Wayne McGregor’s new work

Posted on February 21, 2012

Wayne McGregor’s latest work for The Royal Ballet will have its premiere on April 5. Still untitled, the new ballet is a collaboration with award-winning music producer Mark Ronson, singer-songwriter Andrew Wyatt and fashion designer Gareth Pugh.

18 dancers will be joined on stage by a number of artists who will sing Ronson and Wyatt’s song cycle of nine love songs. The songs focus on the Jungian theme of anima/animus and the theory of collective masculine and feminine unconscious.

Pugh, who is known for sculptural designs that move the human body into new shapes, will design the new work. He aims to blur the ballet aesthetic by suggesting a carbonised version of the dancers: it’s suggested that they may start with a casing over one small part of the body, with the costumes gradually expanding to cover the whole body.

The new work will be shown alongside Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia and the world premiere of a work by Liam Scarlett. Tickets are available from www.roh.org.uk.

Picture: Wayne McGregor. Photograph: Rob Moore

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.