Directing dance and randomness

So last weekend we ventured into the unknown and not a little terrifying territory of contemporary dance with our latest piece 12 Dancing Princesses (an extract from the Jeanette Winterson novel Sexing the Cherry that I've been adapting for the last four years). Adapting Shakespeare/mounting a new play about Zimbabwe in just over 9 weeks we can do, surprisingly easily it turns out, but directing dance...well.

Theatre/Baby Metaphors

So I often think that creating a show is in some ways like creating a baby - with the writer being the father who after the initial effort has to some extent sit back and let the director-mother get on with it (which is perhaps pretty telling of how I like to work with writers).