WAYNE McGREGOR
choreographer and director
I Now, I Then from Woolf Works | Royal Opera House, Covent Garden | Choreographed by Wayne McGregor | Music by Max Richter | Set by Ciguë, We Not I and Wayne McGregor| Costumes by Moritz Junge | Lighting by Lucy Carter | Film by Ravi Deepres | Make-up design by Kabuki | Photograph by Dave Morgan, courtesy of the Royal Opera House)
Born in Stockport, Wayne studied dance at Bretton Hall College, University of Leeds, and at the José Limón School, New York. In 1992 he founded Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, Resident Company at Sadler’s Wells, for which he has made more than thirty works including Atomos, UNDANCE, FAR, Entity, Amu, AtaXia, Nemesis, as well as an exhibition at Wellcome Collection exploring his collaborative enquiry into choreographic thinking, Thinking with the Body.
Most recently: AfteRite for American Ballet Theatre and Portrait Wayne McGregor for Bayerische Staatsballett, a programme of work by Wayne including a new creation - Sunyata, Kairos and Borderlands.
He was appointed Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet in 2006. Creations for the Company include Yugen, Multiverse, Obsidian Tear, Woolf Works, Tetractys, Raven Girl, Ambar, Machina, Carbon Life, Live Fire Exercise, Limen, Infra, Nimbus, Chroma, Engram, Qualia and Symbiont(s).
He has created new works for the Manchester International Festival (Tree of Codes), Paris Opera Ballet (Alea Sands, L’Anatomie de la Sensation, Genus), San Francisco Ballet (Borderlands), Stuttgart Ballet (Yantra, Nautilus, Eden|Eden), NYCB (Outlier), Australian Ballet (Dyad 1929), ENB (2 Human), Netherlands Ballet (Renature, Skindex), Zurich Ballet (Kairos) and Rambert (PreSentient), among others. His works have also been performed by some of the leading dance companies in the world including the Bolshoi, Royal Danish Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dutch National Ballet and Mariinsky Ballet.
His theatre and opera credits include Closer (Donmar Warehouse), The Woman in White (London & Broadway), A Little Night Music (National Theatre) and productions at La Scala, Milan, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Scottish Opera, ENO, The Old Vic, Royal Court and for The Royal Opera and the Peter Hall Company.
Wayne also directed and choreographed Kirikou et Karaba at the Casino de Paris.
He has created site-specific installations at the Roundhouse, Barbican, Hayward Gallery, Canary Wharf, the Pompidou Centre, Secret Cinema, and choreographed Gareth Pugh’s show at New York Fashion Week, Paloma Faith’s 2015 Brit Awards performance and the opening number for the 2016 Brit Awards.
He has worked on numerous films and videos including Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Mary Queen of Scots, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Sing, The Legend of Tarzan, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, MOVEment with Gareth Pugh for AnOther Magazine, and the music videos Lotus Flower (Radiohead) and Ingenue (Atoms For Peace). He also choreographed the No 7 “Dancer” Advert with Alessandra Ferri.
His work has won and been nominated for over 50 awards, including winning two Golden Mask Awards, four Critics’ Circle Awards, two South Bank Show Awards, a Movimentos Award, a Benois de la danse, two Time Out Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Dance, three Olivier Awards, and the Dance Magazine Award. He is Professor of Choreography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and has a Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Plymouth University. In 2011 he was appointed a CBE for Services to Dance.