Company Wayne McGregor

Rarely has a Süddeutsche Zeitung’s dance reviewer been as excited as after watching the new work of British choreographer Wayne McGrgegor: at some point the critic saw »stardust« and a »Gesamtkunstwerk made of movement, light, music and space. A dance mosaic overwhelming with sheer beauty and sensual magic, as it is obviously only flourishing with the British at the moment.« We already refute the last part with our opening production from Cuba, but it is undisputed that the Company Wayne McGregor belongs to the outstanding ones in Europe. Wayne McGregor, who choreographed Harry Potter films and Radiohead music videos and has been Resident Choreographer of the London Royal Ballet since 2006, combines music, dance and science to technically brilliant, content-based and aesthetically forward-looking choreographies. This is also the case with AUTOBIOGRAPHY, the second show by McGregor to be presented at the Summer Festival since 2013. For this work, McGregor had his genome sequenced and created 23 scenes corresponding his chromosome pairs. These, in turn, carry titles such as avatar, memory or aging and – using a bespoke computer algorithm – are shown in a different order each time they are presented. The archive of a single body creates a great, abstract meditation on individuality and the diverse paths of life. Accordingly, the company’s 10 high-performance dancers abstract classic ballet figures, which flash through like memories of the past. At the same time, the elegant bends and oscillations submit to a flow and engage with the electronic beats by Jlin, one of the most innovative musicians to date, who – with her rhythmic sound origami – has been on all reputable best of the year music lists in 2017. Stardust!

AUTOBIOGRAPHY production leaflet (PDF download)