Matthew Bourne

Sir Matthew Bourne OBE (born 1960 in Islington, London) is a British choreographer and director who trained at the Laban Centre and has become one of the most popular and successful creators of dance-theatre for mainstream audiences. He founded Adventures in Motion Pictures (AMP) in 1987, which later became New Adventures. His distinctive approach involves re-imagining canonical ballets and theatrical texts through a contemporary, cinematic, and often subversive lens, with an emphasis on character, narrative, and accessibility. His celebrated reinvention of Swan Lake (1995) — with an all-male corps de ballet — transferred to the West End and Broadway, becoming the longest-running ballet production in West End history. His other major works include Cinderella (1997), The Car Man (2000, a reimagining of Carmen as a 1950s American noir thriller), Edward Scissorhands (2005), and Sleeping Beauty (2012). He received a knighthood in 2016.