Wayne McGregor’s Autobiography (v95 and v96) is a work of sharp, stark, almost monochrome beauty that seems to carve shapes and thoughts in the air. It’s strongly structured yet built on elements of chance, classical yet contemporary, analytical yet full of mysterious feeling. It’s a pleasure to see it again, seven years after its premiere.
What you are seeing is never what you originally saw. McGregor is writing this story in front of our eyes and each incarnation is never precisely the same. It’s built of 23 numbered and named sections, representing the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human genome, and organised by a computer algorithm based on the choreographer’s DNA.
Three sections remain the same. The opening, Avatar, for a single questing male figure, and the closing Choosing, with the 10 magnificent dancers of Company Wayne McGregor traversing the stage like flickering atoms, or the code of the human body. Somewhere near the centre is Sleep, where the fixed rig of lights that create Ben Cullen Williams’s set lower to the floor, pinioning three dancers who crawl and shift between its triangular spaces.
Everything else is randomly selected yet bound together by Lucy Carter’s lighting, Aitor Throup’s costumes and Jlin’s electronic score, and by the sense of dancers who are in absolute control of their bodies and the space. It feels marvellously various and vital, from the green wanderings of Traces to the wonder of World, where a darkly thoughtful duet for two men is contrasted with a resonant group who move in slow motion and warm light. By its very nature, you long to watch it over and over again.
I’d like to see a bit more of New York City Ballet, too. The company returned to London after a break of 16 years with a programme that showcased three newish works by living choreographers, as well as the delicate, provoking Duo Concertant from 1972 by company co-founder George Balanchine. In this miniature wonder, two dancers – Megan Fairchild and Anthony Huxley – initially listen as pianist Elaine Chelton and Kurt Nikkanen on violin play Stravinsky. Then they move in intricate steps full of fleet grace, so responsive to the music they appear absorbed in it.
Something similar happens in Pam Tanowitz’s Gustave le Gray No 1, set to Caroline Shaw’s piano piece of the same name. Here, four dancers – three women and a man – identically clad in red romper suits with floating triangles attached to their feet, tease the pianist (Stephen Gosling), encouraging him to walk across the stage, still playing, as they weave their own self-enclosed world from patterns of quick jumps, pure arabesques, extended arms and flexed hands. Playful and pensive, it feels full of rich invention and intangible longing.
The programme opened with Justin Peck’s Rotunda, a cheerful, relaxed piece to Nico Muhly’s score. The dancers, all moving with the classy athleticism that American dancers seem to exude, their arms rising and falling like breaths, run through a series of solos, duets and trios before returning to the central circle. The steps are direct, unfussy, appealing without being revealing.
Finally, there’s the energetic Love Letter (on shuffle) by Kyle Abraham, one of the most interesting young choreographers working today. But perhaps because he uses music by James Blake, this selection of dances, linked by a man’s quest for love, feels too derivative of William Forsythe, who has built five programmes of dance around Blake’s songs; Abraham’s own distinction is somehow blurred.
Star ratings (out of five)
Autobiography (v95 and v96) ★★★★★
New York City Ballet ★★★★
