The music in After the Rain^© is by Arvo Pärt. It consists of two pieces of music – one is just string orchestra and what’s called prepared piano. A prepared piano is a piano that’s had things done to it. And that can range from all sorts of things, like stuffing cabbages in it, to bits of rubber, or wood … In this case it’s reasonably easy – it’s about 20 or so very small bolts, that obviously have ridges, so you can screw something onto them. You just separate two of the strings and you screw this bolt in between. But when you play the notes with the bolts on them, it’s like a Balinese gong effect. It’s pitched, because you still get the pitch of the string, but it has this interesting ringing sensation. [Pärt] also writes other chords, which are for notes that haven’t got the bolt, so you get a really loud ordinary big piano sound out of it, and then this atmospheric gonging business in between.

This text was taken from The Piano, a podcast which examines the special role of a pianist in a ballet company, and in which Stuart Macklin talks about pretending to be an orchestra and chasing dancers with a butterfly net. Want to hear that gong sound? British Liaisons will be playing until 3 September in Melbourne.

On the 25th of September, Kawai, our official piano partner, is offering pianos used in dancer rehearsals for sale at a heavily reduced price. All pianos carry a warranty. The Australian Ballet’s Music Department will benefit from a percentage of the sales. The sale will be held from 10am to 3pm at The Australian Ballet Centre: Level 5, 2 Kavanagh Street, Southbank, Melbourne.

How long have you been performing Come, Been and Gone?
About 16 or 17 months. It’s always developing, though. That’s how Michael Clark works. There will be new bits in the Melbourne show which other people haven’t seen. The basic seed of the performance started a while ago and we’ve been building it ever since. It’s going to be quite a long show, I think

It’s interesting that Michael has allowed the work to evolve.
That’s one of the fascinating things about working with Michael. His works are never set. He’s constantly tweaking things to improve them, but also to keep everyone interested.

Is that challenging for you as a dancer?
Yeah, it can be – particularly if the instructions are given quite late. I think that’s partly to keep us on our toes, but also because he’s always striving for perfection. But, yes, it can be very challenging. You have to be able to adapt, rather than repeat the same movement.

Most of Michael’s works are closely connected to his personal story (in one of his works Michael’s mother is on stage enacting giving birth to him; Come, Been and Gone is set to music by artists he knows personally; and Heroin is inspired by his  battle with drug addiction). What is it like to channel his personal experiences?
You never get the sense that he’s exposing himself. You do as you’re told and he’s very clear about what he wants, but not in an authoritarian sort of way. It’s just a very physical process. You can be four or five steps removed from his personal idea. There are more obvious examples, like the solo of his which I’m performing called Heroin. It’s clearly a very personal story but we approach things very physically so you don’t get emotionally involved. You might let your emotional state define the movement, but we don’t bring personal emotions into the studio at all.

Can you tell me a little more about this solo?
We were working on it yesterday. Michael was saying that we can’t erase any movements that are dangerous. There are moments where you’re thinking, “If I push myself any further then I’m going fall into a heap on the floor” but then again that’s what he wants.

Both yourself and Michael have training in classical ballet, but you’ve dedicated your careers to modern dance. Has this been a conscious decision?
Ballet technique is hugely important to me. But I’m personally not all that interested in the restrictions of ‘roles’ or the hierarchy of classical ballet. In modern dance, it’s purely about the work – we’re all there for the work. It hasn’t been a personal ambition to break down the barriers of ballet, but I think there’s a little part of that in me – somewhere. It’s always noted that I’m very tall and broad and not your typical ballet dancer. But I’m still employed!

Is Michael a music-obsessed choreographer?
Oh, yes. He’s always listening to music and his taste in music is very broad. And in the studio he’s always tuning into a certain sound, and his dancers have to train themselves to listen to that particular sound. Music is always the driving force behind his works.

What is it about the music in Come, Been and Gone that makes it danceable?
You’ll recognise most of the tunes. There’s a lot of David Bowie, great beats and some fantastic rhythms. You really can’t help getting involved in the music. Then there’s Heroin which is quite a droner, but that has its own quality too.

Has David Bowie seen this show?
Well, as far as I know he doesn’t travel outside of New York because he’s afraid of flying. So, unless we take it to New York he’s not going to be there. But he does know about the show. Apparently he’s been interested in Michael’s combinations of music choice.

Come, Been and Gone plays at the Arts Centre as part of the Melbourne Festival 8 – 10 October

Image: Oxana Panchenko and Clair Thomas. Photography Jake Walters

‘What is art?’ Jan Kounen asks me, ‘What is not art?’ he continues. The French film director, all glistening eyes and mysterious smile, clearly enjoys rhetoric. I recently had the opportunity to briefly chat with Kounen during his whistle-stop tour of Australia. In his most recent film Coco & Igor, soon to be released in cinemas around the country, Kounen explores the borders of art and commerce and asks the audience to question their own thoughts of the nature of art. Set between 1913 and the early 1920s, the film depicts the alleged love affair between two of the great visionary artists of the 20th century – Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel. Both renegades of their time, Chanel and Stravinsky caused disunity among many with their revolutionary ideas about fashion and music. For Kounen, directing the film was the prospect of a journey he couldn’t miss.

In a heady portrayal of intense human connection, the audience is transported from the premiere of the Rite Of Spring in the magnificent Theatre des Champs Elysees in 1913, to the inky rooms of Coco’s country house in 1920. For Kounen, a big attraction to the director’s chair was the opportunity to recreate the tumultuous evening of the Rite of Spring premiere. The harmony of cinema, music, dance and costume created a web of art forms for Kounen to juggle, along with the challenge of re-building a Nijinsky ballet which was never formally recorded. Recreations have relied on testimony and drawings and Kounen’s own reconstruction was “like a whole monument of which you have only paintings, you can only rebuild as you imagine” he explains. The complex, rousing scene is the tour de force of the film, instilling a steady hum of tension that persists with every scene.  “The proposal (for the film) was to have a heavy sky but no storm. It asks the audience for a little effort, but I think it’s interesting to move in another territory. Instead of the volcano exploding, you see the lava bubbling underneath”, says Kounen.Kounen has created a visually sumptuous film, with scenes looking as though they’ve been plucked from a World of Interiors’ magazine photo shoot. Karl Lagerfeld and Maison Chanel collaborated with Kounen to create the elegant dresses for Anna Mouglalis, who plays Coco Chanel. A wisp of a woman, Mouglalis blazes through the screen, cigarette between scarlet lips, in a cloud of impenetrable smoke, displaying Chanel’s fierce independence and penchant for pearls. Stravinsky, played by Mads Mikkelsen, seems equally difficult to decipher, but it is in his music that he finds emotional release. When rehearsals for Rite of Spring began, Stravinsky hired a German pianist to play his score only to fire him in order to play it twice as fast, spinning the dancers to their frenzied limits. So stirring was Stravinsky’s music that Kounen believes the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring score was one of the most important evenings in the history of music. “Between Stravinsky and The Sex Pistols there was nothing very important” Kounen quips, explaining that the ardent reaction of the audience at the premiere of Rite Of Spring was much like the riotous response The Sex Pistols generated with their punk-rock act. Rite Of Spring was performed only six times in 1913 at the Theatre des Champs Elysees, but it marked the transition from the traditionalist to the contemporary. To this day, the ballet remains a playground for artistic liberty, with re-workings by Martha Graham, Angelin Preljocaj, Maurice Bejart, Stephen Page and Pina Bausch.

In many ways, the brief and fiery connection between Coco and Igor seemed destined to happen. Elbowing against the constraints of the era, neither could settle with convention in their art. From the film’s first shot of Chanel taking a pair of scissors to her corset, to scenes of Stravinsky penning music that shocked Old World composition into the past, their motivation is as black and white as the keys of a piano or the tone of one of Coco’s famous tweed jackets. Both wanted to challenge the expected in a bid to shift towards modernity. “To move in one direction is to go backwards”, said Stravinsky famously. Kounen believes the same of film – “We have a duty in cinema; to do something different to what was done before but without forgetting what was done before us. For inspiration, we have the duty to welcome it and accept the fact that we are not its master.”

When I ask Kounen why Stravinsky so callously remarks to Chanel that ‘You’re not an artist Coco, you’re a shopkeeper’, he puts it down to a bad case of matrimonial guilt; it’s Stravinsky’s excuse for discontinuing the affair. So was Chanel an artist? “I think she doesn’t care,” Kounen replies “Why react to him? Stravinsky is just using it as an excuse for the relationship. She’s not pissed off because she sees the truth. She is an artist, of course. Art is a social vision she had. The manifestation of that is to do clothes, perfume. She’s even more of an artist, exploring, and discovering possibilities in her own life.”

In the depiction of these two creative giants, it becomes clear that human nature reacts to change in foreseeable ways; we shy away from what we don’t understand or expect. Kounen says of his film, “Maybe what you’re seeing now you say boo to and destroy the career of the people, but in 100 years your children say it’s a masterpiece. Maybe it’s to say look, we don’t know what we see now. The things we love may be forgotten, the things we hate may be famous.” Lucky for Kounen, Coco & Igor won’t be quickly forgotten.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is in cinemas April 15

Want to win a fantastic Coco & Igor prize pack, courtesy of Madman Entertainment? Click here!

To celebrate the release of the film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, Madmen Entertainment is giving away a Coco & Igor prize pack to one lucky Behind Ballet reader, featuring a double pass to the film and a fabulous pack of Madman DVDs. To be in the running, email hello@behindballet.com by close of business on Thursday 15 April with the words ‘Coco & Igor’ in the subject header. We’ll announce the winner here!

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is in cinemas April 15

Those who practice this system are known as choreologists.  There are only a handful of them in the world, but The Australian Ballet has been at the forefront of documenting ballet since its inception. Our current Choreologist, Mark Kay, took time to chat about his work.

What is choreology?
Well, that’s a big question. Everyone thinks I write the ballets – which is not correct at all. Choreology is a form of notation where you write all the steps down and it’s something I picked up at The Australian Ballet School. I went through an injury spate and so I took this on. I was encouraged by the staff there because they thought I had the potential. I went to London, did a choreology course and my dancing career came to an abrupt halt early in my life. But I got this job and have been doing choreology ever since.

For the dance companies who don’t have a choreologist, how do they record dance?
Video. A lot of people think that video is the most reliable form of recording dance. I mean, it has its advantages, but it has its disadvantages as well. For example, if you focus on only a few dancers, there’ll be people dancing on the other parts of the stage and you won’t be able to see what they’re doing. The major classical ballet companies in the world have a choreologist. Then there’s The Royal Ballet and they have two or three on staff.

Are there ballets that are really difficult to record?
When the system for choreology was first devised, in the 1950s, ballet was still very classical. Contemporary ballet didn’t really exist. Contemporary in those days were ballets like Les Presages which were classically based. But these days when you have dancers performing in water, or hanging from ropes, that’s when you start to come up with new methods. There was a ballet in London where a boy danced with a chair. And we had to work out a system of how to record the chair. So, even though it’s an object, it was recorded like a person. The more contemporary the ballet is, the more detail you need to write. Notating classical ballet is easier because it’s all based around the technique of classical ballet. However, contemporary is a totally different thing.

You mentioned choreology is very mathematical. Do you have a mathematical mind yourself?
Yes, I have a very musical-mathematical mind. Choreology is a very logical system. When I was studying and working in London, there was a committee I was a part of where we sat down and talked about new symbols. We came up with new ideas, new ways of recording movement, and creating new symbols for different movement. So, yes, it requires a mathematical and logical way of thinking.

Do you feel a great sense of responsibility when notating a ballet so that when it’s restaged in the future, it’s true to its original form?
Oh, yes, most definitely. You’re recording history. For example, Petrouchka was originally notated by the Birmingham Royal Ballet but the notator couldn’t come out here and teach it but they were happy for me to take the notation and teach it. The original notator and I know each other quite well – the world of notation is a small one – and we sat down and talked through the work and his notation. Then I went off and taught the ballet and that was a really pleasing thing.

What do you love most about your job?
I suppose working in the studio and teaching ballet with the notation is the best part. The ultimate goal for me is seeing that you’ve taught every step on stage and everyone knows what they’re doing on opening night. It’s really satisfying to see all your work up there on stage.

Any advice for younger people who are thinking about choreology?
You need to have a logical mind and a good knowledge of dance. It’s a long-learning process. But once you get into it initially, you’ll want to get into it further.

Principal Flautist Libby Pring has been playing the flute for the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra (the Australian Ballet’s Sydney orchestra) for 20 years. She spoke to Jessica Thompson about how playing music for ballet keeps her on her toes.

How does playing for ballet differ from playing for opera?
With opera we can hear the singers, and so although we do rely on the conductor we also rely on our ears and listen to what the singer’s doing. With ballet we rely very much on the conductor because we can’t actually see the dancers, and we really have to play according to the tempo the dancers want or that they can cope with. You have to trust the conductor and be ready for something like a sudden change of tempo – if a dancer takes off!

So the tempo can vary depending on who’s dancing?
Yes, very much. Nicolette [Fraillon, Music Director and Chief Conductor] always warns us “this is the faster team” or “this is a slower team”. If it’s a bit slower one night then a bit faster the next you just know it’s a different set of dancers.

Do you ever get tired of playing second fiddle, so to speak, to the dancing?
No, not really. We enjoy the ballet repertoire. It’s different from the opera repertoire in that it really is its own music – we’re not accompanying a singer. It’s more similar to the symphonic repertoire in a way. 
You should play with some sense of inspiration; I think that’s very important for us and also very important for the dancers – if they hear an orchestra really enjoying what they’re doing I’m sure that helps them feel inspired.

Do you have a favourite ballet to play and/or watch?
I loved doing Firebird this year, and Petrouchka. Playing that program [Firebird and other legends] was fantastic, great for the musicians – it’s difficult music, but it really is ballet music. 
I love the Graeme Murphy ballets. The choreography he’s done with some of the old ballets, the new ideas he’s come up with; it’s very clever.

Tell us about playing Steve Reich’s Double Sextet (the music for Wayne McGregor’s Dyad 1929) for Concord.
Every piece of music has its own challenges, but the Reich is something just a little bit different with the change of time signature every single bar. It’s fun to have a challenging piece. You’ve really got to be on your toes the whole way through.

How many rehearsals do you have before opening night?
The dress rehearsal and a couple of orchestral rehearsals – so you have to be well prepared. It’s very important that everyone has their parts learnt before those rehearsals, especially for something like The Sleeping Beauty which would probably be one of the hardest things in the repertoire to play – lots and lots of notes to learn. That’s basically what I’m doing at the moment; about three hours’ practice a day. Still not as much as the dancers do, but still quite a bit!

Any funny orchestra pit antics you can divulge?
In ballet music there’s always some funny tuba part, like in the Francaix [the Scuola di ballo score], and last night Nicolette must have said something to the tuba player because he just let it rip and everyone [in the orchestra] was just rolling around laughing. Obviously it was some humorous part of the ballet – the tuba is always some sort of old man or something like that. We listen to each other and often people play some very, very funny things. If someone does something a little bit differently everyone notices – it’s like another language sometimes. You have everyone laughing and a non-musician just wouldn’t understand why.

Jessica Thomson is a performing arts writer and has written for many publications including Dance Australia.