Catherine Martin
  • Back to Main Site

Exclusive Look at the Making of Strictly Ballroom: The Musical

• May 7, 2014 • News

SYDNEY, Australia — The video playing on the television inside Baz Luhrmann’s bedroom was supposed to be much steamier.

But where there should have been desirous bumping and prurient grinding, the couples were remarkably chaste, as if they had been ordered to abstain from all manner of randy moves.

“Look at this,” the filmmaker behind “Moulin Rouge!” and “The Great Gatsby” said from the foot of his bed. “You couldn’t get any more sexless.”

Working inside the creative compound he calls Iona in Sydney’s arty Darlinghurst neighborhood, Luhrmann was sitting with a reporter, reviewing news clips from 1980s Australian ballroom dancing competitions, whose judges favored technique over passion.

When the contestants started performing the samba — the Brazilian dance popular from the nation’s libidinous annual carnival — their steps were as precise as a mathematical equation. The dancers’ feet navigated the floor expertly, yet they rarely moved their hips.

The samba had been neutered.

Reinstating the sexiness of ballroom dancing was one of the organizing principles of Luhrmann’s feature film debut, 1992’s “Strictly Ballroom,” and the filmmaker several weeks ago in Sydney was in the middle of rehearsals for its reworking as a stage production.

It opened April 12 to mostly favorable but qualified reviews at the cavernous Sydney Lyric, with some critics finding that Luhrmann’s extravagant staging undercut the story’s romance and emotion. “Strictly Ballroom: The Musical,” bankrolled by Global Creatures, the same company behind Australia’s oversized “King Kong” and “Walking With Dinosaurs” productions, hopes to travel north in the months ahead, perhaps making it all the way to Broadway or some American tryout city first.

Before any of that could happen, though, Luhrmann first had to navigate his way back to the theater, where his career all began.

Read more…

Tweet
0
Behind the Scenes with Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin for Vogue Australia
Catherine Martin amps up the 'fun & silly' in Strictly Ballroom's costumes

You Might Also Like

  • CHANEL N°5: The One That I Want

  • BAZDAZZLED Holiday

  • One Plus One: Catherine Martin

  • Behind the Scenes Women of Style Awards Shoot

No Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

    Catherine Martin

    Catherine Martin
    Catherine Martin is a film, stage and interior designer with two Oscars, one BAFTA, a Tony Award and just this year was honoured as one of Glamour Magazine’s 2013 Women of the Year for her production, set and costume designs.

    Stay Connected

    Twitter

    Tweets by @CMBazmark
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest
    Catherine Martin

    © 2013 Catherine Martin All rights reserved.