The final celebration in the Royal New Zealand Ballet's 60th anniversary is Tutus on Tour, which travels from from Kaitaia to Stewart Island. Charmian Smith talks to Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner who have come from the US to stage Antony Tudor's Little Improvisations, one of the ballets in the show.
British-born choreographer Antony Tudor changed John Gardner's life as well as his dancing.
The American choreographer and his wife Amanda McKerrow are in New Zealand to restage Tudor's Little Improvisations for the Royal New Zealand Ballet's ''Tutus on Tour'' mixed-bill programme that is taking shows to 47 places in heartland New Zealand, as well as the main centres.
''He had a huge impact on my life, the way I approached not just his work but everything I did. I was a lot more thoughtful and much more sensitive to everything I did in my career and also in life,'' Gardner said in a phone interview from Wellington.
McKerrow explained: ''He was incredibly inquisitive about what made you tick as a person, not just as a dancer.
''When he was working with you in his ballets he was constantly asking you questions about not just the character you were portraying, not just the step you were doing, but ultimately the questions were about you and, in a way, it forced you to think about what you were doing, not just because someone was telling you to do it, but to really give it deep thought.
''I was quite young when I started working with him and they were very formative years. He trained you to approach things differently, to question and to wonder why you were doing what you were doing.''
Antony Tudor (1908-1987) danced in Britain in the late 1920s, and by the end of the 1930s had established himself as a choreographer with a distinctive voice.
Because of travel restrictions during World War 2 he stayed in the US where he had been working and remained based there until his death.
What set him apart from other choreographers of his time was that he aimed to illustrate feelings with classical ballet steps and moves which no-one else was doing, according to Gardner.
Classical ballet told fairy tales while modern ballet used a different vocabulary of movements to tell other sorts of stories, he said.
''He went further and used ballet vocabulary to tell real stories about real people, not fairy tales. He used subject matter that was human and deep and sometimes uncomfortable to watch because he really saw the value of that.
''He wanted his art to reflect what was really going on with human beings and that's never going to change. People are people whether it's in the 1800s or 2013, the truth is still there,'' he said.
''I guess that's a word a lot of people use about Mr Tudor. His work was about truth, about getting to the truth, the truth of situations, of the human psyche, of emotions, and it set him apart for sure.''
When Gardner and McKerrow, who had both often danced in Tudor's most famous work, The leaves are falling, were asked to dance it for a ballet company, McKerrow suggested they stage it for them as well.
They were both at the point in their careers of transitioning from being dancers and decided to join the Antony Tudor Ballet Trust which aims to reconstruct his ballets and save them from disappearing.
''It seemed so natural because we'd been so close with him and of all the work we'd done - we'd worked with other great choreographers but we'd spent the most time with Mr Tudor. He had the most influence on us,'' Gardner said.
''I think the ballets are still relevant because of the subject matter and I really think we are doing something worthwhile, not just passing along the ballets in ballet companies, but we are also working in schools and universities and we are trying to find a way to workshop his works, show people the relevancy of his works, show people the similarities of what's going on now and what was going on then.''
Because Tudor worked with different dancers whenever a ballet was restaged, they evolved and changed over the years, but in reviving ballets it was important to take material from only one generation so it was cohesive, he said.
McKerrow remembers Tudor asking questions that would make you uncomfortable but he thought there was value in being uncomfortable and the dancer had to push through the barriers to come out the other side and learn about themselves as a person and as an artist.
''The simple fact of just standing there and looking at someone - you don't get to move, you just have the physical energy of yourself relating to that other person. It's a bit like, as a performer particularly, making yourself naked in front of people.
''You are showing something without getting to comment on it in any way, without a physical gesture or character to hide behind. It really is just you and the energy that you put out there in front of all these people who are watching you,'' she said.
Little Improvisations is about two children playing in an attic on a rainy day. They have a bench and a piece of cloth with which they create things.
''In a lot of [Tudor's] works we are dealing with very complex emotions. In this particular ballet where emotions are more simplistic but, in a child-like way, they can delve further into moving into a deeper place, but they are young people, so the emotions are young and fresh and the complexity comes in as they are relating to each other and what comes between them,'' McKerrow said.
Catch them
''Tutus on Tour'' is a selection of five short pieces: excerpts from Flower Festival at Genzano; Ihi FrENZy; Through to You; Little Improvisations; and Don Quixote as well as Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf choreographed by Brendan Bradshaw and Catherine Eddy.
Two groups are touring and, in the South, will perform at 7.30pm at:
• Timaru, Theatre Royal, November 27
• Oamaru Opera House, November 28
• Dunedin, Regent Theatre, November 29
• Twizel Event Centre, November 30
• Gore, St James Theatre, November 30
• Alexandra Memorial Theatre, December 1
• Invercargill, Civic Theatre, December 1
• Te Anau, Fiordland Community Events Centre, December 3
• Queenstown Memorial Centre, December 4
• Stewart Island Events Centre, Highlights from Tutus on Tour December 4
• Lake Wanaka Centre, December 5
