I’m interested in
psychology and
what makes people
tick...I’m interested
in the emotional life
of the character.
As I’m watching performers I think in images. They come
into my head like Frida Kahlo’s little pictures of Diego
Rivera. It’s not a thought process. I get very prepared
and then I just go, like a wild boar looking for truffles.
Signature: So what drew you to Chéri in the first place?
When did you first come upon it or read it?
MC: I read Colette when I was in my early twenties. I don’t
know how I found Colette – or how she found me. But
besides loving her writing, she loved animals, like me.
Dogs and flowers and the countryside. And as a woman
she had a very wild, tempestuous love life. I was drawn to
that as a young woman.
I tried to do a film of her novel Vagabond. Joe Papp was
going to produce it and I was going to play the lead
character, based on Colette herself, who was a dancer
and toured with a small troupe throughout France in the
That opened in 1984, came back to New York in 1987,
went on tour in ‘89 and opened at the Minetta Lane
Theatre in 2009. Lyn then went on to commission
Vienna: Lusthaus, which was produced by Jim Nicola
in 2002 at New York Theatre Workshop. I then went
nineteen-teens. She fell in love with a middle-class man
who she referred to as the Big Noodle. Ultimately she
decided to stay in her life in vaudeville, and I was drawn
to her joie de vivre, her freedom, and her extraordinary
perceptions of nature.
on to directing opera.
The story of how Chéri came about is a bit of a story.
Signature: How do you “use” the paintings and music
and literary works that inspire you, when creating a
new piece?
on an old trio that I had made when I was married and
MC: I think I was a lazy student. It feels like a continuing
the air with this raven blue-black hair. He finished the
education, and I get excited as I learn. For instance,
I was just in Italy and although I’ve seen Caravaggio
for years, I’m now thinking about working on a piece
About a year ago I was working at American Ballet Theatre
falling in love with somebody else. Very Colette. I walked
by a studio one day and saw this creature flying through
phrase and I stood at the door, transfixed. It was Herman
Cornejo, who I didn’t know at all, and I said to him, “I love
you.” I was caught like a deer in headlights by his brilliance.
about Caravaggio and his muses. I’ll fall in love with a
subject, and with collaborators. But I don’t try to
recreate the “reality” of the source.
Signature: Are there certain stories or obsessions or
themes you’re drawn to?
MC: Sex and death has been a big one. I’m interested in
psychology and what makes people tick, which is not
particularly predictable coming out of dance because
I’m interested in the emotional life of the character.
How do you bring that out physically, make it into
movement, but keep it harnessed to the emotion?
Signature: What is your rehearsal process like?
MC: I work completely instinctively. I mean, I’m not
Joan of Arc and I don’t channel voices! But I do a lot
of research. I go in and just go free.
David Zinn and Martha Clarke give a presentation of the Chéri set, 2013.
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