© Dance & Dancers Many thanks to Dance & Dancers for permission to reproduce the article. Also to Jane Simpson for transcribing and bringing it all together. recent RB reviews Jane Simpson reviews

In January 1963 Dance & Dancers published an interview with television producer Margaret Dale, who at the time was making a series of ballet programmes which have become classics of the genre. The same issue of the magazine includes in its list of highlights of the previous year a special 'TV Honour of the Year': " to Margaret Dale for her general work with the Royal Ballet, but in particular for showing with her production of Petrushka that is is possible for a work to be more effective on the screen than in the theatre" . Several of her films are being shown at the BFI in June and we are pleased to be able to republish this interview, which gives an insight into Dale's working methods and also provides some fascinating 'then and now' comparisons.

Many thanks to Dance & Dancers for permission to reproduce the article.

What made you interested in TV ballet? When you left the Royal Ballet, what made you become a TV presenter?

Well, I think it was mainly because there is no way a dancer can go on, and I could not bear the thought of becoming a has-been dancer and I thought I must get out while I could still dance fairly well. That all started in my mind long before I thought about TV. The next stage was starting to satisfy the various creative urges and aattempting choreography. The incident that started all that off was when Naomi Capon asked me to revive The Three Bears. I had been in it as a child. I thought it was something I could do. What I couldn't remember I could make up. That led me to about five little ballets on TV - Happy Families and others - all for children's TV.

You were producing at that time?

No, I was just doing choreography. This was was while I was still at the Garden. One day it occurred to me that what Naomi was doing was quite interesting, and I felt that I could do it too. Doing choreography for TV eventually led to me doing The Great Detective, which made me realise how little I knew about choreography and gave me a conviction, that has remained, how little training there is for choreographers - they are just thrown in at the deep end, and if they can't swim they drown. After The Great Detective I was very miserable, because I knew it was bad and I decided that my creative talents were limited. Maybe I had a little but not enough for choreography. So I just went on dancing, and then I began to realise what a bossy nature I had. I always knew how everyone should play their roles. Gradually I became so much more interested in other people's work than in my own that I thought maybe I could produce people, and this all simmered in the mind for a long time. Then I realised I must leave soon and I went to the BBC for six months' training and never went back to ballet.

What sort of things did you learn? Studio work, lighting?

No, not entirely. For the most part we learnt how the BBC runs (and this was very important, becuase you would be lost in such a large organisation as this unless you knew how it worked), but very little on the creative side.

What about production?

They told you about cameras, lenses and their characteristics and so on. To the people who already work in TV it tends to confirm things they already know. For me, coming from outside, it was absolutely bewildering. I think it's probably different now, but then there was not a great deal on the technical side or how to manage it. Six weeks of lectures and after that a practical exercise.

Do they judge whether they want you from these courses?

No, I don't think so. If you are very good they remember you. Very few outside people take part in the courses. I do not know why they gave me a job. While I was on the course I happened to be doing a ballet for them but that was a coincidence.

What was the first thing you did as a BBC producer?

The very first ballet performed was Kenneth MacMillan's Turned Out Proud.

You had experience with producing on the stage. What are the differences?

The biggest single difference is the amount of preliminary preparation that has to go into a TV production.

How long ahead do you have to plan?

It depends. It's like Parkinson's Law. However much time you have it takes up that time. Sometimes there are three productions within a few weeks of each other. Usually it starts in one's head about a year before, often six months. The planning side is much more detailed than it is in the theatre. I'm talking of course about reproductions of existing works - not new ballets.

When you are thinking of a stage production you think of it as framed in an arch. Do you think of TV in the round?

You think of it in terms of pictures making up the whole. The first approach is the whole. I try to analyse what the ballet is really about. To try to find one unifying idea to which everything can be geared. In the theatre they do not do this, they think almost entirely in terms of the steps. I think reproducing in the theatre is usually approached in the spirit of first of all remembering, putting the thing together, and then perhaps making this scene a bit different, cutting a few bars there, but very seldom is the thing thought about as a whole beforehand. The way I get round it is by making this little analysis.

For instance what did you make of Ashton's Les Rendezvous, or rather, how did you sum that up?

Well, I cannot do it in one word or idea. It came in little phrases which I wrote on the back of envelopes. I remember a little of what I wrote down at the time - 'Meetings, comings and goings, pairing off, all idealised, adolescent, in some heavenly lemon-meringue pie up in the sky'.

For Petrushka I went back to what Benois, Fokine and Stravinsky wrote. I like research. The thing that gave me the clue to the fair - I used to go to the Garden and my mind got paralysed until I realised that I must stop looking so hard, because Fokine must have meant the eye to travel in a certain way. I had to relax and let my eye be taken where he wanted it to go. I did this, I gave up writing notes and relaxed completely and let my eye go where it was led. This helped enormously. Then, Fokine wrote that the crowd was made up of individuals, each bent on their own pursuits. I thought I must not shoot it as a mass. The camera must behave like another person in the crowd. The score is so clear that it just fell into shape. Follow the music. Fokine did, I will. I will treat the characters individually and where there are two things going on at once, I will adjust the scene slightly so that both can be seen. The street girls were a problem and we managed it by starting on one, moving very smoothly with the crowd to the second stret girl and then we just adapted their positions so we had the two in the shot at the same time. You can always find a way if you have decided what it is you must see, and the really difficult thing about studying a ballet is that you can't study. I have a fairly good memeory but nobody can remember every incident in detail.

Have you a personal system that you work on for photgraphing the dance?

Not cut and dried rules. Everthing has to be shot according to its own particular needs. I don't shoot any two moments in exactly the same way. I have a preference for a low-angle shot and a clear relationship of floor and background. If the camera is too high you can get a an ugly composition of floor and background. Low angle is best for elevation.

Most TV dramas are based on original scripts. Should not TV ballets be created for the medium?

Yes, new ballets are badly needed for the screen. It is extremely difficult to interest new choreographers in the medium for its own sake. They think of it as a sideline, and when they hear the problems involved they almost always get frightened because it is a new kind of choreography.

Would you say that the difference is as great ideally as between TV drama and stage drama?

Oh yes, there is quite a good comparison there. A TV writer writes in pictures rather than words and a choreographer has got to think in pictures rather than in steps.

How would you define good choregraphy for TV? Is there certain choreography that is good for TV?

Good choreography is good choreography. But as I said before, a meaningful image will have more impact than an intricate arrangement of steps.

One great difficulty I have is in persuading choreographers to present their ideas clearly on paper. One must have something to serve as a basis for discussion, to take to the Controller of Programmes. After all, he's going to pay for it - he wants to know what the choreographer's intention is. I sympathise with the choreographer - I have the same difficulty myself.

Would you say that a ballet by someone like Tudor or Darrell was more suitable than one say by Balanchine?

We have discovered that audiences prefer dramatic works to plotless ballets, but a plotless ballet, provided it is well done, will be just a satisfying. I do not think there is any sort of ballet that is more suitable than another. The medium can cope with anything if is well done.

You are governed by audience appeal to a certain extent?

To a certain extent; the BBC are not afraid of taking risks, but not all the time.

How expensive is TV ballet?

Very. The first thing you have to realise is that ballet created for TV takes a lot of rehearsal time. A choreographer is not like a writer who works at home. For instance dancers cost a minimum of 2 guineas per day per person, and the total costs depend on the number in the cast, size of orchestra, etc, etc. If you have a production that exists, rehearsal time is shorter, and also one is buying something which the BBC knows has a reputation. Petrushka, for instance. They knew what they were buying. With a choreographer and six dancers you might get something and you might not.

Would it be possible to have a permanent company comparable to the BBC Symphony Orchestra with two or three choreographers attached that could be a creative unit?

I don't think so. This is a familiar pipe-dream. A permanent company is not an economic possibility. Besides, there is no real difficulty in finding good dancers or persuading the Corporation to put on good work. The difficulty is getting the choreographers thinking about the medium. The breakthrough will come when they are really interested, which they are not now. Usually they don't watch TV and don't even like it. Until this attitude changes it's difficult to make progress.

What sort of effect do you think TV has on ballet generally?

I don't think television has had any effect on ballet yet. For one thing television is still presnting works which were conceived for the stage. But obviously the situation could change should television succeed in persuading choreographers to create work for the screen.

Will colour TV eventaully play a large part?

Yes, undoubtedly. At the moment we are working with one dimension missing; so often you hear people say, 'It is nothing like the real thing because it is not in colour'.

What is the average size of audience?

About 4 million. It varies a great deal - anything from 2 million to 12 million. I believe the Bolshoi had 12 million. Four million viewers is a smallish television audience, but think of the number of opera houses it would fill.

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