Mike Figgis is one of a rare group of acclaimed directors who manage to successfully balance big-budget Hollywood films with more experimental work. A recently announced reunion with his Leaving Las Vegas leading man Nicolas Cage for thriller Exit 147 follows his appointment as a patron of London’s Central School of Ballet (CSB), and last year the filmmaker threw himself into a project with a dozen of the renowned institution’s final-year students, the result of which premieres today. 

Improvisation for the Left Hand builds on his on-going work with internationally renowned pianist Rosey Chan, seen performing in the film. 

“I wanted to do an Edgar Degas homage, and I knew Rosey was developing an idea of music in eccentric architectural spaces,” says Figgis. “This idea of taking music out of a formal concert hall environment. Sara [Matthews, director of CSB] told me about this new space and it all clicked together because film is the new choreography – film is the new recording industry.” 

Below the director, musician and instigator free-associates with Chan and Matthews on the relationship between space and dance.

Mike Figgis: Everything I ever saw of classical ballet, whether it was on film or television, didn’t do it for me because of its frozen formality. I could appreciate the aesthetic and the perfection of movement, but I was not even remotely touched by it. Only when I started to see that dance can also be quite dirty and emotional – by seeing [American choreographer and dancer William] Forsythe – you actually open all the doors again. 

Rosey Chan: I used to be frightened of performing in intimate spaces and in such close proximity to people – you’re normally at quite a distance if you are at a concert hall – so I have learned so much form being able to be so close that is far more interactive and communicative, and definitely emotional.

Sarah Matthews: What you did, Rosey, was find a new space and recreate something that is unique to that space and the school – it can never be repeated. 

RC: Alexander Scriabin wrote a couple of pieces with the left hand because of an injury, and I knew that Ravel had done Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, so finding these scores and playing them forces you beyond your limits. The right hand desperately wants to join in out of necessity, but you discover all these new dissonances and harmonies. And that room was like an echo chamber. 

MF: I learned more about filmmaking through working with dancers than I ever did working with actors. In a way, by learning how to move with the camera I became a dancer myself. Seeing their level of concentration makes it hard to go back to actors sometimes.