Graeme Murphy on dance and obsession, The Nutcracker and the joy of no expectations

The show is his re-imagining of The Nutcracker, which fleshes out a back story for the lead dancer. It sounds audacious, to place one of the world's best loved ballets in Australia. Complete with Hills Hoist, searing sun and liberal use of the vernacular, Murphy's production introduces a younger and an older version of Clara.

It was radical when it premiered 25 years ago but that never bothered Murphy. He always felt the original was full of "lots of excuses for beautiful dancing", so set about writing a storyline that made more sense. The music remains the same – that gorgeous Tchaikovsky score – but the story that unfolds is completely new. Told from the perspective of a dancer in her twilight years, it becomes a poignant retrospective, a tale of success and love, grief and tragedy; all the elements of real life. (The rats he has been wrangling appear in a dream sequence, when Clara imagines the death of her beloved.)

So when did he realise he wanted to be a dancer?

When he was five, Murphy's mother worked with a group called Plastique, in a class that combined deportment and movement he describes as "Isadora-esque". It was a turning point, sitting at the foot of the piano, his mother playing; he was mesmerised "by the girls doing whatever they were doing". "I don't know exactly what they were doing but I imagine it was wafty. Way above my head."

Back then, it was fine for boys to dance until they were five "and then you were told to get out and do sport". "That's OK you know, that's how it was. If you went through the filter and survived then you kept going."

We're less blinkered these days. According to Murphy, competition is now rife for male roles – a popularity in part attributed to the many dance shows on television​. "When I was young you really only needed to be breathing to get a job," he quips.

After studying at the Australian Ballet School in Flemington, he joined the company as a professional dancer, and created his first work, Ecco – through which he met Vernon. They then worked overseas at the Sadler's Wells Ballet in London and Ballets Felix Blaska in France.

In 1975, the couple came home, rejoined the Australian Ballet, and the next year Murphy was appointed artistic director of the Sydney Dance Company (then the Dance Company of NSW). He was inspired by his experience at Felix Blaska, who were "very much about the individuals and the dancers and one choreographic vision for the company and live music".

"I came back with a lot of energy and a lot of hope and a lot of fear."

In some ways, being an unknown with a head full of ideas and a vision helped build SDC into one of Australia's biggest exports.

"No one had any expectations that I would be a success," he says. "No expectation is a good place to start really. You could be wild, you could be free. Now I think there are rules about what contemporary dance is, what ballet is. Then it was this hybrid experimental thing that I was allowed to do."

The first long work produced by the company was about French writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, called Poppy. "That was the launching pad – suddenly people took us seriously, because we'd done this fairly revolutionary work. I thought it was going to kill me, I remember on opening night dancing the lead role and trying to get the lighting and the staging happening, we were opening at one of our first big theatrical venues, the Theatre Royal in the city, and crying in the dressing room, thinking 'it's not ready, it's not ready, it's just not cooked'."

Despite financial constraints, the show happened "miraculously and the reviews were amazing". A year later, it toured to New York. "[We had] better reviews there, and, of course, being an opportunist, I printed those reviews for about the next five years. It was fun. Sometimes it's been nerve-racking fun but it's always been something that felt like a beautiful adventure."

He ran Sydney Dance Company for 31 years and says it was all-consuming.

"I blinked and it happened, and then I looked in the mirror and thought, 'Who's that old man?' When I was doing that job I felt like it was my first year with them. I look back at that time as a creative Camelot. I had such freedom – to do the work I wanted, I commissioned bucketloads of composers to write music for my works, and I was working with a team who were my hand-picked, perfect voice.

"And I also had a beautiful following that were fierce, you know. They'd follow you to the end of the earth, even if you were taking them on a journey that was difficult or different. Trust is two things, [it's] a gradual winning of trust but it's also not scorning, or rejecting or dismissing or talking down to [people]. That really builds trust, if people know that what you're doing is an honest work from the heart, however shocking it might be to them, they trust you to look into it and find the beauty in it."

Did that trust allow him to push further, to get bolder? Definitely. "I was fearless; I was a bit of an anarchist."

While he says he's "been blessed with lots of good luck", the truth is that for dancers it's all about discipline. Talent and luck come into play but without spending hours and hours perfecting the art, those variables mean nothing.

"It's universally obsessive. Once those babies are cooked, it's quite amazing. And I love how transformative dance is. You see people physically change their body but you see them change their being and their thought process.

"And I mean it's a dangerous thing if it becomes obsessive to the stage that everything else is excluded but in a way dance has to become obsessive for a certain amount of time in your life because there's not room for babies and love and dinners.

"And then you go, 'Well, that was worth that sacrifice, because it's such a short period.' "

These days, he is impressed that many female dancers are having children and coming back to the art form. "Because it's not [just] about technique, it's about artistry, their life experience is so enriched by that experience that they come back and perform in a different way."

So is he going to write a memoir? "Too many people would have to die," he says with a laugh. "For me, dance is an ultimate truth and to write a book that wasn't completely open and fabulous …" He trails off, wondering if it's feasible. "And to inflict someone with my life seems a callous thing to do."

He ponders the idea for a moment and smiles: "To make it a book of fiction, [to write it] under a ghost name, [that] would be good!"

Nutcracker – The Story of Clara is at the State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne, and finishes tonight.

The bill, please

Cafe Vic

Arts Centre Melbourne, 100 St Kilda Road

Seven days 10.30am-late, depending on performances in the Theatres Building; 9281 8071.