing to be doing.  I am working on a project to project base instead of full time.  In a way, at the moment, I wouldn’t want it any other way, because it gives me the freedom to plan and change my mind. I don’t have to be like a factory.

What’s next for you once you leave Australia?
Well I am going back to London, but think I’m not going to last more than 24 hours there, I heard the weather is not very nice.  I think I will visit my family, I don’t have to work because everything has stopped in Europe. So I am going to fly to Barcelona. I am actually working on a feature film there, with a Spanish Director who has a dance scene in his movie.  I have never worked on a feature film. This will be my first experience.  I am also doing some development for my next project for next year.

Who along the way has inspired and taught you the most?
Choreographers that have inspired me are Merce Cunningham, Balanchine, Forsythe, and Siobhan as well as Davies, to mention a female choreographer. She’s amazing actually .

Who has been a mentor to you?
Actually, I haven’t really had a mentor. It’s true. I have just done it myself.  Even at Rambert when I was there and I was making my work, they very much left me up to my own thing. I have made my mistakes and made my non-mistakes and that has taught me too.

As you keep progressing and producing new work, where do you continue to draw your inspiration from?
Unfortunately you can’t shop for inspiration.  For me, I don’t need to watch a movie. I don’t need to read a book. I don’t need to do anything special to make me want to make a dance. For me, to be in a studio with dancers, that’s already inspirational.  Where do we go from there? Then I use a poem that inspires me that I want to base something on or I will use a photograph or a piece of music, or a composer that I really admire or want to work with. Then all of that becomes part of the picture and enriches the whole experience and the creativity.  But for me, I don’t need to have that. Like you saw, I make dance different.  With 360 Degrees, I walked into the studio on day one and had no clue what I was going to do.  I cannot lie, that is true.  I had music, lots of music, and I had lots of movement ideas. I then just got on with it.  I started dancing. I got them to dance with me and the whole process took me to the next day and I made 360 Degrees. But I didn’t come here with an essay written and a plan. This is not the way I work. That’s why good dancers are great inspiration to me, from there you can go anywhere.  

Click here to read a review of Rafael Bonachela's 360 Degrees.

Check out Sydney Dance Company in Sid’s Waltzing Masquerade by Aszure Barton
Sydney
Dates: October 8th-25th
Venue: CarriageWorks
Brisbane
Dates:  November 5th-15th
Venue: QPAC
Contact: www.sydneydancecompany.com