Jonathan Burrows

“When I think about the work I’m involved in, it seems that each piece comes from a different perspective, but somehow arrives at the same questions. Why to dance? What is a performance? What else can it be? Should I know what I’m doing? What do I do when I don’t know what I’m doing? Can a dance also show weakness? What is the love between dance and music? Am I asking questions that have already been asked? Can I accept the contradictions? Can I simplify all this?”

Jonathan Burrows was born in County Durham, England, in 1960. After studying at The Royal Ballet School for eight years from the ages of eleven to nineteen, he was accepted into the Royal Ballet on an ‘Apprentice Choreographer’ contract. During the thirteen years he spent as a ballet dancer he made a number of early pieces of choreography for the Royal Ballet Chorographic Group, the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, Extemporary Dance Company, Spiral Dance Company, Riverside Studios, Dance Umbrella and The Place Theatre, while also playing an increasingly active role as a dancer, rising to the rank of soloist. In 1986, while still a ballet dancer, he met and began to perform with the experimental choreographer Rosemary Butcher, with whom he continued to work on and off until 1999.

In 1988 he presented his first full length evening Hymns at The Place Theatre, followed by Dull Morning Cloudy Mild (1989) and Stoics (1991), which toured small English venues and was the first of his pieces to be invited abroad. At this point Burrows left The Royal Ballet and formed his own company The Jonathan Burrows Group, based at The Place Theatre, London. Over the eight years from 1991 until 1999 the Jonathan Burrows Group made five pieces: Very (1992), Our (1994), The Stop Quartet (1996), Quintet (1996) and Things I Don’t Know (1997), which were performed widely and began to attract an international reputation. From 2000 onwards Burrows decided to break with the company model of working and concentrate on one to one collaborations with other artists, who would share the conception, making, performing and administrating of the work.

In 1989 he had begun his long collaboration with the composer Matteo Fargion, whom he had met through connections with the UK International Choreographic Course For Choreographers and Composers. Fargion began immediately to play a vital role in the work, composing, choreographing and performing in many pieces.

Matteo Fargion studied composition with composers Kevin Volans and Howard Skempton. His interest in dance began after seeing Merce Cunningham perform in London, which encouraged him to apply for the International Course for Choreographers and Composers through which he met choreographer Jonathan Burrows. The two have worked closely on a body of work conceived, created and performed together, which has become celebrated internationally for its rare combination of intellectual rigor and humor. Fargion has written music for other choreographers including Lynda Gaudreau and Russell Maliphant, and has worked particularly closely with choreographer Siobhan Davies, writing music for some of her most significant recent work including The Art of Touch (1995) and Minutes for the Collection (2009). Fargion also writes for theatre, particularly in Germany, where he has worked over a number of years at the Residenz Theater Munich and at the Berlin Schaubühne with Thomas Ostermeier. It was through Fargion that in 1994 Burrows began an occasional two years of study with the composer Kevin Volans, who wrote music for a number of pieces and whose influence has been central to the development of the work of the two collaborators.

Over the past ten years Burrows and Fargion have made a series of duets conceived, choreographed, composed, administrated and performed together, redefining their collaboration on more equal terms and bringing Fargion full-time onto the stage. Both Sitting Duet (2002), The Quiet Dance (2005), Speaking Dance (2006), Cheap Lecture (2009), The Cow Piece (2009), Counting To One Hundred (2011), One Flute Note (2012), Show And Tell (2013), Rebelling Against Limit(2013) and Body Not Fit For Purpose (2014) are all still touring, and the two men have now given over 300 performances across the world.

Some of the Awards Burrows has received include:

Honorary Doctorate, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2010

Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, for Both Sitting Duet, New York, 2003

Nominated for a South Bank Award, London, for Both Sitting Duet and Singing, 2003

Foundation For Contemporary Performance Arts Award, New York, 2002 in recognition for on-going contributions to contemporary dance

Prudential Award, London, 1995

Time Out Award, London, 1994

Digital Dance Award, London, 1992

Burrow’s book, A Choreographer’s Handbook, was published in 2010. The book allows the reader to investigate how and why to make a dance performance. Burrows explains how it’s possible to navigate a course through the complex process of creating a dance performance.The book includes exercises, meditations, principles and ideas on choreography that allow dancers to explore their own aesthetic process. In his book, Burrows approaches the ides of creating dance music as such:

“It seems to me there are two main kinds of approach to the idea of writing a score.

In the first kind what is written is a representation of the piece itself, a template which holds within it the detail, in linear time, of what you will eventually see or hear. A classical music score works in this way.

In the other kind of score, what is written or thought is a tool for information, image and inspiration, which acts as a source for what you will see, but whose shape may be very different from the final realisation.

These two approaches can mix.

Both can arrive at structure, and both can arrive at strong image, atmosphere and colour.

Both can be written before, during or after you make the piece.”

Burrow’s use of music with dance has changed widely through his career. His original chorographic works were ballets and most typically consisted of a score with dance set to it. As he began creating works for his own company and collaborating with composers, specifically Matteo Fargion, he used music as a way to add an emotional dimension to his pieces that he could not get across through simply the dance. He used different techniques in creating the music but his emotional use of the music remained rather consistent. For some pieces he would collaborate with the composer to create a score and then choreograph to it, making slight adjustments as things didn’t fit, and in other cases the music and chorography were created in tandem.

Many of Burrow’s works with Fargion have not contained any music at all in the typical sense, but rather vocalization and words. One piece, Speaking Dance, doesn’t use any choreography at all but rather consists of Burros and Fargion sitting in chairs reading dance moves and movement instructions out of their score books as well as using their hands and legs to create sounds and beats.

Sources: balletco, The University of Utah Department of Modern Dance, LondonDance, The Foundation For Contemporary Arts, Jonathan Burrows, MotionBank