Floral artist Andy Monaghan is talking me through the contents of a tiny ceramic vase on his living room table. It is a seemingly simple display of plants grown in the east London garden he shares with his partner, the ballet dancer William Bracewell: an arching cotinus branch that supports the curl of an akebia vine; two perky hellebores; some perennial jasmine stems, their leaves like little accents; nandina and pittosporum, with names and shapes that bring flow and rhythm to the display, rather like a dance. Set against the backdrop of a gauzy curtain in north-facing winter’s light, the arrangement looks starkly athletic.
This is no coincidence. Andy is also a dancer and has, since the pandemic, alternated between touring with Matthew Bourne’s company New Adventures and his floral work, in which he riffs on the themes of “movement and shape” that he knows so well. He uses a lot of perennials and shrubs, he tells me, because they morph naturally into amazing, often unlikely, angles without being staked. “And if I do want to go on tour, they’re independent and resilient,” he says, “unlike annual plants, which require you to be there with them all the time, nurturing them from seed.”
Andy and William chose their flat in Forest Gate for its large garden – theirs is split with the upstairs flat and is still ample, with enough room for Andy to grow all year-round – and its accessibility. Within half an hour, William can get to work at Covent Garden’s Royal Ballet and Opera House, where he is a Principal. Their home, quite literally common ground, is testament to the interests they share. Dance, of course, which features on the walls in the form of signed Tacita Dean posters for a 2021 production of The Dante Project that William performed in. Plants on every surface, like green, mauve and purple heuchera in a little bud pot, and a vast library of horticultural books on the walls. Ceramics, too, used by Andy in his arrangements, and often made by William in their garden shed, where he has a wheel and a miniature kiln. He’s also a collector, with pieces by the likes of Adam Buick and Florian Gadsby taking pride of place on purpose-built corner shelves in the kitchen.
Sitting with the couple, I feel acutely conscious of my poor posture. Andy is opposite me, one leg perched across the other at a right-angle somehow reminiscent of his cotinus branch, while Will stands supremely upright at the stove as he nurses a sputtering moka pot, as though he is suspended from the ceiling. Consciously or otherwise, they seem always to be dancing. Early in their relationship, Andy admits to feeling some frustration at William’s drive – “he’d bring occlusion cuffs on holiday and work out wherever he could, like beach bars, hotel rooms,” he laughs. “But I also get it, I have the shorthand of the dancing life” – gruelling routines, performance nerves, injury. Ambitions can only be realised by rigorous focus.
The couple met briefly as teen dancers when, says Andy, William was “already quite the star,” and were later reintroduced through a mutual dancer friend a few years ago. “People always tell us we’re similar, and how alike we look,” says William, rustling around in the vegetable drawer of the fridge before emerging, triumphant, with bags of herbs, “but we’ve realised over the years how different we are.” While William's was an intensive ballet training at the Royal Ballet School from the age of 11, Andy went to weekly classes at a local school in Coventry and had broader, more contemporary influences to take into his dance career. “Matthew Bourne puts a twist on dance classics and it’s always very story-driven” he tells me, citing his Cinderella set in the Blitz, the vampires in his Sleeping Beauty, and the all-male ensemble of his rendition of Swan Lake. For Andy, who now relishes learning about flora and fauna, dance is the familiar, the constant; for William, however, there is still much to discover in ballet – new musicians, new designers – not to mention potential for cross-pollination.
William lives and breathes ballet. He might be rehearsing several shows at any one time. At the moment, it is Romeo and Juliet (“I’ve done it more than any other dance, but it doesn’t get easier – there’s a lot of partnering and lifting”) and Onegin, which opens 22 January. I wonder how on earth he remembers the routines. “My body can absorb steps quite easily. I have a terrible memory for dates and names” – another way in which he differs from Andy, who has an “insane memory for plant names and Nineties pop music” – “but dance is a language, one I am much more fluent in than English.” Now 33, he still loves it, he says, and anticipates there being a void to fill when he retires. “Dance is a physical exertion, but also a form of expression. I don't know where I'll get that fulfilment when I stop dancing. I will always be a mental exerciser, probably, but the meditative, therapeutic, emotional side of it will take more work, I think.” He seems to have so many other interests, I say – the gardening, the ceramics. He agrees, but says he connects with them differently. "I'm talking about when you stop thinking about what you’re doing and you just do it. With dance, that’s how it is.”
Andy always knew he’d need something to move on to after dancing. But, he says, it’s come about earlier than he thought, the result of a confluence of factors including a Covid-enforced pause, injury and loss. He tells me that his mum, Julia, a vicar, had always been a keen gardener and that, around the time he started exploring his interest in growing, she received a cancer diagnosis. “It was nice to bond over gardening,” he says, explaining that conversations could easily become consumed by talk of treatment plans and chemotherapy side effects – telling her about dahlia, say, that he’d seen on the Sarah Raven website, brought beauty and lightness to a heavy time. When she died in 2022, Andy says, “the grief came out quite physically and it started to feel unsustainable for my body to do it all the time.” He started to pursue gardening with greater vigour, the connection to his mum giving him a sense of higher purpose. He talks about the strong links between gardening and mental health, and how much he admires the likes of Monty Don and Sue Stuart-Smith for bringing it into focus.
William, too, is aware of how much his own mum has shaped the course of his life. “She values art as a means of self-expression, and me and my sisters have all gone on to make a living out of that,” he says. He describes himself as a hyperactive little boy who needed an outlet. A family friend told his mother about a dance school that was looking for boys. He went along. “Something about it interested me, but I didn’t understand what anyone was saying – like ‘stand in first position’. And I refused to wear the tight little shorts.” Yet something clicked. Just the other day, he says, he was thinking about how he hates being told what to do, but how being directed has defined his working life. Now, he says, “it’s more of a conversation.” Of his role as a Principal, working with high profile dancers like Marianela Núñez, he says simply, “I can’t believe this is my life. I keep thinking, at some point I’m going to be found out – I’m just a boy from Swansea.”
William is frying a batter for herby pea pancakes now. He notices a remarkable difference in energy levels since eating more plants, and has enjoyed learning how to fuel his body better. Slow days spent together tend to be food oriented, and “often involve a chicken,” a mooch around the Forest Gate farmers’ market, stovetop coffee, throwing clay, tending the garden, arranging some stems, perhaps some stretching against the living room mantlepiece. Whatever they’re doing, life’s always a dance.
William wears the Brushed Cotton Herringbone Drawstring Trousers,with the Brushed Cotton Herringbone Smock. Andy wears the Soft Organic Cord Relaxed Shirt and Lounge Trousers in Green Stone with the Brushed Cotton Hemp Wide Neck Sweater in Charcoal with the Frank Cotton Long Sleeve Tee in Chalk. The Kite Patchwork Quilt in Straw/ Poppy also features alongside the Annabel Roberts flower brick, SZ Ceramics Pillar Candle Holder, Ben Hall Gulls Mug, and Annabel Roberts Mug.
Words by Mina Holland.
Photography by Camilla Greenwell.
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