Although it is set to classic Sting songs, Message in a Bottle is "not a musical," clarifies director and choreographer Kate Prince, whose narrative dance work has been seen in West End theatrical hits Some Like It Hip Hop, Into the Hoods and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. But rather than go the traditional route, London-based company ZooNation created a compelling work of dance theater inspired by the stories of real refugees.
From "Fields of Gold" to "Roxanne," each iconic song is woven into a narrative that's as compelling as the melodies themselves. The story opens in the peaceful village of Bebko, where an unexpected attack throws its residents into chaos. Three siblings — Leto, Mati and Tana — set out on perilous journeys motivated by the desire to survive and reunite.
"The story was inspired by an image of a little Syrian boy named Alan Kurdi; he drowned while attempting to flee Syria and washed up on a beach in Turkey," explains Prince. "It's a really upsetting image. He looks like he's just asleep in his crib the way he is on the beach, and a lot of artists have turned it into artwork, as well.
"When I saw this picture of him, my daughter was two or three years old, and I thought about how we were living parallel lives: my life in London, which was very nice, easy and lovely, and this much more difficult reality," she continues. "What would it be like as a mother to decide to put your family in a vessel to cross open water to get somewhere safe? That was the inspiration for the narrative: What happens to families when families are torn apart? How do you survive that? That's where it all started."
As a child of the 1970s, Prince is a proud, self-proclaimed "superfan" of both the Police and Sting. Sting was the first musician she saw in concert, and she went on to see him multiple times.
"When this idea came up, it sort of unified my family, because all generations love his music," Prince says. "I always thought the Police were just so cool; just the rawness and edginess of those tracks made me want to dance to them. When I met my husband, he was a massive fan as well. We had some friends sing in a band at our wedding, and they played 'Walking on the Moon' as one of our songs. It was one of those moments when I connected with my husband and family, and it was right after my wedding [in 2016] that I came up with the idea of using Sting's music in a stage show."
After her wedding in 2016, she came up with the idea of using Sting's music in a stage show, but the journey to bring the legendary musician's tunes to the production was no small feat: She had to convince Sting himself to let her use his music. After being put in touch with Universal Musical Group, Prince and Eliza Lumley, head of theater for Universal Music UK, met with Sting and his manager in a hotel lobby to pitch him the project.
"I had half an hour to pitch an idea to him," Prince recalls. "Since it's very hard to explain to someone with words what dance is going to look like, I said, 'The only way I can show you is if we do a workshop, so you come see what we're doing and how it makes you feel.’ We got his permission to workshop six songs with thirteen dancers over two weeks.
"At the end of those two weeks, Sting and his manager came to watch," she continues. "It's probably the most nervous I've ever been in my professional career, but he was lovely and so nice. I think he was intrigued by it as an art form because it's not a musical, so it feels different. After that workshop, he was interested in taking the project further, so we started developing it."
Director and choreographer Kate Prince is a self-proclaimed "superfan" of both the Police and Sting.
Courtesy of Lynn Theisen
"I knew some songs were non-negotiable," Prince says, listing such hits as "Every Breath You Take," "Englishman in New York" and "Roxanne."
"So the question becomes: ‘How do I present this in a way that doesn't feel cheesy or doesn't feel forced?’ That's the biggest challenge," she says, "but I have such a huge team of collaborators, from choreographers to designers, and a lot of people I've worked with for a long time who I trusted to help me. I worked with Alex Lacamoire [orchestrator of In the Heights and Hamilton] on it, and he wrote beautiful scoring moments that transition from bits of drama to the next songs seamlessly."
Message in a Bottle opened at the West End Sadler’s Wells Peacock Theatre in January 2020, but was forced to end its run after only a few weeks because of the pandemic. Although COVID-19 brought the world of theater to a standstill, for Prince and her team, it was a pause, not an end.
"When all the theaters closed, I remember being quite accepting of it," Prince says. "But it was initially gutting, because I thought, ‘God, what if we did all that work and that's it?’ I was worried we’d never come back because theaters wouldn’t survive. I don't know globally what it's like, but I do know that in London, theater is thriving, because people want to go out and see stuff. ... ZooNation existed as a company, and we've been making work for 21 years, but the only thing that we've done outside of the U.K. is Message in a Bottle, which I totally understand, because the music has a broader, more commercial appeal. What I'm really hoping is that when people are introduced to the work of ZooNation, it might make them curious about what other pieces are like."
Prince had to convince the legendary musician to let her use his music in the project.
Courtesy of Lynn Theisen
Message in a Bottle runs through Sunday, February 25, at the Buell Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Get tickets at denvercenter.org.
