One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: a novel, a film, a stage show and now a dance number. Swedish group Bounce are brining us the ballet obsessed Nurse Ratchet Vs the street dance king McMurphy. In this rendition, hip-hop is the rebellion and release for the inmates and the regiments of ballet are the society of control that envelope them. It seems particularly poignant that in the current climate of insecurity in the government and a general feeling of distrust for those in power that a rekindling of this tale aimed at the young people should avalanche onto the stages across Britain.
It’s a different experience…
The dangers of turning such a delicate and touching story into a dance-off are obvious, but Lisa Arnold who’s been with the group from the beginning of rehearsals and dances the part of virginity thief Candy says: ‘I think they’ve tried to balance serious numbers with a bit of comedic stuff as well, and I think they’ve done a pretty good job of finding the right balance – the final scene with the music, is very emotional.’ Lisa explains how the group worked on transforming Ken Kesey’s text: ‘we just tried to do everything with body language instead of speaking; with ballet where you have such strong rules it’s quite easy to adapt that to body language.’ This is surely going to be a spectacle with electro-shock therapy represented by dancers on bungees and music all the way from the mainstream Missy Elliot to the sophisticated strings of the Kronos Quartet, ‘it’s a different experience, you usually get more energy when you use the body more, it’s about the energy that we create with the music.’ We’ll just have to wait and see if they pull this one off.
Playing @ Festival Theatre Edinburgh Sat 24th Oct – Mon 26th Oct.