Romeo, Romeo : Bourne’s new gay ballet
Award-winning British choreographer Matthew Bourne announced plans for a gay ballet adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, titled Romeo, Romeo.
Renown director of the highly successful all-male Swan Lake and Play Without Words, Bourne spoke The Times about the much-anticipated venture, adapting Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet of Rome and Juliet.
Like Swan Lake, which has toured for more than a decade and recently showcased at London’s Sadlers Wells, the new work will feature a primarily male cast.
In the recent interview, Bourne explains challenges to the traditional male-female partner dancing.
“Its more to do with dancing than with sexuality. A male dancer, whether he’s gay or straight, fits into a relationship with a female partner very happily,” he said.
“Getting away from that, making a convincing love duet, a romantic, sexual duet, for two men that is comfortable to do and comfortable to watch — I don’t know if you can. I’ve never seen it done.”
Bourne said that although Swan Lake was homoerotic in nature, it wasn’t truly gay as the male dancers played animals as opposed to people.
“I have a way of approaching it so as to make it – I hate to say ‘acceptable’, it’s a terrible thing to say – but so that people don’t run screaming from the theatre,” he continued.
“I let them find their own way with it, take it as far as they want in their own heads.