Read our exclusive interview with filmmaker Sue Bourne, who is making her theatrical directorial debut with the upcoming documentary ‘Jig.’ The movie follows several dancers from different ages and countries, including Ireland, Holland, Britain, America and Russia, as they enter the 40th Irish Dancing World Championships in March 2010 in Glasgow, Scotland. With ‘Jig,’ which will have a limited release on June 17, 2011 in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and Toronto, and an expanded release to follow, Bourne was the first director to ever be given access to film the competitive world of Irish dancing. The award-winning director and producer discusses with us, among other things, why she wanted to direct ‘Jig’ and some of the most common misconceptions of Irish dancing.
Shockya (SY): ‘Jig’ follows several dancers as they compete in the 40th Irish Dancing World Championships. So what compelled you to direct this movie?
Sue Bourne (SB): Why did I want to make the film? Because I thought it would be a fantastic film, and it’s a great subject. No one had ever been allowed in the world of Irish competitive dancing before. I like making films that find the extraordinary in the ordinary. As a filmmaker, I love going behind into worlds that nobody’s ever seen before. It’s a global phenomenon. There’s Irish dancing happening in over 30 countries worldwide. I wanted to find what the magic of it was, why people get obsessed with it all.
SY: Before you began filming ‘Jig,’ were you a fan of competitive Irish dancing?
SB: I didn’t know anything about Irish competitive dancing. I’m Scottish, I like horses. I don’t do dancing. But I knew films like ‘Spellbound’ and ‘Mad Hot Ballroom,’ people had loved them. I said, “Oh, this is like a combination of ‘Spellbound’ and ‘Mad Hot Ballroom.'” It had some Riverdance in it and some fantastic music and dancing. It had all the right elements.
SY: While you were filming ‘Jig,’ did you learn how to Irish dance?
SB: No. I’m making films, not learning how to dance.
SY: What were some of the most surprising things you learned about Irish dancing while you were filming?
SB: For me, the film works on all sorts of different levels. What I thought was astonishing was all the hard work and dedication the kids show. This isn’t something they do lightheartedly. They put so much hard work into it. I felt the dedication and hard work of the kids was remarkable. I felt the sacrifices the parents made was fascinating. For me, the film works on all sorts of different levels. I think you can see that yes, it is about an Irish dance competition, but hopefully it’s bringing all sorts of different elements to it. For me, it’s about family life as well, about parenting, about growing up. How many kids at the age of 10 are working that hard at something? I thought it was thrilling.
SY: ‘Jig’ features dancers from several different age groups and nationalities. Why do you think so many people enjoy Irish dancing?
SB: I think after spending two years working on it, I’m none the wiser. I think that it has cast a spell on people, they just fall in love with it. I don’t know why. If you ask them to explain what they love about it, they say “I don’t know, I just love it.” It’s either the beat or the rhythm or the dancing. They just love it.
SY: What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions about Irish dancing among people who aren’t familiar with it?
SB: I think a lot of people quite often, when they think about Irish dancing, they only think about Michael Flatley and Riverdance and Lord of the Dance. Or they say, “Oh, that’s that sport where they all wear wigs and dance, and it’s all like an American beauty pageant.” I think they have misconceptions that that’s all it’s about. But once you go inside and see how hard the children work, it’s like the wigs and the hair and the make-up falls away and then you just watch them dancing.
SY: Before ‘Jig,’ you directed several television documentaries, including ‘Mum and Me’ and ‘Cutting Edge.’ Why did you decide to film a theatrical documentary?
SB: I didn’t want to make a film for television that was just about an Englishman and an Irishman and a Scottishman going to Glasgow for a dance competition. I felt this is a global phenomenon, and there are dancers coming to Glasgow for the dance competition from all over the world. If we were going to be ambitious about it, I should get the budget and the funding to make a theatrical film. It was worth doing it, because we needed to have a big budget to do it, to fly all around the world and do it properly. I felt it was worth being ambitious, because apart from anything else, I needed a huge audience for this film to get it off the ground.
SY: How is filming a television documentary different than filming a theatrical documentary?
SB: I never would have spent two-and-a-half years working on a television documentary; we wouldn’t have been able to afford it. I funded the film for the first eight months until we got the funding (from BBC Scotland) in place, because I believed it was possible to make this film happen. I think the scale and the scope of it is much bigger. You’ve got 93 minutes instead of, I don’t know, 15 minutes to fill. So you’ve got to make sure that it’s gripping enough to make sure someone will want to sit in a cinema and watch it. You film it differently as well, and edit it differently as well, because it’s a different experience, I think, and you can allow things to unravel more slowly. On television, you have to make everything go wham, bam to keep your attention.
SY: Do you still watch Irish competitive dancing?
SB: We were at the Worlds this year. Now that I’m not filming, I’m probably not as keen on it as I was when we were filming it. I devoted two-and-a-half years of my life to this film about Irish dancing, and what we’re trying to do now is promote it and get the film out to as wide an audience as possible. Now, I kind of want to move on to my next film and my next subject matter. Obviously, we still see a lot of the dancers in the dance world, because they’re trying to help promote ‘Jig’ at the moment as well.
SY: Do you keep in touch with the dancers you featured in the movie?
SB: Yeah, all of them.
SY: Would you like to direct another theatrical documentary in the future?
SB: Yes, please! We’re doing research now for what will probably be our next feature. What I think is wonderful about features is that you get a much bigger budget, and you have a lot more time to do it properly, it’s fantastic. I enjoyed it. But there’s very, very few films that I think has the legs to go into cinemas and to get people to pay money to watch them in the cinema. You have to be very careful what you choose to do.
Written by: Karen Benardello
