Wayne McGregor: Body matters

Don't expect anything straight-forward when seeing a Wayne McGregor production. The award-winning choreographer tells us all about his new challenge

Tall, slender and elegant, Wayne McGregor certainly has the build to tie himself up in knots – something he has been doing with his dance company in recent days. “It’s extraordinary what the potential of the body is,” he beams his infectious smile. “When we think of the body, we do think of pedestrian things, so it’s fascinating for people to watch another body go through trauma or extreme. It touches you on an emotional level.” 

We are sipping water with Wayne in a nearly deserted Jerwood Space, where the acclaimed choreographer is rehearsing for Entity, his next step in physical mastery. He is renowned for his physically testing choreography and groundbreaking collaborations across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science. During the past 18 months alone, he has created work for the Glastonbury Festival, Paris Opera Ballet and The Royal Ballet. It was for the latter that he created Chroma, which has gone on to win Wayne a Critics’ Circle National Dance Award, an Olivier Award and a South Bank Show Award. “I will probably have a barren phase now,” he grins wryly.

Hang on a second, did we mention science and dance in the same breath? “I have been working with scientists for the last five years on a range of projects,” he explains. “I talk about dance all the time, so I wondered how we might be able to work with neuroscientists and collaborate neurologically with people. As a choreographer, I am obsessed with the technology of the body.” So we come to Entity, which will make its world premiere at Sadler’s Wells in April. “It is a diptych,” he reveals. “The first piece I am making very instinctively with no intervention from science whatsoever. Then I am going to make the second piece that is very much about exploring what happens when you have cognitive influence from these scientists.”

Wayne talks at breakneck speed about how things are coming along with this and the other collaborations on the project – such as with composers Joby Talbot and Jon Hopkins – it’s impossible not to get excited about what we may see on stage. Yet, after the success of Chroma, do audiences expect a certain thing from Wayne McGregor? “It is always like that, but particularly when you have had a big hit,” he nods. “For whatever reason it had a connection, but I don’t want to make another Chroma. Obviously I want to make work that connects with people, but you have to find a way of making sure you keep your ideas fresh.”

That’s something he has done pretty well in his career to date. Wayne was only 22 when he launched his own company, recently renamed as Wayne McGregor | Random Dance. “It was youthful arrogance,” he looks back 15 years. “You have that impetuous nature early on, when you think you are the greatest creator in the world. The more you make, the more you realize you have to learn. It doesn’t get easier, it gets harder – you become much more critical of yourself. You realize how naïve you were in the beginning, but without that naivety you wouldn’t have had the push to start.”

He talks warmly about how dance has evolved in that time, and doesn’t need to look any further than himself for one reason why. “There used to be a very clear divide between classical dancers and the contemporary world,” he says, referencing his work for The Royal Ballet. “I was part of that – I would never go and watch the ballet. I didn’t appreciate it like I do now. Then there are places like Sadler’s Wells, who are now doing a very inventive, modern programme, reaching out to audiences to encourage them to try something new.” Random Dance was, in fact, invited to be the first resident company at the newly refurbished Sadler’s Wells in 2001. “I had an office at the old venue and it was very crumbly,” he remembers. “It certainly didn’t feel like a vibrant place that young people would go and watch stuff. I used to go there, but under duress. Now it’s very difficult to get tickets!”

Before we know it, lunch is being prepared at Jerwood Space and Wayne needs to get back to his scientists. As long as choreographers like him exist, dance will remain an enthralling, exhilarating experience – and you sense that is exactly what Wayne thinks. “I would stop making work,” he stands up, towers over us and offers his hand, “if I didn’t feel the passion and drive to do it.”

Wayne McGregor | Random Dance’s Entity runs from April 10-12. Performances start at 7.30pm and tickets cost between £12-24. Sadler’s Wells, Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN. 0844 412 4300; www.sadlerswells.com

EXTRA, EXTRA… DANCING ON WITH WAYNE McGREGOR

Congratulations about your Critics’ Circle National Dance Award win recently. Is it nice when you get that kind of recognition?
“It’s lovely. What was really nice was that I won a Critics’ Circle award the year before last with Amu for Random [Dance], which is modern choreography, then this year for ballet. The Critics’ are always quite special because it’s from people you expect not to like it!”

Tell us about the musical side to Entity…
“One composer I am working with is Joby Talbot, whose string quartet arrangements will be played live by The Navarra Quartet. That sets us up in a particular tonal world, but then half-way through the piece we completely eradicate that and go in a different direction with Jon Hopkins. He’s fantastic and has written an extraordinary 40-minute piece that we have been working on for the last four or five months. It’s that world again where you don’t quite recognize what’s going on, but it’s a world that has a massive impact when you listen.”

Have you always enjoyed collaborating with different artists?
“Yes. I think dance is inherently a collaborative art form anyway. The first part of collaboration is very much about the dancers. I am not a choreographer who goes in and says ‘do this, do that’. What we work together on is co-authoring a language. I have always felt influence from other people is really good for your artistic progression because it gets you thinking outside the box. I am quite capable of making a piece without influence, but I just feel it is a really dynamic way to challenge how you think about things. Musicians, designers, they are a natural set of influences, but scientists I have found provide an even deeper connection with what you do. People say, ‘How can you work with scientists?’, but for me they are very connected. When they attempt to solve a problem they hypothesis and work it out through a series of experiments, which is what I am doing in the studio. Our languages are very similar, so when we can find the background objects in the things we both understand – in this case the relationship between the brain and the body – they ask very provocative questions. They fuel your choreography in a really different way, so I think influences are a very good thing.”

Entity is your first piece of work for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance for a couple of years. Will you be nervous when it opens?
“I am always nervous! I almost never watch first night out front. I thought I was quite unusual doing that, but as I have gone around the world I have found out that many choreographers don’t watch their first night out front. I am always back stage or in the wings, so I am watching, but just not out front. You hope, and want, to speak to people and communicate something you feel has made some kind of difference, otherwise there is no point doing it. I am not one of those choreographers that just wants to make work for myself – I do want it to be shown to an audience and for them to engage with it, and hopefully make them feel slightly differently about whatever that subject is. That’s where my nerves come in. But I don’t find nerves debilitating, I think it’s the opposite – it gives me a drive and a motor.”

It has been over 15 years now since you launched your company. Has time flown by?
“It has been so fast. I feel like a granddad sometimes! I think it’s quite an achievement for us though. The funding situation is always difficult. We have always been very well supported by the Arts Council, but to have consistent support over that period of time has been brilliant. From the Arts Council to people like Alistair Spalding [artistic director of Sadler’s Wells], and the international venues we perform at, we have been able to build up a good economy for the work. We were at the State Theatre in New York two years ago, which is where New York’s City Ballet performances normally are. The ten of us on that stage in front of 2,000 people… It’s incredible that the work has that kind of reputation to be able to be programmed there.”

Do you think the dance industry is looking healthy today?
“It’s in a brilliant place because of its diversity, and I think it’s in a brilliant place because there are so many opportunities to perform your work – not just nationally, but internationally too. British dance in its widest form is seen as something to really celebrate throughout the world. There are also some fantastic facilities for dance that there never used to be. There never used to be an opportunity to perform large-scale work that Sadler’s Wells promotes. Now it’s about young emerging talent and how we find funding opportunities for them to work.”