Dance is in the blood for Richard Winsor
Diane Parkes meets a principal dancer who seems to have been destined to follow in his mother’s steps.
As a youngster it looked possible that Richard Winsor would follow in the footsteps of his mother who ran a dance school.
But by the time he had reached the age of 12, Richard had decided dance was not for him. So how do we explain the fact that he is in Birmingham next week performing the lead role in Matthew Bourne’s dance production Swan Lake?
“My mum had a dance school in Nottingham that did things like ballet, tap and jazz,” recalls Matthew.
“I first tried it when I was about four or five but then I was rebellious at about 12 or 13 and wanted to do sports instead.
“But then I was doing rugby and other sports and I realised how much I loved the adrenaline of performance. I had always liked the shows at the end of the year but not the rest of it.”
And so at the age of 16 he applied to dance colleges and gained a place at the prestigious Central School of Ballet. It was while he was a student there that he watched a couple of productions by the choreographer Matthew Bourne. And he was instantly hooked.
“Before I graduated I had seen Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake and loved it because it was just perfect in style. It is so beautiful and has such strong and powerful roles that it is a really powerful piece of theatre.”
Little did he suspect that he would one day take the lead swan in the show, but attending one of the classes at Matthew’s company New Adventures opened a surprising window of opportunity.
“I was still at college when I went to one of the classes and, at the end, Matthew came up to me and said there were a couple of places free for the company’s US tour of The Car Man and would I be interested. A week later I was offered a part.”
Richard toured the US and Japan with the show, inspired by Bizet’s opera Carmen, and was then firmly on board with New Adventures.
“When I came back in 2002 Matthew was creating Play Without Words. At the time it was an experimental work for the National Theatre in London although it went on to tour.
“Being so young at the time, I was 19, and being involved with a new work alongside all these dancers who had been working in the profession so much longer was a real experience.”
And it was a collaboration which was to continue as Matthew created the lead character in his next work Edward Scissorhands, based on the hit Hollywood film. And his latest work Dorian Gray, based on the Oscar Wilde’s novel, also saw Richard creating the lead role.
Now aged 28, Richard is playing the lead in the dance which originally attracted him to the company, Matthew’s reworking of the classic Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake. And he feels Matthew’s work is a good fit with his own ideas of theatre and dance.
