Presenting excellence

It’s proving a pleasure to return to A Chorus Line – she had only four weeks’ rehearsal in 2021, and creating a show this size in that time was, she recalls drily, a lot. “I am really proud of what we made, so I’m not messing with it too much,” she says. Besides, she owes it to the dancers to have the sequences locked down as soon as possible.

A Chorus Line is, Kane says, one of the most physically demanding musicals, so rehearsals are as much about building the cast’s stamina as about learning steps. “It’s up there as one of the few heavy, heavy dance musicals. It’s a hard one. I say to them: you’ve got to bring it – we’re not here to have a holiday in Leicester. We’re here to present excellence.”

First staged in 1975, A Chorus Line sees 17 dancers go through a gruelling audition for eight places in a musical.

Based on workshops with real dancers led by Michael Bennett, who also directed and choreographed the show, it was made into a movie in 1985. Foster wanted to keep the original 1970s setting, and Kane had to balance satisfying fans of the original while still connecting with new audiences. “I kept asking myself: Do I feel like it still fits in the era? Do I still think it feels modern enough for the world I’m in now?”

A Chorus Line makes the audition process look viciously tough – how much has the industry changed, in how it treats its hopefuls? “Oh it’s like night and day, in terms of the brutality,” confirms Kane, adding that “the approach to making work is very different now – one sees the people in the space with you as humans, rather than people just there to facilitate you making your work”.

Not that she thinks we should throw out all the old ways – a small, slight figure with a breezily chatty manner, Kane is also clearly laser-focused and demanding of those who work with her. She recognises the value of tight discipline and collective commitment. But she also thinks it’s vital that the industry continues to evolve.

“We can always learn from the past – [but] it’s important to keep learning from the new generation, too,” she says. An she’s getting a ringside seat for how the next generation runs a rehearsal room: her next project is Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’ musical about friendship and dating called Why Am I So Single? – their hotly awaited follow-up to breakout hit Six the Musical – opening at the West End’s Garrick Theatre in August.

The pair are “genius modern-day musical theatre writers”, Kane insists: “The music is phenomenal, and the story is great – it’s a real celebration of differences and individuality.” That sense of acceptance comes through in their working practices, too: “They’re just a joy to work with.”

Celebrating differences suits her – even if she’s demanding, Kane’s choreography has never been about drilling dancers to uniform perfection, but rather about telling stories through movement and emotion. She worked with Moss on her notably inclusive production of Legally Blonde in 2022, and is vehemently in favour of casting dancers of all shapes and sizes, rather than the svelte identikit chorus lines of old.

“It’s our job [in theatre] to represent real people,” she says. “All I care about is, can you tell me the story through movement? You don’t need to look a certain way, I’m not interested in that.”

Kane has been on something of her own journey, from the pursuit of tightly controlled perfection to a more fluid, expressive approach to physical storytelling. As an 18-year-old, she won a scholarship to study at London Studio Centre, specialising in contemporary dance. After graduating, she worked with Anthony Van Laast, Kerry Nicholls and Phoenix Dance Theatre, before becoming a member of the highly respected Richard Alston Dance Company.

And then after four years, at the age of 31, she walked away.

“There were very few full-time paid companies, but I just knew I had to leave,” Kane recalls. “It was about perfection – and I’ve never been that person. I just hear [the music], and I respond, and I feel it… I had trained myself to be someone who could make great shapes, but I felt like I’d lost my soul. It wasn’t making me happy anymore.”

Did people think she was crazy? “Yes. They really did. And I was torn – but it felt better to take the risk. What I’ve always been is brave.”

Q&A

What was your first non-theatre job?

I worked in Woolworths.

What is your next job?

Choreographing Why Am I So Single?

What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?

Don’t be afraid to be you.

What is your best advice for auditions?

Prepare – but don’t be afraid to not get it.

If you hadn’t been a dancer/choreographer, what would you have done?

I would quite like to have been a lawyer, or potentially something to do with maths – I loved maths.

Do you have any theatrical superstitions or rituals?

I try not to attach to any of that. Although if I’m doing a workshop, there’s a community hall in Hackney that’s right where I grew up, and I really like to start off there if I can.

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Transformative decision

And dancing had always been about love, not prestige, for Kane – there were no pushy parents behind her, no stage school brattishness. She grew up in east London, before it became gentrified, in a working-class family. “Hackney at that time was not an artistic place – I went to a very, let’s say, grounding state school,” she says with a wry smile.

She started dancing only for a GCSE, and even then – cue a peal of laughter at how life turns out – because there were no other subjects in that option block she liked. Of course, it was transformative.

“I had two amazing teachers – they were passionate and driven, and just ignited something in me.”

Kane’s father, who worked for British Telecom, expected her to become an accountant or a receptionist and was  “horrified” when she determined to go to Lewisham College to study dance at 16. Kane was allowed on condition she also studied for ‘real’ A levels in the evenings: a tough combo to shoulder, especially given she’d had far less training than many of her classmates. “I’d never done a ballet class. It was massive overload,” she recalls.

If luck first brought her to dancing, it seemed it was on hand once again to steer her career after she left Richard Alston. Someone who’d worked with choreographer Peter Darling knew he was looking for a new associate, and spotted Kane teaching. Asked if she’d be interested, her response was: “Yeah – I need a job. And then it all changed.”

So, I ask, was it a light-bulb moment – was choreography the answer to what you should be doing with your life? Once again, Kane breaks into a loud, confessional laugh: “No!”

Rather than immediately feeling like a calling, being an associate was a steady job at a useful moment: in another act of self-determination, while pregnant, Kane had decided she needed to raise her child by herself. And she was happy, as a single mum, to be working for Darling as an associate on shows including Billy Elliot, Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Still, something had clicked for her: a way of viewing dance and movement as being about character and storytelling, rather than pure abstract steps or shapes.

“I learned musicals from someone who was obsessed with story,” she says. “It was in total opposition to what I was used to doing as a performer; it was like relearning how to see the world. But now I can’t see it any other way, which is a blessing and a curse. I’m not good, actually, where I don’t understand why people are moving – or why they’re moving in that way. I don’t know how to make the work if I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

It must have been hard working in musical theatre as a single mum of a small child, I observe. There has been a lot of talk about making the industry more parent-friendly – and her recollections starkly reveal how far we’ve already come.

“I felt like it was better for me to act like I didn’t have a child, because then I wasn’t vulnerable – like, ‘Oh my God, if the kid’s sick what happens? You’re not going to come in’,” Kane recalls. “I learned to be almost superhuman – it didn’t matter how difficult a night I’d had or what logistical nightmare I was having with my child, I was in the room, on it, let’s do it,” Kane slaps her hands together, demonstrating that crack-on work ethic.

She continues: “Sixteen years ago, that was the climate. It was just normal. Now, I think people are much more open with sharing the incredibly challenging logistics of making it work. It’s hard. It’s really fucking hard, and I don’t know how I did it.”

It’s no surprise to hear Kane has also become something of an advocate for her profession – wanting to campaign for greater recognition of choreographers’ work. “I’ve been working with Equity to start up a choreographers’ arm – because it’s never existed,” she says. “There are so many things that need changing, and there has never been a voice for us. So I’m making it my job to commit to the cause. People do feel like they’re treated as a disposable element.”

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Lack of public recognition

She’s heard horror stories of choreographers on film sets not being on the call sheet, not getting catering, dancers having nowhere to sit… And both film and theatre critics often overlook movement, she says. “There’s maybe a lack of understanding about what we actually do. Staging and transitions are often credited to the director. So much movement goes into a production outside of steps, that often critics do not [correctly credit].”

Then there’s the lack of public recognition: while the Oliviers have a best theatre choreography category, there is no equivalent award in film – no BAFTA, no Oscar. I am staggered to realise this, and also staggered I’ve never noticed before. But even Kane admits she hadn’t clocked it, until making a dance film – Matilda – and realising there was no way of being celebrated.

“It’s crazy. Film musicals have been made forever – they were the spark of Hollywood. There’s usually a musical number to open the Oscars. Yet there’s no award or recognition…”

And if anything would have won a best choreography gong, it was surely Matilda. Kane’s swaggering, large-scale numbers were a total delight. They also went viral on TikTok, users recording their own attempts at her moves or mashing up the Revolting Children choreo with other songs.

Kane was an obvious choice for the film, having worked as an associate on the stage show – although she choreographed entirely new movement for the Netflix version. “I know this story inside out – my task really was how to see it anew. And film allows you to do that.”

It was on a seriously large scale, with several hundred children. This wasn’t challenging because they were kids – Kane loves working with young people – but because of Covid restrictions. “Kids can do way more than you think they can. [But] we made it during Covid, so I had to wear a mask and a visor” – not ideal for mass communication. They could also work with only a certain number of children at any one time, so the “scheduling was mind-blowing – it was the most complex thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Now Kane has another scheduling headache coming up. Along with Hannes Langolf, she was movement director on Dear England, James Graham’s play about the England football team, which is returning next year. Before that, however, is the small matter of the Euros… whatever happens on the pitch this summer, Graham will be rewriting the ending in time for its dates at the National Theatre.

Is Kane on standby to work on the new material? “It depends, because next year is quite full – Hannes and I are just working out logistically what’s the hot spot, in terms of when the script will be done…”.

It’s unlikely she’ll be following the Euros herself – Kane is quick to confess she knew nothing about football when taking the job. Luckily, she was able to get footballer Lee Dixon into a workshop, to do a “crash course with me about formations, penalties, warm-ups… I took all of that information and made it into choreography.”

Looking at the calendar, you can see why she might be feeling a touch busy – aside from A Chorus Line and Dear England and Why Am I So Single?, she’s also choreographing a new stage version of the beloved children’s book Ballet Shoes, running in the National’s Olivier at Christmas.

Kane loves a good story, and her own is shaping up nicely: how narratively satisfying that the 16-year-old who once stood overwhelmed in college because she’d never been to a ballet class is now choreographing the best-known ballet story, on the biggest stage at our National Theatre.

A Chorus Line is at Leicester’s Curve June 29-July 13 before touring the UK, click here for more information; Why Am I So Single? is at the Garrick Theatre from August 27, for more information click here