Lightning in a bottle

Message In A Bottle is currently on at the Sydney Opera House for a very limited season. This breathtaking dance production incorporates the music and lyrics of Sting in telling a story of disrupted lives, loss, separation, hope and resilience – truly a story for our times. 

The creative dynamo behind the work is Kate Prince, a highly acclaimed  choreographer and self-confessed Sting and The Police devotee. Prince has come to Sydney for the Australian premiere of the show, which has already had a successful season in the UK and will go on to tour internationally. 

It’s Prince’s first time in Australia and she’s thrilled about finally making it Down Under after previous failed attempts. She’s even more thrilled about how well Message In A Bottle is being received; it’s a concept that has had a long germination. 

“I was born in the mid-seventies and I was a massive fan of The Police and then a massive fan of [Sting]. The first band I saw in concert at Wembley was him.” She and her husband were such big fans they had “Walking On The Moon” play at their wedding. When she listened to that song again on their honeymoon, she expressed a thought to her husband. 

“You know I’d really love to choreograph to [Sting’s] music. It’s so different, it’s so varied and, lyrically, it’s so interesting. I’m sure there’s a story there and I’m sure there’s a way of putting his body of work on stage with a story that isn’t a juke box musical with other people singing his songs. So I pitched it.”

And whomever she pitched it to liked it. 

Prince and a creative team workshopped six songs initially, to try and create a storyline. The lyrics of each had an inherent meaning that could be blended to become a whole, for instance: “sending out an SOS” from “Message In A Bottle”; 

“One day we’ll dance on their graves, one day we’ll sing of freedom, one day we’ll laugh in our joy and we’ll dance,” from “They Dance Alone”; “Inshallah”, which is about crossing over water in a boat;  “Empty Chair”, about American journalist who was kidnapped. His family left an empty chair at the table for him ever since.

At the same time the show was being developed, the news was filled with graphic images and stories from the Syrian war. One photo stood out — that of a man carrying the body of a young refugee boy that had washed ashore in Turkey.

“I could not shake his image from my mind. And it all happened at the same time…” says Prince. “It then just became building blocks and working out if there was a way to navigate through all of Sting’s poetry, his lyrics, to make something that becomes a story.”

Prince knew the core of the story would be about refugees, but during the development it had changed from being based on Syria to Ukraine and then Gaza. In the end it became a fictional conflict in a fictional place but with very real elements. 

Sting was introduced to the project and loved it. He re-recorded some songs to suit the new arrangements. Multi-award winning orchestrator/composer/musician, Alex Lacamoire, who has worked on dozens of hit Broadway musicals, composed musical transitions for Message In A Bottle.

Apart from the recorded songs, there is no singing or speaking in the show, only dance.

“I think you can say so much more with dance than you can say with words,” explains Prince. “I think that in a play or in a movie, you’re limited to the words, but dance is a universal language, and it’s so much about feeling…”

Without the respite afforded by songs or spoken parts, the energy level on stage is electric and relentless.

“Those dancers work so hard to try and tell a real story every night, and what they do physically is so intense and gruelling. They’re like Olympic athletes, really, what they’re able to do.”

Though the story is sometimes harrowing and has, at times, drawn tears from audience members, it is also uplifting and heartwarming. 

“It’s a celebration of human resilience, of what people can endure and survive…of hope.”

www.sydneyoperahouse.com