A former dancer, choreographer, and head of his own dance company, Matthew Diamond has directed a number of programs for DANCE IN AMERICA, including two showcasing the works of Paul Taylor -- SPEAKING IN TONGUES and THE WRECKER'S BALL -- as well as LAR LUBOVITCH'S OTHELLO FROM SAN FRANCISCO BALLET; FROM BROADWAY: FOSSE, for which he won the 2002 Director's Guild Award; and LE CORSAIRE WITH AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE. GREAT PERFORMANCES: How did this program, ACTS OF ARDOR, come about? Matthew Diamond: I believe that the BBC wanted to do a program about Paul Taylor. He was doing a very big season in London and Scotland and touring throughout the UK, and they wanted to do a performance program. They admire him tremendously, and I think that when they called Paul and Ross Kramberg [the Paul Taylor Dance Company's former executive director], that they told the BBC: "What will make this very smooth and everybody very happy is if you call Matthew Diamond, because he did DANCEMAKER and SPEAKING IN TONGUES, and WRECKER'S BALL." End of story. [Laughs] GP: Did you choose the dances? MD: No, but I would have, because they're both utterly brilliant. "Black Tuesday" is sensational. I really thought that he had found another arena to make powerful social commentary. What's extraordinary about Paul to me, first of all, is his range -- sometimes it's social commentary, sometimes it's comedy, sometimes it's drama or pure movement or whimsy. It always staggers me -- you don't know what he's going to produce; it's almost like, what mood is he in? And I'm not saying that everything is a masterpiece, nothing could be but, boy, does he have an astounding number of them! GP: What was your reaction to "Promethean Fire"? MD: I'm embarrassed to say that I saw it for the first time on videotape. I had not been in the city [New York]; I had read about it and had heard that it was wonderful, and I was dying to see it. Finally, we were talking about doing it for the BBC; I thought, I'd better watch this, because there are decisions that have to be made. Even on videotape -- a single-camera record from the back of the house -- it was staggering. It's Paul at his absolutely most insightful. I don't know how he manages to tap into human emotions in such a way. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what he's said, yet you know you've come away with something. Amazing. GP: How many cameras did you use for the program? MD: We had seven cameras. GP: Is that common for you? MD: It depends on what we're making, but if it is this kind of DANCE IN AMERICA program, which is in essence a re-creation or an interpretation of what happened in the theater, then yes. It's very common to use between six and eight cameras. GP: What is your goal when you're dealing with a re-creation of a performance? MD: In essence, we are in the audience. My effort is that in every single moment of the dance, you will have an ideal point of view. There are moments when it's best to be sitting in the orchestra, fourth row center. And there are other times when it's way better to be up in the balcony, in the cheap seats, looking down. And there are other moments when it's fantastic to be onstage as a dancer looking into the eyes of another dancer. So that is what I try to do with these dances. In that way, "Promethean" provided me with as wonderful a challenge as I've had in many years. GP: Why? MD: It is so complex, and it seems to be so much about the patterns. When I first watched it, while I was staggered, I thought, Oh my God, what am I going to shoot? I clearly can't make it a wide shot and walk away, a television audience won't stand for it. I haven't had a puzzle like that in a long time. And what I realized as I was watching it -- and it was a great joy when it came upon me -- was that sometimes you're looking at the whole thing. Other moments, you're looking at the exact spot on the stage where everybody's crisscrossing at that downstage center mark. Other times you're glancing down at their feet and at other times, you're looking at the lines. I thought, Oh, it's a very basic film-editing concept, which is that we are internally editing our own line. You look at someone's face, then at their body, and then at the car they're driving -- all those things are in essence how we add up reality in our mind. So once I was there, it was just a matter of what to do when and to try to follow Paul's musicality. GP: Do you listen to the score many times? MD: I watch the tape a lot. There is someone who will write a script for me -- literally break the movement down into words so that we all have something to follow. And I will take a tape of the score and put it in the car when I'm driving and in my Walkman while I'm jogging. I listen to it when I'm sitting around. I want to be steeped in the whole experience. It's true, you can't just watch the dance. It isn't that simple. GP: You were a choreographer and a dancer -- how does that affect your work as a director of dance films? MD: I've never been someone who wasn't a director/choreographer. You can only be yourself. But because I have been choreographed on as a dancer, and because I have wrestled with the problems of choreography myself, I think I am able to bring a unique point of view to what the choreographer is trying to say and what the dancer's effort actually is. I've had those problems in my mind, I've had those problems in my body, and I think it does inform my work. GP: Why did you disband your dance company? MD: I disbanded my company because I found I had a desire for more tools of communication than dance was giving me. I really enjoyed making dances, but I found myself going, Wow, what would it be like to have a script or a camera? What would it be like to have singers? I kept pondering all of those other tools so frequently that I felt if I didn't chase after some of them, I would be very frustrated. That was pretty much it. GP: What are some of your favorite dance films? MD: I am passionate about Bob Fosse's films. What he was able to do in CABARET and even ALL THAT JAZZ was extraordinary. I also really loved DIRTY DANCING. GP: Why? MD: It was just so sweet. It's easy, in a funny way, for those of us in the art to love the dark thing: to love CABARET and CARMEN and APOCALYPSE NOW, even though that's not a dance film. But I think that to do something that makes you feel like, Wow, love is possible! I can do something positive and upbeat and even sweet! And, you know what, if you made something that is commercially successful that isn't cynical, I think that's fantastic. GP: Have you considered making a fictional dance film? MD: I have a few ideas that I'm working on -- if we ever manage to get the money. GP: You're still directing sitcoms? MD: And one-hour dramas. I do a lot of GILMORE GIRLS. I don't only do dance [films]. I don't know if anybody could. GP: Because you wouldn't be able to support yourself? MD: I think that and also, again, in wrestling with the problems of a different form. There's drama in "Black Tuesday," for example. It is not just movement design. Well, some of the training that I have is in trying to get a dramatic moment out to the audience; that came into play when I was thinking about shooting "Black Tuesday." My television work and my dance work transfers back and forth. You always have all of your tools right there on your desk. GP: Did that concept take a while to grasp? MD: No. I believed right from the start that the more you knew, the better it was. That was part of the frustration with my having a dance company. My responsibility was to make dance after dance after dance, and I kept thinking, Why aren't these people talking? I did some "story" dances, like Paul does, but not as good. I wanted more tools at my disposal. I'm thrilled that I get to work with him, and I mean that in all sincerity. There's nothing calculated about the joy of that kind of work -- that I get to participate in its communication to the world is thrilling. Interview by writer Gia Kourlas for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online. (Photo of Matthew Diamond by Glenda Hydler [top banner] "Promethean Fire" [top left] by Lois Greenfield.)