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Christopher Hampson,
RNZB, Tonga & Generators | |||||||
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Here is a link to the previous column in the series.
I left London the day after my latest work, Trapéze, had its first outing at the Sadlers Wells Theatre. Both the event and the ballet seem far away, and they are from here in Wellington, New Zealand. I’m onto another Prokofiev work now, a new production of Romeo and Juliet for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, which will receive its première on 6th June here in Wellington. A big occasion, not only for me, but also for the company as they also are celebrating their 50th Anniversary. I have been given seven weeks to create the work and it’s been a process that has been bubbling along underneath the creations of both Nutcracker and Trapéze. If you’ve been keeping an eye on Mr. Marriott’s site you may have come across the designs by the very classy Tracy Grant. I flew to New Zealand via Kuala Lumpur, then and I think still, a SARS free zone. On arrival at Auckland my welcoming committee was Tracy and Gary Harris (AD of RNZB, Designer of stuff for me and others and a dab hand with a cork screw). In the car, and straight to the company stores to look at the set coming together. I’ve worked closely with Tracy over the past year and a half on formulating the look for this production. There was no surprise on seeing the structure of the set apart from the size of it. Big! After an hour or so Gary and I were back at the airport to fly to Wellington, which has now been my home for six weeks.
 One of Juliet's costumes for the new RNZB Romeo and Juliet The designer is Tracy Grant
The trouble with April (the month, not a dancer) is that it is scattered with Public Holidays. An annoyance if you’ve traveled this far to create something that’s been bursting to get out for over a year. I worked for four days and then discovered that there were four days off, two on and then another three off. I’m not very good at doing nothing and I’ve been to Wellington before, and four hours is enough to walk around it, so I went to Tonga. Now, there’s doing nothing and there’s doing nothing with the sun switched on, white sand, palm trees etc…I managed to do nothing quite well in the end (and the first day I didn’t have a choice, even though I’d managed to get there my luggage was having
Refreshed from that excursion I calmly started back on Romeo and Juliet. The best way to explain the Royal New Zealand Ballet is like this www.nzballet.org.nz. Tracy has joined me in Wellington and works on the costumes throughout the day and then puts up with me changing my mind about things over a bottle at night. Aside from the studio work there are musical cuts to be made in the score and props to be ordered. The props have proved an interesting departure, learning about flick knives, num-chuks and other methods of inflicting harm on rival families. We start the fight scenes next week and fortunately my previous fight with a trapeze has hardened me to all manner of bruises.
People often say that New Zealand is like Britain 60 years ago. Leaving your front door open, knowing everybody that lives in your street, hoping the blackouts end soon. The blackout bit is true actually, there is a massive power shortage and that is what is being threatened. The government wants the Kiwis to save 10% of electricity across New Zealand including businesses; I have been assured that Tracy has designed a generator for our production of Romeo and Juliet.
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