Scottish Ballet head Chris Hampson on how Tennessee Williams, Pedro Almodóvar, Marlon Brando and Joan Rivers have influenced the contemporary works the acclaimed company is bringing to New Zealand.
It’s a freezing evening in the northern English city of Newcastle, where Scottish Ballet’s charming boss Christopher Hampson, CBE, has just checked into a hotel with his dancers and creative crew. They’re on the last leg of a two-month tour of The Nutcracker, an ebullient reimagining of the Peter Darrell classic, co-choreographed by Hampson and his dancers. After 74 performances, they’re in the mood to unwind.
Because dancers don’t speak on stage, it’s fascinating to hear Hampson, who’s on his mobile in the lobby, talking over a racket of shrieks and laughter coming from his team behind him. “Hopefully you can hear me,” he says. “The hotel has laid on some nice drinks and nibbles.”
Lancashire-born Hampson, who holds the dual roles of artistic director and CEO at the Glasgow-based company, is anticipating nice drinks and nibbles in New Zealand when they tour here in March. As he says later in our conversation, he loves food and, “I can eat forever.”
Rated as one of Britain’s most bold and innovative dance companies, Scottish Ballet is staging two programmes here, first in Wellington with two works, Schachmatt (Checkmate!) and Dextera, performed alongside two pieces from the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB), Limerence and Prismatic.
It then moves to the Auckland Arts Festival to present its super-charged five-star adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire, created by Colombian-Belgian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa with American dramaturg Nancy Meckler. The work was commissioned in 2012 by Scottish Ballet by its then-artistic director Ashley Page, Hampson’s predecessor.
Hampson, 51, has deep connections to this country. More than 20 years ago, he linked up with the RNZB as a guest choreographer: Saltarello in 2001, followed by Romeo and Juliet in 2003, and a witty rendering of Cinderella in 2007, which he toured with the company to China, before returning to supervise a reworked version in 2012.
Appointed to Scottish Ballet as artistic director in the same year, and CEO in 2015, Hampson has introduced a strategy of beefing up its repertoire and creating a tightknit, supportive ethos. His approach to maintaining the ballet’s core troupe of 36 is to hire dancers who are proficient in classical technique, which provides a sound foundation for taking on contemporary, riskier works.
The company, which tours steadily at home and internationally each year, has never visited New Zealand. Hampson sees this as the chance to showcase a company in its creative prime, and to catch up with old friends. “I love Aotearoa,” he says. “I have wanted to come back with Scottish Ballet for so long. Creatively, I owe a great deal to New Zealand and the RNZB. I feel like that country really nurtured me through some big milestones in my own career and I have an entire social life out there.” He laughs.
“It’s wonderful! I pick it up whenever I am there. It’s based mainly in Wellington, and I have a few friends in Auckland, too. Actually, the last time I was in New Zealand was two years ago. My partner and I – we have been together for 25 years – had a three-week holiday there so I was able to share exactly what I have found so inspiring.”
Scottish Ballet’s Wellington shows have been selected to display the dancers’ contemporary skills. Schachmatt (Checkmate!) is by Spanish choreographer Cayetano Soto, and Dextera is an ode to creativity made by the company’s choreographer-in-residence Sophie Laplane for its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2019.
Schachmatt – pronounced Shaka-mart – weaves in references to comedian Joan Rivers, American choreography legend Bob Fosse (Cabaret, All That Jazz) and Spanish film auteur Pedro Almodóvar. First staged in 2017 by BalletX in Philadelphia, it is famed for its mix of wit, speed and precision danced to retro pop.
“It’s quite esoteric, isn’t it?” says Hampson. “When you see the work, you will see the sass, the sarcasm of Joan Rivers in the movement. Scottish Ballet premiered this in the UK in 2023. I was really attracted to it because of its grounding in a Bob Fosse style. Fosse has inspired me greatly, I loved his films, his choreography, and he was a wonderful dancer.
“The reference to Almodóvar, that is a reflection of Cayetano – he has these facets in his personality that are punchy, sometimes irreverent and highly complex. It feels good to watch, and it feels great to dance.”
Hampson appointed Laplane, a former dancer with the company, as choreographer-in-residence in 2017. “I identified her talent when I joined and mentored her through the stages of her early choreographic career, and she has grown into this wonderful artist. When she created Dextera for our anniversary programme, she said she would use excerpts from Mozart – most choreographers would have a little intake of breath. Mozart is a very challenging composer to work with because his music is so complete.
“But I tell you, Sophie has been able to get under the skin of that music and it is beautiful, it is uplifting. In a work with no words, Sophie has something very deep to say.”
Speaking of words, Streetcar must deal with the challenge of translating a dialogue-heavy drama into dance, including the much-imitated “Stella!” scene, made famous by Marlon Brando playing the brutish Stanley in the 1951 movie.
Pivoting around the intense dynamics between Stanley, his wife Stella and her unstable older sister Blanche, whose gay husband Alan has died, the production carries a content warning: “Themes of suicide, addiction and domestic and sexual violence.” And the “Stella” word is spoken.
“That ‘Stella!’ moment is the only vocalisation in the ballet,” says Hampson. “I think that was a well-considered choice. This work had only just been commissioned when I joined the company, so I have seen it be created right through to now when it has become a staple work in our repertoire.”
The ballet reveals back-story threads never seen on stage in the play. “For most of the play, the characters are talking about something that has happened that we don’t see. Nancy and Annabelle have unpacked all of the offstage drama, and it explores the hinted-at relationship between Alan and the man he was seeing. That husband becomes an important figure in the entire story of the ballet.”
The score, by prolific British composer Peter Salem, will be played live by the Auckland Philharmonia. “He is so intuitive and evocative,” says Hampson. “We go from the Dixieland upper-class place of Blanche’s birth to the steam and grit of New Orleans, and he is able to do that sonically in such an efficient manner.
“What I am really keen to showcase in New Zealand is that my guiding principles for our repertoire is that it needs to be relevant to our society,” he adds.
“It needs to say something, reflect something, provoke. I’m not that interested in heritage work because we live in an ecology in the UK where there are companies that do heritage beautifully. There is a place for us to do something different – it’s not better or worse, it’s a different way of producing dance. Unless you are really engaged with your community and the wider society, you’re not really making art … what this position has afforded me is to make a difference and to seize opportunities of evolution and change. I’m very grateful.”
Hampson, who grew up in Manchester, started dance classes when he was 3. He started training at the Royal Ballet School at the age of 11, followed by a long tenure dancing as soloist with the English National Ballet before making the transition to choreography at 28.
Astoundingly, he was taught by Rudolf Nureyev when he was just 9, in a production of Don Quixote.
“I remember it very, very well. There were a few children in this production and I thought we’d work with one of the teachers, but he insisted on working with us in rehearsals.
“That was incredible and that is something I do today; whenever we have children on tour, I make sure I am part of that process because it meant so much to me.”
Yet Hampson still has time for other activities. His Instagram tag says he is an “ultramarathon runner, a knitter and owned by a greyhound”. The “very large dog” named Rudy (not named after Nureyev) sometimes travels with the company when they tour Scotland.
“I love that mix, it helps me balance myself,” he says. “I see knitting as problem-solving, you have to think things through. Sometimes enduring an ultramarathon can feel painful, so can knitting when it goes wrong.”
At this stage, a fire alarm has gone off in the hotel and Hampson has moved outside, walking resolutely towards dinner with his team. He never diets. “Do you know what? The complete opposite. That’s what’s lovely about marathon running, I can eat forever. That’s the thing about Wellington; I’ve got so many favourite haunts.
“And I’ll never forget when I first came to New Zealand and was introduced to someone for the first time, and they said, ‘You must come for dinner tomorrow night’ and they really meant it. It was such a shock. I love it!”
The RNZB with Scottish Ballet: St James Theatre, Wellington, March 14-15; A Streetcar Named Desire: Auckland Arts Festival, Aotea Centre, Auckland, March 20-23.
