Matthew Bourne has just settled into a chair at the back of Scottish Ballet's airy, light-filled studio when the cry goes out for ...

"haggis, neeps and tatties". It's not part of a lunch order, although it would be an appropriate dish to serve, given that Bourne, pictured right, is sitting in on final run-throughs of Highland Fling, his own gallusly-updated version of the classic Bournonville ballet, La Sylphide. In fact, the call brings together the dancers who will mix and match into three performance-ready casts. Naming them after the ingredients in a traditional Scottish dish is just one of the ways Bourne has introduced his own ways of working into the framework of an established ballet company. However, a four-week stint can only go so far, no matter how willing and hard-working Scottish Ballet's dancers are.

"It's been a very interesting challenge for all us," he says. This is not a politely diplomatic way of saying the venture hasn't worked. On the contrary, Bourne is genuinely impressed by how these classically-trained dancers have opened up to a mindset, and rehearsal process, significantly different to what they are used to.

He explains: "There's a hierarchy in ballet companies that operates in terms of principals and corps de ballet, first and second casts – and that's not the way with New Adventures."

He's referring to his own internationally acclaimed company, the only ensemble to have performed his choreographies – the now-legendary Swan Lake, Edward Scissorhands, Nutcracker! and most recently Sleeping Beauty are among his palpable hits – until now.

It's a measure of the trust Bourne places in Christopher Hampson, now pro-actively in post as Scottish Ballet's artistic director, that he agreed to a restaging of Highland Fling in the first place.

His first test came with casting. "Usually I can turn to a very large pool of people – mostly dancers I've already worked with – and make character choices that way. Here, you have an established company and have to pick whoever you think will be right. You don't actually know them. And, again, you're kind of disrupting the hierarchy, but these dancers seem able to understand the situation and work with it."

Next stop: homework. Clear and accessible story-telling is a key part of Bourne's choreographies, which means every dancer on stage has a name, character and CV – details created by themselves, and shared with the other members of the company. In order to get a feel for context, books are recommended and films watched and discussed. Trainspotting was one reference, and James, the unemployed welder with a heavy booze'n'drugs clubbing habit, could easily number Renton, Spud and Begbie among the mates who fetch up in his council flat to rave on as if the 1990s would never end.

Owen Thorne, who is James to Bethany Kingsley-Garner's wild, vampiric Sylph in the 'neeps' brigade, sees his character as "a man's man, a bit rough, uncivilised, but surrounded by great friends, marrying a beautiful woman – but it doesn't feel right, and the Sylph seems to be the part of his personality that is a manifestation of that".

Kingsley-Garner, meanwhile, has produced some of her "homework" – notes that flesh out the Sylph, so that "you have these words in your head when you're dancing. It means you have this focus on your character, and that actually helps you with the movement".

Bourne's distinctive style isn't shackled to any specific technique, as Kingsley-Garner explains: "When I'm picking things up – it's always how the Sylph would do it. Characterisation is the motivation. There are lots of steps, but the movement is all to do with your character, with knowing who you are."

Thorne says that, for him, it's the emphasis on precision that has been interesting and challenging: "Because it's not technical in the same way as classical ballet, you assume it won't need to be so exact, so precise. In fact, it has to be absolutely precise if it's to be effective, but look casual and spontaneous. It's definitely a learning curve that I think we'll take a great deal of insight from."

Tragically, the Sylph still gets her wings clipped, but Bourne and Scottish Ballet are both finding this staging of Highland Fling is encouraging thoughts and actions to take off in inspiring new directions.

Highland Fling opens at Glasgow's Theatre Royal on Saturday, before touring to Inverness, Aberdeen and Edinburgh in May.