In the Studio: Wayne McGregor
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Wayne McGregor is a choreographer and director whose future-focused, multi-award-winning works take inspiration from technology, literature and visual art. As resident choreographer for the Royal Ballet since 2006, he has created a catalogue of daring and beautiful dance pieces, pushing the artform in radical new directions. Reporter Eliza Lomas goes backstage at the Royal Opera House, following Wayne as he creates a brand new work. Called ‘untitled: 2023’, the piece developed in collaboration with someone he greatly admires - the late Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The HappyPod is a special weekly episode from the Global News podcast bringing new positive stories |
| 0:05.7 | and uplifting interviews from around the world. Thousands of lives are being saved by bandages |
| 0:10.5 | that can stop heavy bleeding unless they're diminished. There to save lives is great to go to bed |
| 0:15.1 | knowing that we can help. Listen now by searching for the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service |
| 0:20.4 | wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:27.4 | The programme that goes inside the minds of the most creative people. I'm Eliza Lomas. |
| 0:36.8 | Watching live dance feels somehow miraculous. Bodies flowing through space. Patterns emerging and fading. |
| 0:45.0 | This ever-evolving world of physical expression is way McGregor's lifeblood. |
| 0:50.4 | As human beings, you know what we're doing is reading other people's physical energy, |
| 0:55.3 | signature way of moving is prelingual. So I already have a sense of you that mean I see you |
| 1:01.9 | what you're feeling today. How am I be able to convert your energy or we convert it together |
| 1:06.0 | to build rapport, whatever that is, right? So human beings are expert at that. We just don't realise |
| 1:11.6 | that's what we do. And I think one of the things that choreographers do is realise that's what they do |
| 1:15.8 | and use it. Wayne is a choreographer and director. He takes inspiration from |
| 1:25.2 | technology, literature, paintings and film, building a multi-award-winning catalogue of daring |
| 1:31.4 | and beautiful live dance shows. Over the last three decades he's expanded what's possible in dance. |
| 1:39.1 | Whether it's working with the likes of Abba, Tom York, on the Harry Potter films, or with professional |
| 1:45.1 | ballet dancers, he makes space for unpredictable life-affirming performance. When you work in the studio |
| 1:52.4 | with Wayne, he does expect you to bring your whole self. He sees us not as dancers but as |
| 2:00.0 | artistic collaborators. Really embrace will. Principal dancer at the Royal Ballet. |
| 2:05.9 | I mean I love that. I love that. I'm able to share everything about myself in the studio with him, |
| 2:14.3 | not just my kind of technical dancing ability, but all the things that I am as a human. And I |
... |
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