Multi-award-winning choreographer Wayne McGregor has long been interested in fragmentation and repetition in his pieces and in exploring the permeable boundaries between science, technology and art.
This original work, first performed in 2017, uses chance as an organising principle, presenting a different collection of sequences each time. These are selected (behind the scenes) by a custom-made AI tool which uses patterns from McGregor’s own DNA to generate the order in which the movement sequences are performed each time. Thus the night I saw the work, it was ‘v102’: the 102nd time these pieces of material have been deconstructed and reassembled for an audience in a different way.
Matching the 23 pairs of chromosomes on human DNA, there are 23 different possible passages, though it’s unclear from what I’ve been able to glean what constitutes a separate passage. At times, a surtitle appeared, naming a sequence, so presumably what I saw represented just three different, evocatively-titled passages: ‘traces’, ‘lucent’ and ‘choosing’, plus opening and closing sections which remain the same each time. So there is a wealth of possible material here: McGregor calculates that there are 24 000 permutations—far more than the number of times the work will ever be performed.
Also, unfortunately unknown to me are the names of the dancers, who were remarkable. The opening solo sequence showcases the otherworldly movements favoured by McGregor: rolling, double-jointed-seeming limbs and popping undulations of the ribcage. It's a bravura introduction to a piece which confronts and almost never comforts.
This attitude is enhanced by Ben Cullen William’s design, where menacing wireframe pyramids hang above the dancers like deadly spikes in a video game. At some moments, these drop threateningly, and they work in concert with the incredible lighting design by McGregor’s long-time collaborator Lucy Carter. Sharp shapes are carved into the dance space by top- and sidelights, and also at times by thin beams, captured by swirling mist, sent searing out into the audience like searchlights, weaving their own patterns.
The choreographic material has been formed by McGregor in collaboration with the dancers, building on the idea of autobiography by deriving moves from past work, personal memoir and the idea of ‘the body as archive’. But this is not a self-revealing piece: the performance resists any notion of neat arcs or personal anecdote, instead working on affective levels, asking its audience to revel in the shapes and gestures thrown together by the nine-strong troupe.
At times, we seemed almost teased by the apparent offer of a narrative: is that a classical ballet class taking place in one area while across the stage a more adventurous, intimate duet unfolds? Is this other sequence the story of a jilted lover, set to what’s by far the most classical of the pieces of music used in the performance? Is this “a ballet”? But always, any sense of resolution or story is denied in favour of collisions of fragments. Likewise, unison is for the most part resisted, only occasionally indulged: and when pairs of dancers do coincide in a lift or a deep plié, it feels all the more like a small moment of euphoria.
The word I most came back to when thinking about the piece is ‘jagged’. Like the set, it is spiky; it works on micro-beats and tones; it presents more than any one audience member can take in. The music, composed by electronic artist Jlin but with tracks by Max Richter among others, works on these principles too. At times confrontationally loud, repeatedly jerking between tantalising glimpses of musical styles, with glitches, deep sub-bass, mic pops and distorted vocal samples, it hovers fascinatingly between catchy and uncomfortable.
The whole, then, is a beautiful sensory assault, both inviting and preventing reverie. The beauty of the lighting combines with the endlessly mutating shapes and configurations of the remarkable dancers to offer a compelling burst of imagery and ideas: both memorable and never to be repeated.