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It's a fascinating time for Didy Veldman (of Rambert Dance Company), Northern Ballet Theatre and all those who like narrative ballet: we hear that Veldman's new Carmen is going to be very fresh and different though of course none of us gets to see just how different until it premieres at the Leeds Grand on 22 February.

There is a definite bringing together of a number of diverse streams here and we thought it would be nice to interview Veldman on the background to what appears an unusual collaboration.

Didy Veldman is a dancer and choreographer with Rambert - a company with an international contemporary style a long way from Northern Ballet Theatre's (NBT) dramatic tradition established under Christopher Gable (alas no longer with us). But Veldman, for sure, and Rambert with pieces like Cruel Garden, can be very theatrical and dramatic, and NBT are up for more than a few challenges too, the more so since Carmen was the last project of Gable's. For Veldman it's a first full evening's work, rather daunting but “it's going well and yes I'm enjoying myself.” She has obviously been on the course in how to answer the most predictable first question to somebody doing something new!

Veldman is often reflective in answering questions but speaks excellent English. She was born in Holland and danced with Scapino Ballet, Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve and Alias (a company she helped form) before joining Rambert 5 years ago. She is perhaps best known as a choreographer with Rambert, though before joining she had already won a number of choreographic competitions. Her first piece for Rambert was Kol Simcha (Voice of Celebration), literally a party piece to European Jewish music with lots of little stories being played out all over the stage. It enjoyed much critical acclaim and was followed by Greymatter - a take on office life in the late 20th century.

The linking thread in Veldman's choreography is a love of story: “I've always found choreography which is more abstract ... is dance that I have a hard time relating to.” For Veldman “... there needs to be a sense for the movement to exist” and she had many long conversations with Christopher Gable about the approach:

“I think that is one of the reasons that Chris actually asked me to come and join because we had so many discussions about their performances, how we can actually not have a separation between the acting and the movement but to try and tie it all together.”

The offer from Gable to choreograph Carmen was rather unexpected: “I just suddenly got a phone call actually, when we were on tour in America. It was fantastic - I was in Malibu at the time - sitting in this fantastic hotel. You know, looking out on the sea, and suddenly I got this phone-call asking me if I wanted to do Carmen. A complete dream that came true." Did she play hard to get? "Oh no, I said yes immediately! Carmen is a wonderful opportunity.”

It was also an opportunity to work with Christopher Gable and learn from him. In free time snatched between dancing commitments, they discussed and worked through the new scenario and Bizet's original score. Gable's death curtailed an

“I was really looking forward to working with him. He was going to be part of it and I felt I could learn so much from his experience.” Veldman on Christopher Gable

even fuller collaboration but the story is his and he had the foresight to engage Veldman and push for the new. Veldman (and the company indeed) naturally regret that Gable is not there as she choreographs Carmen. “It was a huge shock that he wasn't there (when I started). But in a way he still is: you know all his dancers are here... and there is such a good atmosphere that he created. I'm profiting from that now.” Gable may be dead but the Carmen we will shortly see owes much to his wider vision of dance.

So what should we look for in the new Carmen?

“Well it will be very much of now, that's for sure. We've adapted the story and it's in modern times. There is no pointe work, so that for NBT is quite a change. We have a bullfighter character which will (actually) be a rock star. We have some filming footage in there. So its an up-to-date Carmen!”

Didy Veldman rehearsing Carmen with NBT
Photographer Brian Slater

Four acts long and set in a realistic world .... but will it shock the world like Petit's 1949 version which had a central duet that left little at all to the post war imagination? “I don't think so, I think it's quite hard to shock the world now-a-days.” On the other hand Pina Bausch (who provided a few shocks to audiences at Sadler's Wells recently) is much admired by Veldman and the story itself is of course all 'smouldering and bad girl'. But we will have to wait and see just how far she takes a willing NBT from the straight and narrow.

Working in narrative ballet has more than its fair share of challenges:

“It's wonderful, (but) it's hard because it has to be clear, not just for me but it has to be clear for everybody. So sometimes you have to make concessions. You have to be quite open-minded (as well) I think and let others have their say. Work together instead of just work on your own.”

And she has worked very closely with the dancers: “Without them I can't do it”, sounds trite and obvious however it is not said idly but as a passionately held belief - collaboration is the only way. Veldman has 4 Carmen's to work with; Charlotte Broom, Larissa Wright, Fiona Wallis and Jayne Regan. Subject to the usual timetabling difficulties, she does not work just with one person or couple:

“Everybody is there and we keep swopping partners and you know we all work together; that's wonderful! Sometimes a couple comes up with a specific moment, or they improvise, and sometimes it's another couple that comes up with something. So it's very much created all together.”

“I think they are really enjoying it. Especially because we are creating together and I think they were ready for something new and different.” Veldman on creating Carmen with the NBT dancers

On a slightly less positive note, Carmen is often dancing in bare feet in this production: “It's one of those things and they are just going to have to get used to it! In the beginning their feet split and they have all sorts of problems.” Not much understanding here(!) but such is a dancer's life as Veldman herself well knows.

The bulk of the choreography is being produced in the 10 weeks' leave of absence Veldman has from Rambert. It's a period of creative endeavour such as she has never had before. But she enjoys dancing still, though it is hardly surprising that it gets harder as she gets older:

“I really want to dance the things that I really really want to dance and of course choreography, to me, becomes more and more interesting if you get opportunities like Carmen where you can actually do a full length production or you can work everyday for 6 hours on a creation. You know that's not the case with Rambert of course. With Rambert you get a couple of hours here and there. A very different working process. I've never worked this way, the way I'm working now on Carmen. It will be very hard to stop and to not want more of that.”

There is talk of other projects at some time, but nothing is fixed other than her return to Rambert. She is grateful to Christopher Bruce for his support of her choreographic endeavours and another piece for Rambert is being discussed. “But let's finish Carmen” is her cry.

Veldman working with Nicola Cross Photographer Brian Slater

So which choreographers does she admire? the initial answer is perhaps unexpected:

“I think anybody that tries to choreograph something I admire! Whether his work is good or not good. It's a difficult thing and as soon as you open yourself up and actually show something to an audience that you have choreographed, what you are basically saying is 'look, this is me!'. It's not very often in society that we are saying that. It's so easy to criticise a choreographer. For myself, when I watch pieces I think 'Oh my God, that terrible!' But still I have to admire each one of them.”

Choreographic heroes include Forsythe, Kylian, Balanchine, Bruce, Bausch and more. It's not a list brimming with narrative ballet choreographers but as she points out it is not necessarily the story-telling aspect she is looking for:

“I admire people that actually try to keep growing even though they have had a success with a specific production, that the next production that they do they will try and go on, they will try and dig deeper, they will try and go further. ... Forsythe and Kylian ... actually do that. But there are loads of people that also have the opportunity ... but they are too afraid or don't have the talent maybe or not interested. It's a very hard thing to be a choreographer like Kylian or Forsythe or Pina (Bausch) that have been there for so long and still their work is interesting after 10 - 15 years. They are developing, and an audience can be part of that. You have to be a genius to do that I think!”

With the premiere only weeks, and now days away, what Veldman wants is for Carmen is to move the audience: "I don't necessarily want them to come out of the performance thinking that was fun, I really had a good time, but not being touched by anything that happened. That's my main goal." Its the human side of it all and it reflects her own beliefs but also those of Gable and NBT - and brings us full circle to the reason she got the call in the first place.

I can't wait to see it, I say by way of closing: “Me neither” is the quick reply!