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In Wayne McGregor’s work, classically trained and hyper-kinetic dancers confront the distortions, sensuality and feeling of a searing contemporary sensibility. Often working with multiple streams of research to inspire the movement invention, McGregor immerses himself and his dancers in information, which at first glance might not seem an obvious source for the creation of stage-based dance. With a powerful interest in creativity and the scientific study of human movement and the mind, the subjects for his award-winning work have ranged in the past from artificial intelligence, embodied cognition, memory, and mental illness, to distributed systems of action and reaction.
“In flesh and blood lay the self and its articulations. With its own elaborate sign language of gesture and feeling, the body was the inseparable dancing partner of the mind or soul; now in step, now a tangle of limbs and intentions, mixed emotions. Organism and consciousness, soma and psyche, heart and head, the outer and the inner - all merged, and all needed to be minutely observed if the human enigma were ever to be appreciated." – Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason
Inspired by the controversial Age of Enlightenment, FAR mines an era that first placed ‘a body in question’. Ten incredible dancers confront the distortions, sensuality and feeling of the 18th Century’s searing contemporary sensibility to a new, haunting score by the critically-acclaimed composer Ben Frost.
Wayne McGregor CBE is a multi award-winning British choreographer, renowned for his physically testing choreography and ground-breaking collaborations across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science. He is the Artistic Director of Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, Resident Company at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London and Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet (appointed 2006). In January 2011, McGregor was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). From 2008-2010 McGregor was appointed the government’s first Youth Dance Champion. In 2004 McGregor was a Research Fellow at the Experimental Psychology department of Cambridge University.
McGregor is a frequent creator of new work for La Scala, Milan, Paris Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, New York City Ballet, Australian Ballet and English National Ballet; as well as movement director for theatre, film (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and music video (Radiohead's Lotus Flower). His upcoming productions include new work for The Royal Ballet (May 2011), Paris Opera Ballet (June 2011) and an opera/dance collaboration for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance at Sadler's Wells (November 2011).
“Wayne McGregor is the closest thing to a rock star that ballet can currently claim”
(New York Times)
“Random astounds audiences with the sheer strangeness of his vision…By presenting the human form in a new and alien way, he (McGregor) wants audiences to see it through new eyes, and to understand its possibilities.”
(Time Magazin)
"There's the sensually complex work on stage to engage with, and there is the equally demanding task of following the choreographer's intellectual trail. The style is clearly McGregor's own - the rippling backs, the tendril arms, the probing hyperextensions - ... this is McGregor in evolution."
(The Observer)
"...[T]he opening duet is one of the most purely beautiful things McGregor has made...[F]or all its animalism...it glimmers with humanity."
(The Independent)
FAR "talks about the the Enlightenment's fascination with the working of the mind and the dissection of the body...draw[ing] to a close with ...the utmost tenderness and finality..."
(The Times)
Concept, Direction & Choreography: Wayne MCGREGOR
Music: Ben FROST
Costume Design: Moritz JUNGE
Set Design: rAndom International
Lighting Design: Lucy CARTER
Rehearsal Director: Odette HUGHES
Dancers: Catarina CARVALHO, Davide DI PRETORO, Michael-John HARPER, Agnès LÓPEZ RIO, Louis MCMILLER, Paolo MANGIOLA, Daniela NEUGEBAUER, Anna NOWAK, Alexander WHITLEY, Jessica WRIGHT
Co-Produced by: Sadler's Wells, Peak Performances @ Montclair State University, Association of Performing Arts Presenters Creative Campus Innovations Grant Program (Doris Duke Charitable Foundation), Maison de la Danse, Fondazione I Teatri, Belgrade Dance Festival, Belfast Festival, Brighton Dome, Laban Theatre, DanceEast.
Supporters: British Council, Arts Council England, Sadler’s Wells, DanceEast. The Royal Ballet, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Troy, NY, USA.
