When I became free-lance in 1980, my dance teaching and choreography much increased, both at home and abroad, but particularly in Scandinavia. I was in Stockholm, choreographing and directing performances for young people, when a Swedish friend suggested that I should use my talent and experience actually to direct a play, rather than just ‘arrange the movement’.

Ninni Elliott, the friend who had given me the idea, was a respected Stockholm director and voice teacher and I listened to her advice. So when I came back to Oxford I looked at the stack of plays on my bookshelves for something I might feel confident to direct. I eventually came across a small, much-thumbed copy of The Soldier’s Tale, in an edition by J. and W. Chester Ltd, printed in 1964.

The Soldier’s Tale has featured throughout my career, and always as an enjoyable and rewarding experience. I first choreographed the Devil’s dance for my drama professor, who directed it while I was studying for an MA in Dance, Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University in 1968. Nineteen years later, when I was at last thinking of ‘doing my own thing’ as a choreographer/director, it seemed a good idea to start with a piece which was already familiar to me and a blend of drama, dance and music. This, after all, was what the future Oxford Dance Theatre was to be all about!

The Soldier’s Tale was first created in 1918 by Igor Stravinsky and Swiss author, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz. During the latter part of the war Stravinsky found himself cut off from incomes and properties in Russia, due to the revolution, and was obliged to live in Switzerland. Moreover, Diaghilev’s ballet company, another source of revenue, faced disbandment through lack of engagements.

The author Ramuz had an idea. Turning to Russian legend and the anthologies of ethnologist Alexander Afanasyev, he chose a story of the Soldier and the Devil. Working together, Stravinsky and Ramuz conceived of a piece to ‘be read, played and danced’, the three elements alternating in solos and ensembles. It was designed for a small travelling group: seven musicians, three actors and a dancer, and could be performed in any location. It tells the story of a simple Soldier who sells his soul, in the form of his cherished violin, to the Devil, for ‘all that money can buy’.

So in 1986/7 it became my task and privilege to bring this story to life; and although maybe I did not realise it at the time, I see now that the constraints binding me, while clearly not as exacting as those of the First World War, led to a production that was true to the original in its feeling and atmosphere.

In 1917 Ramuz reflected with Stravinsky on the piece’s genesis. ‘Why not do something simple? Why not write a piece which dispenses with a large room and a large public? A piece whose music would only require a small number of instruments and would only have two or three characters? As there are no longer any theatres, we would be our own theatre. We would provide our own sets, which could be mounted without trouble anywhere ...’

Similarly, thinking of the small musical group necessary in a confined space, Stravinsky chose ‘a selection which would include the most representative types, in treble and in bass, of the instrumental families: for the strings, the violin and the double bass; for the woodwind, the clarinet and the bassoon; for the brass, trumpet and trombone, and finally the percussion manipulated by only one musician’. He wrote in his autobiography that he liked ‘the interest afforded to the spectator by being able to see the instrumentalists, each playing his own part in the ensemble. The sight of the gestures and movements of the various parts of the body producing the music is fundamentally necessary if it is to be grasped in all its fullness.’

So in the autumn of 1986 I started work on this brave new venture, unaware of any possible financial hazard, but totally convinced that it was something I very much wanted to do. However I was later very grateful to receive the support of a good friend, Ben Kerwood, flautist and fellow teacher at Lord Williams’s School (Lord Bill’s), who donated £400 towards the venture, thus making it a financial possibility for me.

Earlier that year I had choreographed a production of Oklahoma in Oxford and met conductor, Mark Goddard, who was happy to work with me on The Soldier’s Tale. He selected seven talented musicians, including violinist, Chris Windass, founder of the Addebury Ensemble, to play the challenging score, with its Russian folk song, Argentinian tango, Viennese waltz, Swiss brass bands and Bach chorales. Mark contributed other musical items, Scott Joplin’s Piano Rags and Stravinsky’s own Ragtime, which added a rich flavour to the evening.

I decided to work with the copy of The Soldier’s Tale on my bookshelf, the Michael Flanders and Kitty Black translation from the French, which, in rhyming verse, brings out the vitality, humour and surreal nature of the original.

Soldier:

This place of yours is it abroad

Devil:

Wined, dined, all found, full bed and board.
Home in a carriage like a lord
Two or three days, a step out of your way,
And then you’ll be rich as the King of Cathay!

Contrast this with the Narrator’s reflective delivery of the story’s final moral, interspersed with the gentle notes of the Chorale:

You must not seek to add
To what you have, what you once had;
You have no right to share
What you are with what you were.
No-one can have it all,
That is forbidden.
You must learn to choose between.
One happy thing is every happy thing;
Two is as if they had never been.

It’s even more poetic in French:

Il faut savoir choisir.
On n’a pas le droit de tout avoir
C’est défendu.
Un Bonheur est tout le Bonheur.
Deux, c’est comme s’ils n’existaient plus.

When it came to rehearsal with the actors, I found a cassette tape with the script read in French by Sir Peter Ustinov, who played all the main speaking parts: Narrator, Soldier and Devil in his many roles. The complex score was superbly played, inspirational to mood and movement.

The Soldier’s Tale is often performed by just one actor, the other actors mostly miming. This makes the piece potentially less interesting, but Ustinov gives a very vibrant rendition, varying character, tone and accent throughout. The cassette tape was fantastic for rehearsal, Ustinov principally conveying the humour, mood and dynamic of the piece – the actors were not sufficiently fluent in French to be translating every word!

When it came to it, I took considerable liberties with the text, distributing the parts widely between the three actors, to add physical interest, variety and vocal range.

For example, I gave the opening lines (according to the text spoken by the Narrator) to the Soldier. Delivered in good old Estuary English, they establish the context, the Soldier’s mood and character:

Phew … this isn’t a bad sort of spot …
Join the army …! I’ve ‘ad me lot …
Always on trek, not a penny to bless …
Strewth, my kit’s in a hell of a mess!

The Narrator told the story, but other lines I gave throughout to the different characters:

Narrator: That morning the old man (the Devil) wakes Joseph as soon as it’s light.
And he says: ‘Are you ready?’ And Joseph says ‘Right.’
‘Did you have a good night?’
And Joseph says, ‘Yes’,
And the Devil looks on as he gets up to dress.
‘Have you any complaints?’ And Joseph says, ‘No’.
‘Right you are,’ says Old Nick, ‘Then off we go.’

As will become evident from later chapters, choice of location for performance has always been as important for me as choice of piece to be played; indeed it has often been my initial inspiration! In the late ‘80s there were very few usable theatre spaces in Oxford, but what was then the Burton Room, funded by Richard Burton’s 1966 Dr Faustus, had recently become available for performance. Until the late ‘80s this room had been used only for play readings and rehearsals, but under pressure from student members of Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), actual performances had recently begun to take place there.

The venue was absolutely right for The Soldier’s Tale – a basic empty space with just enough room for three actors and a dancer, seven musicians, a table, on it a jug of wine and glass, and a chair for the Narrator. There were a few other chairs randomly placed for a possible audience of fifty, and the room was dirty and unkempt, the corners full of dust. Lighting facilities were minimal, a few stands only, but luckily we were helped by Playhouse technical staff to make atmospheric use of them.

As David Allard, the undergraduate playing the Narrator, writes, ‘I remember being excited to see the photos of the glamorous stars whose names the theatre bore on the stairs on the way up, walking into the small, black, dusty room and thinking, “So this is a theatre?” But of course it was the ideal place as it was a blank canvas. There was no set as such – a chair, a side table with a jug of wine and glass. But that was it. The audience, obviously small, was very close and that was exciting – you felt you were confiding in them as a story teller, rather than being declamatory as could have happened in a larger space. The music was edgy, unsettling and, because it was live in such a small space, very thrilling. You definitely felt connected and in the moment.’ The seven musicians were indeed very close to the audience, each player totally visible as Stravinsky would have wanted, and the vibrant sound they produced was perfect.

Adam, the Soldier, then a drama student at the Oxford College of Further Education, remembers ‘feeling so privileged being connected with Oxford University and its students’; this was his first big role, which ‘propelled him to drama college and on to Shakespeare’s Globe’, where he is now Consultant and Senior Theatre Practitioner. Adam was a very fresh and natural actor; as the Soldier he had a great openness and naivety, making him totally vulnerable to the Devil’s tricks. He described himself as ‘a rather stiff and awkward Soldier who had some trouble trying to relax his tense shoulders and tight ligaments, particularly when it came to dancing with the Princess.’

I had already worked with George Kelly, also a Drama student at the C.F.E., and, trusting his ability and versatility as actor and dancer, it was natural to cast him as the Devil. Far from being the caricature villain of the piece, he endowed the part with an alluring poetic quality, and was versatile as Old Nick himself in his various guises: Little Old Man, Cattle Merchant, Old Clothes Woman and of course the Devil himself.

Lydia Barrett, the Princess, woken from enchanted sleep to dance, did so with abundant grace and energy. Lydia made the decision, as the original ballet dancer, the Russian Ludmilla Pitoeff, would have done, to create en pointe her own sequence in the latter part of the play: Tango, Waltz, Ragtime. Being en pointe gave her a very special fragility which contrasted delightfully with the earthy Soldier coming to woo her. She reflects that ‘there was always time for fun and laughter, which collectively fuelled my desire to pursue a career as a performer.’

The evening worked well and there was very good audience response. It was described by Leon Robinson as ‘strangely moving. When it succeeds, it does so with a magic that is almost tangible.’

As I say in the final chapter, I directed The Soldier’s Tale again, with Mark Goddard, the original conductor, and Chris Windass, the original violinist, as my very last piece in 2008. According to David, ‘It wasn’t until I saw ODT’s 21st year anniversary production of the piece in 2008 that I appreciated just how complex a challenge it had been to pull off!’

This was, I’m sure, a foretaste of the artistic work I was to do for the next twenty-one years as Director of the Oxford Dance Theatre, officially formed in 1988. This would have emphasis on players rather than set, on their movement and relationship to one another revealing the dynamic, shapes and patterns inherent in the play.

And above all transformation of space, which would be the determinant factor colouring everything else.