The Q&A: Lewis Major
As the choreographer-director-dancer Australian returns to our shores with his award-winning mixed bill Triptych, he faces our intense Q&A to talk sheep shearing, sequins and sage words from clowns
Who would you like to see playing you in the movie about your life? Who do you think the casting people would choose? Someone slightly leftfield, ideally a dancer who can also act; like George MacKay, with a bit more time in the studio. He was so good playing Ned Kelly, which also tickles my antipodean sympathy for outlaws. The casting people would probably just go for anyone taller, moodier and with better hair.
What’s the punchline to your favourite joke? ‘That is my impression.’ Timing does most of the work.
If you were to return in a future life as an animal, what would it be? A thylacine. For science.
If you were playing in an escape room, name two other people you’d recruit to help you get out? My dancers and I have this weird habit of somehow ending up in escape rooms on tour. But they’re all crap at it. I’d take any of the amazing stage managers I’ve worked with over the years because they always know where the exits are. And my mum because she refuses to panic.
When was the last time you were mistaken for someone else and what were the circumstances? Quite regularly after a show, someone congratulates me on the lighting design. I take it as a compliment but Fausto Brusamolino is the real genius here.
What’s the best cover version ever? Oh, there are too many to choose just one; I’ve got a warm-up playlist of only great cover versions, but ‘Linger’ by Royel Otis, covering the late, great Dolores O’Riordan, is on high rotation right now.
Whose speaking voice soothes your ears? Either of my daughters speaking
Fren-glish to me.
Tell us something you wish you had discovered sooner in life? That rest is part of the work, not a reward for finishing it.
Describe your perfect Saturday evening? Cooking a good meal for friends, drinking some very good wine, a show that makes me argue on the way home, and having nowhere I need to be the next morning.
If you were a ghost, who would you haunt? Probably my younger self, just to say what I end up doing.
If you could relive any day of your life, which one would it be? Any day with my kids where I don’t have to think about anything other than being with them.
What’s your earliest recollection of winning something? A cross country school sports day medal that was wildly undeserved but thrilling all the same.
Did you have a nickname at school that you were ok with? And one you hated? Luigi or Major was fine. Anything involving dance puns (ahem, Billy Elliot) was not. My nickname on the footy team was Beetle, which I also disliked. It was an abbreviated form of Beetle Fucker, yelled at me only once by a smartarse mate, though it stuck.
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If you were to start a tribute act, who would it be in tribute to and what would it be called? Kylie. It would be called Kylie-ography: strictly bangers, strictly sequins.
When were you most recently astonished by something? A literal clown said to me: ‘Talent is nothing but the enhanced capacity to feel things.’ Floored.
What tune do you find it impossible not to dance to? ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ by Four Tops.
Which famous person would be your ideal holiday companion? Tilda Swinton or Alan Cumming. I suspect they’d make even the mundane feel quietly epic (and highly inappropriate in Alan’s case).
What’s the most hi-tech item in your home? My coffee machine.
As an adult, what has a child said to you that made a powerful impact? ‘Why are you moving like that?’ It was a genuine question and a good one.
Tell us one thing about yourself that would surprise people? I’m far more methodical than my work might suggest. Also, I know you only asked for one thing, and I seem to talk about it in every frickin’ interview, but people are still surprised that I grew up on a sheep farm and was supposed to be a sheep shearer, not somehow working in the most misunderstood and maligned of all the artforms: contemporary dance. Also, I broke my back in four places when I was 21 and was supposed to be in a wheelchair by the age of 25.
When did you last cry? Oh gawd. I cry a lot, but the last time was this morning. I was sent a video of two elders from our Aboriginal dance group back home talking into the camera about how important it is to keep supporting young Aboriginal dancers through our work. A lot of them come from the community in the Far North and dance is one of the few ways they get out.
What’s a skill you’d love to learn but never got round to? Proper public speaking, as myself. I can pull off a decent speech sometimes but I’d love to feel comfortable with it. Or pottery repair.
By decree of your local council, you’ve been ordered to destroy one room in your house. Which do you choose? The storage/garage/‘I’ll deal with it later’ room. If I haven’t touched it since the last tour, it’s not loved.
If you were selected as the next 007, where would you pick as your first luxury destination for espionage? Florence or a private cabin on the Caledonian Sleeper.
Triptych, Studio Theatre, Edinburgh, Friday 24 & Saturday 25 April.