Beyond Prejudice − Jonathan Watkins in Scotland


Ever heard of The Curve Foundation Dance Company? Well, Jonathan Watkins − young up-and-coming choreographer talent of the Royal Ballet − hadn’t until he received a call out of the blue from Ross Cooper, the Curve’s artistic director, proposing a choreographic commission. Cooper wasn’t offering huge financial rewards, just his resources: the Brunton Theatre in Musselburgh, just outside Edinburgh, and his small troupe of young spirited, mainly Scottish, dancers. Having choreographed a pair of (studio) dance pieces on fellow Royal Ballet artists in both 2004 and 2005, Watkins was eager for the chance to flex his choreographic muscles so, with the blessing of The Royal Ballet’s artistic director, Monica Mason, Watkins set off for Scotland.

He arrived having already begun to try out ideas on a Royal Ballet colleague that would become an opening solo. He wanted his new piece to begin with a girl comfortable in her own surroundings, suggesting a carefree reflective mood, her contemplation interrupted by the arrival of three more dancers. The four characters would be diverse, presenting a harsh reality of how people behave and act. But Watkins wanted to bring about a resolution with some sort of message of hope. He explains: “The idea of the piece is prejudices and how primary instincts can rely on judgments formed without knowledge of the facts. When the judgments are overcome and one goes past the preconceived opinions of others, this is a state beyond prejudice.” Watkins was keen to develop the work with the four dancers as organically as possible and so was grateful to have a period of uninterrupted rehearsal time not possible with The Royal Ballet’s busy schedule.

Originally Watkins had wanted to set his work to a single piece of music. However, unable to find anything suitable, he finally selected music from a silent movie soundtrack (Theodore Tobani’s Hearts and Flowers) that he thought was perfect for the contemplative opening solo. In contrast, the arresting modern stringed rhythms of Gabriel Prokofiev would emphasise the character differences of the four dancers, and the piece would end with the electronic sounds of Praveen Sharma’s A Sad Sad Day – melancholic but suggesting a fuller awakening and sense of hope – which Watkins thought would ideally suit the unity of the four dancers once their differences had been overcome.

Jonathan Watkins describes his first professional commission as his learning ‘curve’ and is rightly proud of his work with the energetic and enthusiastic small company of dancers that were not so long ago unknown to him, being so far from his familiar Royal Ballet scene.

As the new piece takes its final shape, Watkins perhaps overlooks the something that inspires his characters’ separation and union. And he appears to invest the opening solo with more tension than he intended, and the unity of the ending is upset by a quirky slap and the dancers run off in separate directions. But it’s more a development, unintentional layering, as Watkins steps out, going beyond his original intentions.



Michael Scott, Dance Expression Magazine November 2006



Beyond Prejudice was premiered at the Brunton Theatre and then preformed at Dance Base during the 60^th Edinburgh Festival Fringe.


Watch a video excerpt from Beyond Prejudice here.