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Adam Cooper
Dancer and Choreographer by Jennifer Delaney | ||||||||||
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The fuss shows up in a Covent Garden café to discuss his latest incarnation as a choreographer. It may be miraculous he's still standing - 'Just Scratchin' the Surface' opened on a Thursday night in Glasgow, while a new ballet for Images of Dance opened the following Tuesday. This is the second ballet he's done with Images of Dance - he's known artistic director Margaret Barbieri for years and was invited to choreograph a piece for it last year. Then Scottish Ballet offered him the chance to create a piece for their 'Cool Classics' season. "The dates were so close that I wasn't sure I could manage it."
He was still working on 'Cinderella' when offered the job by Scottish Ballet and Lez Brotherston appointed himself as designer. "He said 'Right, I'm going to design it'. For one of the most sought-after designers in Britain to say 'I'm going to design it, like it or not' was fine." 'Just Scratchin' the Surface' is primarily character-based. "Your first impression is always the most vivid. "With each of the characters I had to build up a history, just so they're believable for [the dancers]. If you go into a studio and say, 'These are the steps, by the way, you're an old tart' the way that they interpret these steps, you won't know who anyone is. The first half hour was just talking about the characters, just to make it believable really. "I had a definite idea of what I wanted to do, although I really wanted to do it, I did have second thoughts just because of the time factor." Although he'd been asked to do 'Cool Classics' before 'Tales of Hoffman', the order was reversed. The phone call to guest with Scottish Ballet came at an opportune moment. "They approached me the day after we found out that 'Cinderella' was closing in three weeks' time. It was brilliant timing. Kenny phoned me up and said 'What are you doing? We're doing 'Tales of Hoffman', would you like to come and do it?'. I didn't know a lot about it, but after he asked me I spoke to a couple of people who'd seen it before. It's a great role for a guy. It's nice to be able to work with different companies."
"It was hard getting my body around it again. It was after the first week of performances that I started to get back to where I was before. It was a struggle, just the discipline of it all and the extra pressures you have when you're doing classical. People expect so much more technically, but I'd become used to treating the dance and drama equally. "In Hoffman there's a lot of drama in it and those bits were fine, but there's a pure classical act and that was a nightmare. I used to come off stage swearing." It helped when he began choreographing 'Just Scratchin' the Surface' that he knew the company. "While we were rehearsing Hoffman I was nabbing people in the afternoons to do the odd bit and when we were on tour we were rehearsing all the time, so it worked out well." Scottish Ballet was his first experience of working as a guest artist, since AMP doesn't have a permanent company. Becoming a freelance dancer was "fantastic". "It was wonderful. It suddenly felt like I was free. I had a choice for once which was wonderful. I had a chance to do a project that I wanted to do.
Matthew Bourne gave him his break on 'Swan Lake'. Already an principal at the Royal Ballet, Bourne introduced Cooper to an entire new concept of working. "The big thing was the amount of input I was given - I'd never been given that much to do before. Even with people like MacMillan who would suggest things, and you'd do them, but you'd do them so they felt right for you and he'd be fine with that. It's not the same as having to come up with your own steps and discuss with Matthew how you feel your character should progress. "It's a lot of freedom for a dancer. It feels more like you've been in on the creation from the beginning - especially Cinderella because I was at the very first meetings where we were coming up with concepts. "When you're in a ballet company there are so many things going on - you can be in a new ballet but at the same time you're rehearsing five other ballets. You can never put your entire energy into one project. That was what was hard about doing the choreography." He managed to juggle his commitments with the Royal Ballet and AMP during the UK runs of the shows, but when AMP went to Los Angeles, he was forced to make a decision and left the Royal Ballet. "It was hard. I could easily have stayed there for the next ten years. I have a lot of good friends there. But at that stage I just knew that this was what I had to do." For years he'd wanted to become independent. "[When] I'd been in the Royal about two years, I was already working out how I could become a freelance. I never felt like I fitted in really, coming in as an outsider - I never thought of myself as a ballet dancer, certainly not a Royal Ballet School ballet dancer. "I was always looking for a way out, I was always yearning for a way out. I thought I was never going to get that opportunity - ballet dancers don't often get that opportunity. But then Matthew did 'Swan Lake' and I thought 'If I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it'. So I did it." His unhappiness with the Royal Ballet was much more than lack of time off to work with AMP. "I was always doing things for the wrong reasons." He was promoted to principal because someone was injured, and most of his leading roles were because of injury. He reckons that the only time he was cast to dance the lead in the Royal's 'Swan Lake' was when he was off with injury. The success of AMP took him aback. "It was strange. The reason is because, going into 'Swan Lake', it didn't feel like it was going to be big. It was this tiny show that we were doing and it was a big risk. We had no idea of how it was going to go. I half thought it would ruin me and half thought it would make me. I didn't have any expectations beforehand, so when it all happened it was a big surprise. And a nice surprise as well. "When you're part of a big company like the Royal, you don't get all that much publicity", while the recognition of what dancers do is "great. It's about time dancers got a bit more recognition. I think what we do is valid." And as for his new image as a sex symbol? He just laughs slightly and says "so people say". Before his stint with AMP, he was probably best known as Sylvie Guillem's regular partner in modern works. Although he describes working with Guillem as "excellent", his first time was the "most nerve-wracking" moment he's had in his career - far more so than starting in the company. "I walked into the studio and I just wanted to walk straight out again. I'd seen her as this star, and suddenly being in this studio having to handle this amazing body, it was . . . awful. I just felt like everything I did was wrong. It took a long long time before I felt comfortable.
While her partner was more interested in getting home, Guillem was still in full working mode. "She'd be going 'no, no, come here, do the pirouette', because that's when she'd remember. By the next day she might have forgotten something." The partnership took off "we started doing Forsythe together. After that we did 'Symphony in C', and I was one of her clients in 'Manon'." 'Herman Schmerman' was the high point. "She was feeling more relaxed in the company, she was feeling more relaxed with me, and we just got really well. We just had a laugh - it was still hard work, but I think she had accepted me. The performances were just so funny." His future plans are vague. He wants to try everything. "Dancing definitely. I just want to build on what I've got so far. I think it's what I do best. Choreography I've just started again. I want to do some acting - get that off the ground." He has an agent in Los Angeles - acquired during AMP's run - but won't do a dance film or play a dancer. There are tentative plans for a film version of 'Swan Lake' and a possible return to Scottish Ballet. In the immediate future, he joins AMP on Broadway for 'Swan Lake' but only until Christmas. Despite his dissatisfaction with many aspects of the company at the time, would he return to the Royal Ballet as a guest? "I'd love to, if they asked, but they'll never ask. They'd probably only take me back as a full-time member, I don't think they'd accept me as a guest. But I'd love to go back, I'm just waiting to be asked," he concludes hopefully.
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