International Celebration of Kenneth MacMillan

Kenneth MacMillan - The Outsider opens at the Theatre Museum on 11 October as part of the International Celebration of Kenneth MacMillan (1929-1992), marking the tenth anniversary of the choreographer’s death.

In the history of ballet there have been certain significant choreographers who have extended the boundaries of dance. MacMillan was one of the outstanding and most controversial of 20th century choreographers, whose ballets treated contemporary concerns and explored the psychological motivations of his characters, his times and the human condition. Using the most artificial of forms, he lulled his audience into a sense of security, then used ballet’s its discipline and limitations to treat both major concerns of the times and the universal experiences of love, sex, death and identity.

Kenneth MacMillan - The Outsider places MacMillan in the balletic and theatrical mainstream of his time and reflects his aim to drag ballet into an adult, 20th century world and make it a significant theatrical experience. It states his themes, including, alienation, sex and violence and how they are given concrete form through the design, music and choreography based on classical ballet technique. The contrast between subject and means of expression created its own tension which added to the intensity of his work. Using video and multiple still images, the exhibition traces MacMillan’s personal vocabulary across the widely diverse subject-matter. Finally it indicates the way that this most ephemeral of arts is preserved and recreated around the world - in which the Theatre Museum’s resources have their own part to play. The exhibition is curated by Sarah Woodcock, the Museum’s dance specialist.

Given MacMillan’s belief in ballet as theatre, the Theatre Museum is a particularly appropriate setting for an examination of his work in the context of 20th century dance and theatre. The exhibition will form part of the displays in the chronological historical galleries, allowing MacMillan to be seen as an heir both to the Diaghilev tradition, with its emphasis on the equal importance of dance, music and design in conveying the choreographer’s intentions and to Ninette de Valois’ belief in ballet as part of the wider theatrical scene.

Costume design by Kenneth Rowell for Alternative Winds in
Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Le Baiser de la fee,
for The Royal Ballet, 1960. Oil Paint.

This picture is to be part of the forthcoming Theatre Museum exhibition "Kenneth MacMillan - The Outsider"

The Theatre Museum is particularly rich in collections relating to MacMillan’s career - exhaustive coverage in programmes and reviews and powerful designs and costumes for the ballets, from Nicholas Georgiadis’ designs for Danses Concertantes in 1955 to Jock McFadyan’s for the last ballet, The Judas Tree, taking in models and designs by Barry Kay, Yolanda Sonnabend and Ian Spurling. The incomperable photographic collections include images by Denis de Marney who recorded MacMillan’s career as a performer with the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and his first ballets for that company, Anthony Crickmay, perhaps finest of 20th century dance photographers who recorded the career from 1960 not only in the theatre but in stunning studio photographs that capture the power and genius of MacMillan’s ballets through his muse, Lynn Seymour, Houston Rogers, who covered all Covent Garden performances in the late 1950s and 1960s and Graham Brandon, who currently covers new productions and revivals for the Theatre Museum archives.