Hip hop team take over Cuckoo's Nest story
A DANCE version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that cult story of a fight against authority set in a mental institution?
It sounds like a challenge, especially when the chosen dance form is hip hop, that movement which began on the tough streets of New York's South Bronx before going on to become a global cultural phenomenon.
Even Lisa Arnold, one of the young dancers appearing in Insane in the Brain – the name given to Bounce Street Dance Company's radical reworking of Ken Kesey's celebrated novel – admits she was initially perplexed by the idea of telling the complex story through this perhaps unlikely medium.
And she concedes that comparisons with the Oscar-winning movie version of the book, with Jack Nicholson as the anti-authoritarian McMurphy and Louise Fletcher as his formidable rival Nurse Ratched, will be inevitable.
"I was scared because I have seen the movie and I think it is brilliant," she says.
"I have read the book as well, which is even better I think, but it is always scary trying to make something great because it's very easy for it not to work – but I think we have done very well."
That's perhaps just a bit of an understatement for a show that, as it embarks on a British tour and comes to the Lyceum as part of the autumn season from Danceworks, has been awarded some enthusiastic rave reviews from the national press, with four-star tributes from The Guardian, The Times and The Daily Telegraph.
Storytelling is, possibly, something dance audiences tend to associate most with the classical world.
Contemporary dance has always been more about the abstract, the fusion of music and movement for its own sake and, in the case of hip hop, a cultural statement.
Nevertheless, Swedish company Bounce have brought narrative on to the stage, using the language of hip hop as the physical embodiment of McMurphy's stance against Nurse Ratched, who finds her rigidity symbolised by a love of classical dance which she attempts to inflict of her unhappy charges.
"We have just one dialogue scene to set things up and from then on we speak with our bodies," Lisa explains.
"Most of the people I have talked to really think we have done a good job transferring the story to the stage in this way.
"One of the greatest challenges of the show is to tell that story but I think it's easy for an audience that has not really done dance to appreciate what's happening.
"Of course, the show is only about 80 minutes, which isn't that long, so we have to take some things out but if you know the story already, and I think most people know something about it, you can really follow it and even if you haven't read the book or seen the movie you'll be fine."
A key factor in the success of the piece, she adds, is the range of music – look out for hits from Missy Elliot, Dizzie Rascal, Gotan Project, David Holmes and Cypress Hill - particularly in the way it is used to heighten the central conflict between nurse and patient.
"Classical dance is so structured and there are so many rules, so it is a good substitute for the medication of the original story," she says. "It works very well in contrast to the hip hop and it all brings something interesting to the stage."
It's worth mentioning too that the production also features everything from bungee-jumping breakdancers to film to create something fresh, challenging, funny and dynamic.
Lisa plays Candy, McMurphy's sort-of girlfriend and a key player in the events that turn the story from comedy to tragedy as she helps orchestrate an escape from the institution's repressive regime.
"I think we manage that change of emphasis very well," she says. "In some places the audience is laughing really hard and then there are other places where, with the music and the body language, we know we have managed to really get across the full feeling that we want.
"In some ways it's almost like straight theatre because there's as much acting as dancing and for us it's really important to project the right feeling, the right mood and that's the sort of challenge that brings another level to the job.
"It can be hard sometimes of course and it took time for everybody to become really comfortable with their roles and find their own way through it – it's really quite a rollercoaster!"
Insane in the Brain is on stage at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday (October 9 and 10).
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