Choreographer blends art, science
McGregor’s show tests performers’ minds and bodies
“I like working with people who couldn’t care less who you are.”
A statement like that from a world-famous, prizewinning, much-in-demand choreographer might raise questions about sincerity, but when the words come from Wayne McGregor, there’s no doubt that he means them. Despite his fame and far-reaching success — he’s resident choreographer at Britain’s Royal Ballet, works often with the world’s top companies and has even choreographed for a Harry Potter film — McGregor likes nothing better than to jump into the creative trenches and toil alongside eager collaborators.
His collaborators come in all stripes, and not just from the dance world. Relentlessly curious, McGregor is as likely to speak of his work with neuroscientists as he is of discussing the Royal Ballet or the Paris Opera Ballet. Indeed, last year, Britain’s largest scientific research foundation, the Wellcome Foundation, staged a monthlong exhibition in London called Thinking with the Body, where visitors were invited to explore McGregor’s creative methods through interactive displays.
“Neuroscientists have helped us to understand how we typically make decisions — what kind of journeys we go on to make a particular set of decisions in improvisation, for example,” said McGregor, 43, in a recent Skype interview with The Gazette. “We talk a lot about creativity being instinctive, but actually that’s not true. The job of the brain is to make structures out of things, patterns. The job of the artist, in a way, is to break habitual ways of doing and seeing things.”
McGregor is a whiz at creating unpredictable dance patterns, some of which are among the most complex and fascinating anywhere on stage. Three years ago, Montrealers witnessed his dance making when his 10-member company, Random Dance, performed in his work Entity. Audiences also saw how McGregor famously enjoys extending dancers’ limbs beyond what seems physically possible. Random Dance returns to Montreal next week under the Danse Danse series in a work from 2010 called Far.
The work presents the dancers weaving their patterns in front of a background of pulsating lights.
“(Dancers) have learned to do this really complex coordination and isolation of bodies moving in different directions. A kind of polyphony of the body,” McGregor said.
“The way they can shape images (is) almost like fast editing. They have a cognitive capacity to deal with that kind of language.”
Luckily for McGregor, who is constantly varying and expanding his movement vocabulary, the Internet age has hit dance in a big way.
“Obviously, I’m working with a lot of young dancers — some of them are 20. They’re able to do quite extraordinary things that weren’t even on the scanner of dancers just ten years ago. That’s probably because they have access to all this technology where they can see stuff, and be into other peoples’ processes even if they’re not working with that choreographer … So access to information is much richer.”
McGregor ceaselessly challenges himself and his dancers to approach dance from different perspectives.
“Some people think more visually, some more spatially or more acoustically. Wouldn’t it be interesting if you can attend to the acoustic image more sharply than the visual image if that’s the one you’re most familiar with?”
Although McGregor’s dancers are often put through a physical wringer, learning his pieces can be an even greater mental challenge. Dancers auditioning for his company must have a pliable body but also, he said, have “the stamina and intellectual capacity to engage in the way in which we like to work in studio.”
McGregor remarked that Montreal audiences will see Far interpreted somewhat differently from the original 2010 production, not because the steps are different or because only four of the original cast are still with the company, but because performers and choreographer are constantly evolving. Each time they work on another piece, their outlook on dance undergoes change.
“I’m looking back at something that I made maybe three years ago with eyes that have maybe made three or four pieces in between and having something new to say,” McGregor said.
McGregor’s abstract plotless works have sometimes been criticized for seeming coldly formal. The same criticism has been levelled at avant-garde artists since the modernist esthetic appeared in art in the 19th century. It’s doubly ironic that the cold, formal label would ever be applied to McGregor, a quickwitted man with an open sense of humour who is any- thing but formal.
“One of the things I try to do is make sure that dance sits in the real world, not just a kind of thing that’s the preserve of theatres,” McGregor said.
“I’m an artist working at this moment in time, interested in science. … If you have an openness and receptivity to other things, it can’t help but pervade your work. You can’t help but make decisions that are of your time.”
Dance notes:
Montreal’s underground dance/theatre scene is collectively on display on Saturday at 8 p.m. in a show called Cabaret Tollé produced by Studio 303, whose performers often raise sensitive social issues. The show, a fundraiser for Studio 303, features 11 “radically undisciplined” artists. Show at the Sala Rossa, 4848 St-Laurent Blvd. Tickets at the door, $15. Information: 514-393-3771.