Combining choreography and composition with Magnus Westwell

Following sell-out performances in the Lilian Baylis Studio last year, Sadler’s Wells young associates, John-William Watson, Vidya Patel, Olive Hardy and Magnus Westwell are getting ready to take over the Sadler’s Wells stage on 26 October with their original programme To Start With.

Each young associate will present their work created in collaboration with young creatives from different disciplines, and most worked with composers to create original scores for their dance pieces. However, Scottish artist Magnus Westwell is in the unique position of being both choreographer and composer. They have written, composed, recorded and mixed their own score for their piece in the show and will play their score live from the Sadler’s Wells orchestra pit.

I caught up with Westwell to learn more about how they combine the twin disciplines of music and dance as well as exploring how the worlds of dance and composition complement one another.

Young Associates from left to right: Olive Hardy, John-William Watson, Vidya Patel & Magnus Westwell ©Jack Thomson

How did you get started pursuing both choreography and composition?

I started playing music through the Scottish traditional music scene playing the fiddle, then the piano and finally the cornett. Alongside this I also started doing ballet training and a little bit of training in other dance styles. When I was in high school, I went to a specialist music school in Edinburgh for four years before transferring to a specialist dance school in Glasgow. In Scotland, all the specialist units are fully funded by the government so I could do this for free, which was really amazing.

I stopped playing music completely when I went to dance school because I felt quite overwhelmed with the intensity of dance training but in the first lockdown I started going back into music. From that point onwards I've been trying to merge the two practises as much as I can, not looking at it as a choice between music or dance but seeing that it's possible to do both at the same time.

I came to London to study at Rambert and when I graduated from there I auditioned for the Young Associate scheme at Sadler's Wells. It was quite a long audition process but at the end of 2019, I got accepted onto the scheme and from then to now, I've been supported by Sadler’s Wells as well as exploring my career outside of the institution as well.

You’ve created both the music and the choreography for your upcoming performance yourself. How do you think the self-sufficiency of that process has affected the finished piece?

I really enjoy it. It's not so much a control thing, but I like the fact that if there’s a piece of choreography I want to create and I know exactly what kind of music I want to soundtrack that scene, I can go and create it. It might be quite difficult for a choreographer to communicate to a composer exactly what they want whereas I feel I can achieve that quite quickly.

I don't think it feels particularly isolating. It is a lot of work on my own, but I find I can just get lost in focus on that one composition. I can spend days creating the score then come out of that isolation and work with a group of dancers in a very communal way.

Could you walk us through composition-choreography process?

It’s a little bit different every time, but I can talk you through the process for my upcoming show. About eight months ago I was creating music for a live set at Cafe OTO in Dalston. From that live improvised performance, I created a lot of music that I really wanted to work with moving forward so I started developing a lot of those tracks through the beginning of this year as well as some new tracks with this month’s Sadler’s Wells performance in mind.

I worked with a few session musicians and featured music artists - one saxophonist and one cellist – and we built these tracks together. After I'd done that, I started working with the dancers on the choreography. It was quite late on in the process that I brought that in, but I'd always had the choreography in mind.

Then it's just a to and fro between creating the choreography, feeling the music needs something else, then going back to the music to add that element. It's been a really long process, especially for this piece. I've probably been working on the music every week for eight months, adding and editing, and now I feel it’s at a very perfect place. I recently got it mastered and it's completely finished so I’ll be working with the dancers for two weeks. When it gets to Sadlers Wells’ main stage, I'm going to perform the music as a live set from the orchestra pit, so that will be the final step.

How important is it for you to perform the premiere of this work yourself?

I feel it helps me say what I want to say because it feels like it's coming from a very personal place. My sound is quite nuanced so when I perform live, I can improvise over the score that I've created. When I'm composing and producing, I have to make the details really perfect and make it sound exactly how I want it to sound, but when I do it live, I add those little nuances that bring the whole thing alive.

I also want the audience to process that the music is coming out of a real violin, and this is how the rest of the score has been built. I think my live performance is quite important in helping the audience appreciate the music and see it for what it is, not just as this thing that's getting played out of a mixer and through the speakers.

Do you feel that working in the twin disciplines of choreography and composition has affected your understanding of each one?

Yes, it has. When I'm listening to music it almost feels it's dancing, it almost feels like it’s a visual art form, even though it isn't. Similarly, when I watch dance, I notice in the music the rhythms and the accents that I see. I think there's so much that overlaps between the two.

When I listen to music, I always visualise dance elements like patterns and pathways. Through my choreography, I want to change the audience’s listening experience. For example, if there's a really subtle beat that's happening in the music you might not hear it, but when you see dancers moving on that beat, it helps focus the audience on what you want them to hear and notice.

In my work I'm always looking at harmony or dissonance, which is something that I can work into the movement. I try to use musical forms like staccato or legato to translate the phrasing and ideas onto people and dancers. I've got to a place now where I don't really see them as two separate things anymore.

©Jack Thomson

What can readers expect from To Start With?

I think they can expect four completely different artists, and four completely separate worlds brought together for this quadruple bill in a way that you probably wouldn't see in a traditional billing of an evening.

There will be a lot of young talent as all of us have worked with young artists and young dancers and collaborators. It feels like the voices of the next generation of artists who are creating what they want to in the ways that they want to make it.

How has the Sadler’s Wells Young Associate scheme changed you as an artist?

It's been amazing. There aren’t any other opportunities out there that are like this for young people, especially young choreographers. We have talks and workshops every couple of months and we all check in with each other and come and support each other as we're progressing in our careers.

I feel like a completely different artist today than I was when I joined, I feel like a completely different person leaving the scheme and going out into the industry. I feel I have so many tools that will help me handle situations and get my work in front of the right people.

What advice do you have for young people who are looking to get into composition and choreography?

I was once told that I couldn't be a jack of all trades, that I had to focus on one discipline and I was spreading myself too thinly. I rebelled against that so I guess my advice for people would be: learn as much as you can and don't feel that you need to have tunnel vision. If you're learning classical violin or something, that's not all you need to do, go and watch movies and watch theatre and start learning how to dance. That will all feed into your other practise and it will help you in so many ways.

Magnus Westwell will present their original work alongside the three other participants on the Sadler’s Wells Young Associate scheme. More information and tickets for the performance at Sadler’s Wells on 26 October can be found here.