A Choreographer's Approach to Opera. (November 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Collins, Aletta
• Is Part Of: Dance research. Volume 33:Number 2(2015)
• Page Start: 269
• Page End: 272
• Publication Date: 2015-11
• Subjects: Dance -- Research -- Periodicals; Dance -- Periodicals; 792.8
• DOI: 10.3366/drs.2015.0141
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0264-2875

Abstract

Abstract : My first professional commission as a choreographer was not for a dance company but for an opera company, for the Bregenz Festival in Austria. In 1988, while I was still a student at London Contemporary Dance School, I was approached to choreograph Camille Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila; the commission also included giving 'movement' to the chorus (a group of 120 singers) and directing the dancers when they were not dancing. The dancers were a classical company from Sofia, Bulgaria, a company of thirty none of whom spoke English.