This transcript is from an interview that was first published on 14th of July 2019. This transcript has been edited slightly to help with clarity, the audio of this episode and more information can be found here.
In this interview was conducted by Paige Carr, who was an Australian Youth Dance Festival, Youth Ambassadors.
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Paige Carr: I began by asking, where did dance start?
Adam Rutherford: Well, like most boys in England, and I started to take dance seriously in my late teenage years, and I studied A level dance at college, back in Portsmouth before securing a place The Laban Center for Movement and Dance, which was under the direction of the late Dr. Marian North, which is now called Trinity Laban, where I did my dance degree. And after graduating, I secured a place in their postgraduate company, which is Transitions Dance Company and worked with five leading choreographers and toured the world so we went to Japan and Jersey, which is quite an amazing tour for a young, new student. When I finished Transitions Dance Company and then I successfully got a place with Matthew Borne, in Swan Lake and then again toured the world, again to Japan, which was lovely and Korea and did a UK tour. And then after Matthew borne, I went on to cruise ships and a little bit of a change from the contemporary world. So I was doing a little bit more commercial musical work on passenger cruise liners. And I did about six world cruises in total. Which is pretty impressive. And then I returned back to the UK working with contemporary companies based in the UK, some leading choreographers and then gradually worked my way up from performer to a rehearsal director and then assistant choreographer. And then yeah, on to artists director and creating RDC Youth.
Paige Carr: So obviously since you are the artistic director, of our RDC Youth, what do you want to achieve in youth dance?
Adam Rutherford: I want to achieve many things. We really strive to push the boundaries; you've done this by challenging the perception of youth and youth dancers. So we create works that have got a political message. And we try to put these works in amateur dance platforms as opposed to youth dance platforms. So we feel we can get our messages across to a different audience. And we will also along alongside our works, we prepare all of our dancers for both pre and post vocational training, and by operating in a professional environment. So we aim for all of our alumni to enter dance conservatoires as their top choice. So The Place, Laban Northern, which we have here England. But we’re also getting to conservatoires across Europe, and Italy, and in Spain also. So yeah, we are really about high quality, high quality training, preparing a dancer for Conservatoire and for the future after Conservatoire and creating works with messages.
Paige Carr: Awesome. And what are the different roles you have for being an artistic director?
Adam Rutherford: Now this is an interesting question, and I’m trying to find a work life balance at the moment has been quite difficult. So I think as an independent artist also working as an artistic director, I think I'm an administrator, a tour worker, a company manager, a rehearsal director, marketing manager, finance manager, and communications manager, company manager, copywriter. You know, there are so many hats for an artistic director to wear in a small team.
Paige Carr: Yes, that’s quite a lot of roles I think. Very heavy duty.
Adam Rutherford: Yes. It can be.
Paige Carr: When choreographing, where does your main focus for youth contemporary dance to go towards?
Adam Rutherford: So when we choreograph, or when I choreograph, and at the company we work with a theme each year. So the youth company members, we sit down and we throw some ideas of themes into a hat of what we want to work towards the next year. So in the past, we've worked under the umbrella of homophobia and homosexuality, global equality. And this year, of course, we're doing immigration. So our work, that we're bringing over to Australia to perform. So we pick subject matters that frequently are topical, and also tackle social and political relevancy. So we hope that the audience might leave the show thinking a different way about whatever subjects we decided to tackle that year.
Paige Carr: Do you try to create your dancers to say that you can spread a message? Or do you allow it to welcome youth dancers into the dance world for a good experience.
Adam Rutherford: As a company, we strive to do both, but on two separate threads. So within the main core company, we definitely create works that spread a message. So like I said, the response to the previous question, picking themes usually have a social and political relevance. So that is for the core company. And then for the wider community, we run our own access contemporary technique classes. So on a Saturday morning, we would open our class up to other teenagers that would love come in and develop their dance technique, which would be an experience for them to come in and experience contemporary technique, but also be with the main company and see how a company vibe might work in a studio etiquette
Paige Carr: Yeah, that's awesome. Do you think England has anything unique in dance that you can't get in any other place in the world?
Adam Rutherford: Hmm, this is an interesting question. And it's interesting, because the contemporary dance world, within the world its constantly changing. So there are always new work, new leaders, new innovators that are happening constantly. But I do believe England is one of the leaders in contemporary dance training, we have three dance conservatoires on our island. So you know, lots of people from all over the world come to England to train; they often create models that are then replicated across the globe. So I think in that sense, England offers something quite unique in the contemporary dance world. And, for example, Trinity Lab, and they were the first organization to launch a degree in Dance Science, which is now fed into the Healthier Dancer programs, which we all know and take as common knowledge. But back in the day, when I was training, we weren’t so aware how our bodies should be treated, like an athlete.
Paige Carr: So you being a director, choreographer, and a dancer, you’ve been all over the world, what do you feel allows contemporary dance to have that ability of spreading your message that no other artistic discipline can do?
Adam Rutherford: I think the key difference between contemporary dance and other artistic disciplines is the communication of emotion from performance of the audience. Which, you know, the ability to physically communicate a message non verbally, is a powerful, powerful tool that all audience members can appreciate, can understand, you know, dance was, is, a tribal act. It has a tribal background, everyone does dance, initially, as kids, and we will do it socially. So I think there's a very powerful message there that can be utilized by choreographers when they're creating their works.
Paige Carr: Well obviously being in a youth dance company, we have a certain way of working and as you said before, RDC Youth has their own way of working. Do you work through England's department of education? Or is it an extra curricular that allows you to travel the world?
Adam Rutherford: Indeed, we don't work through the English Department of Education, no, that's quite an, they have quite specific guidelines, and you have to be quite a large organization or project and to be successful, to have their name attached to your company. So we're an extracurricular activity. And we're fully independent, although we do work sometimes with funding from the Arts Council of England. So every year, I will write funding bids during the summer in the hope that we would get some funding for the next academic year. And so yeah, we mainly operate on fundraising and individual fees from our youth company members. So for example, it's coming to Australia, where we're doing an active GoFundMe campaign, which is doing alright at the moment. And I like to provide places for our youth company members, where their circumstances, personal circumstances don't prevent them from being in the company. So because I'm from a council estate myself, so from a poor background, I like to provide opportunities for dancers that have talent, so they're not held back by money. So we strive to get a lot of our fundraising in place each academic year, so that anyone who wants to join can join.
Paige Carr: Yeah, that's awesome. What do you feel are the perks of RDC youth?
Adam Rutherford: I think one of the perks for us is that we operate as a professional, young dance company. Which is, which is quite unique. I think we may be one of a couple in England that - we're definitely one, the only one in the West Midlands in Birmingham. And so we, you know, we work towards high quality, high quality choreography, we like to have debates and communication, and all of our classes, and all of our sessions are led by active professional dance leaders. So everyone that we get into deliver the work, is either still performing or has performed for a long time with a big company. And we, as I mentioned before, we get Arts Council project, which is Empower. So this is very unique to us. So the youth company members choose their choreographers, I'm not part of that process. So I step back and let the youth company do it. So they audition choreographers who come in and deliver a workshop. And then at the end, they all do a score sheet. And then they all have a little debate. And then they decide which characters they want to work with, which is extremely unique, and an amazing perk for our company. And then on top of that, we get to travel a little bit due to seeking opportunities for fulfillment in England. So a couple of years on the trot, we've been to Academy Internationale Coreutica in Florence, Italy, where I've taken some dancers to take part in a ballet summer school program for a week. And we've been to Glasgow to do the Commonwealth Games. And now of course, we're heading to Australia.
Paige Carr: That sounds amazing. I read on your website ‘youth by nature, professional by nurture’. What message do you try to spread in saying this? And what are your opinions in the whole discussion of nature versus nurture?
Adam Rutherford: I think when I originally founded the company, back in 2013, there was as far as I could see, there was a gap in the training of youth dancers, and definitely in the West Midlands, definitely in Birmingham. And there were schemes that were providing dancers with training, but not providing dancers with performance. And there were schemes that will provide the dancers with performance but not providing them with any training. And I thought that it would be a good idea to combine the two of those because they work so hand in hand, and they're vital. And I think the reason this was happening is because people were under estimating how hungry a young dancer can be at age 11. And all they already know if they want to be a dancer, seriously or not. So I thought it was a good idea to maybe push young dancers into more of a professional environment and then they will be able to make an informed decision about whether dance is truly for them or not. And in response to nature versus nurture, I give equal weight to both. When we hold our annual auditions, we have some people in the room that have been dancing since they were very young, they have already done exams, they have IFTD exams and all these other exams and then there's some people in the room which are normally boys to be honest, that have very little dance background, but have role potential that needs to be tapped into. And you can see that with a little bit of nurturing. They can excel exceptionally, or move from breakdancing to contemporary and, you know, become a professional dancer. And we've had many alumni that have come in with no training whatsoever, and are now in their first second third years of Lab Northern etc.
Paige Carr: Awesome, but honestly, RDC Youth sounds like an amazing experience to have.
Adam Rutherford: Yes, very lucky. They're very lucky.
Paige Carr: What do you think dance or even just contemporary dance in particular, can provide that speaking cannot?
Adam Rutherford: For me it's definitely an indicator, the communication of emotion, you know, from performer to audience member. Say I get the same feeling as when I was a performer when I was a rehearsal director, assistant choreographer, and now Artistic Director. The feeling when a work communicates a message to an audience live on stage is something that you can physically feel as an audience member. And like I said before, you don't need to be a professional dancer to understand a story or a theme or a message. I think the ability to communicate beyond words non verbally is definitely what contemporary dance can do. Above any other art form
Paige Carr: Did your knowledge for dance help you succeed in your career when building this RDC Youth Company?
Adam Rutherford: Absolutely, I think you know, I'm still wearing quite a few hats. So I've recently done a performance, a solo in Birmingham as part of LGBT festival. And I still on occasion, go and work as a rehearsal director for other companies. And I'm still choreographing independently. And I truly believe all of those roles feed directly back to my role as an Artistic Director. It keeps me active, up to date and each new job gives me a new vision and purpose for not only myself and my career, but RDC Youth. So yeah, everything I've learned over the years, back to the little bit of old school training and performances definitely feed into the company. I've got books and books and notebooks from leading choreographers around the world. But I often go back and read and see how they might have attempted a challenge something I was stuck on, for example. So yeah, everything, all the roads lead back to the job I'm doing now.
Paige Carr: What excites you in youth dance at the moment?
Adam Rutherford: I think at the moment, there is a movement to respond to current politics that are going on around the world. I've been to quite a few platforms this year already. And I'm seeing a nice shift to people making work that make you think, as opposed to making work. And so I'm finding it really interesting that, you know, a lot of coaches and a lot of Artistic Directors are helping young people to gain a voice. And think as artists for the future. And I think that's a nice shift that's happening. Definitely here in England. And also, you know, I've worked in Italy, in Spain, and they're also taking on topical subjects. And I think that's just a natural response at the moment from the art world to what's going on in the world.
Paige Carr: What do you think you will love most about traveling to Australia for dance?
Adam Rutherford: Wow, I know that everyone's very excited because I keep getting emails and messages constantly. And I think the top one for me will be working in collaboration with Flip Side, and you guys and KD, to create new work for performance. I'm looking forward to that. And I know the company, I'm really looking forward to getting to make new friends, discover new places. And a few of them want to be tourists quite a lot, so immersing themselves in the culture learning as much as possible. And but, then also, you know, we've been to a platform similar to this in England. So learning from other dance teachers and choreographers from across the world, other young people. I'm just having fun. Really. I've been to Australia a couple of times, but only for the day, which is very hard. Because I was on a cruise ship. So we'd come in in the morning, and then when you get off, enjoy the day in Sydney, and then go back on the ship. So I'm looking forward to spending a little bit more time on the land.
Paige Carr: Yes. Yeah. Well, it's very nice land, I must say.
Adam Rutherford: Yes, I'm looking forward to it. I'm watching lots of documentaries about the area. I think everybody is.
Paige Carr: Awesome. I think it's an amazing experience, that of what you and Katie McAfee have come up with. And I don't think I would have been able to get an experience like this any other way, not even through my schooling. So thank you.
Adam Rutherford: Our pleasure. Our pleasure. I'm really looking forward to meeting in KD. And I'm looking forward to making new work because you KD, you guys work similar with us with subject matter and themes. So I'm hoping we can get a nice healthy debate going about whatever we decide to collaborate.
