{"id":108150,"date":"2024-10-03T10:32:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T14:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=108150"},"modified":"2024-10-03T10:32:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T14:32:48","slug":"scrutiny-sir-wayne-mcgregors-autobiography-fascinates-ffdn24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2024\/10\/03\/scrutiny-sir-wayne-mcgregors-autobiography-fascinates-ffdn24\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Sir Wayne McGregor\u2019s Autobiography Fascinates At FFDN24"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fall
Fall for Dance North: Company Wayne McGregor (Photo: Ollie Adegboye)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fall For Dance North 2024 \/ AUTOBIOGRAPHY V98 + V99, choreographed by Sir Wayne McGregor, performed by Company Wayne McGregor, The Creative School Chrysalis (formerly Ryerson Theatre), Oct. 1 and 2. Tickets here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

That this internationally acclaimed London-based company, helmed by a legendary choreographer, has come to Toronto for an exclusive Canadian engagement is a huge plum for FFDN. There isn\u2019t a major dance company in the world that doesn\u2019t have a McGregor work in its repertoire. What a spectacular get!<\/p>\n

McGregor is a master of the abstract in dance. He is at once cerebral, intellectual, philosophical, experimental and intense, yet his movement radiates meaning to the audience from some subliminal level within the choreography. As he himself has said, his work interprets life through the experience of the body.<\/p>\n

\"Fall
Fall for Dance North: Company Wayne McGregor (Photo: Ravi Deepres)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wayne McGregor: Autbiography<\/h3>\n

Where to start in explaining the complexities of Autobiography, which features nine dancers, and which premiered in 2017 to celebrate the company\u2019s 25th anniversary. The best place was to go to McGregor\u2019s own website.<\/p>\n

In the notes about Autobiography, we are told that McGregor approached this piece as if the body was an archive. In other words, McGregor sequenced his own genetic code working with IT guru Nick Rothwell to create the algorithm. Thus, Autobiography is a meditation on McGregor\u2019s own life story, based on his own DNA.<\/p>\n

Apparently, the wellspring of the piece came from old writings, personal memories, and pieces of art and music that were important to McGregor.<\/p>\n

From these elements, McGregor, with the participation of his dancers, created 23 sections of movement material, reflecting the 23 pairs of chromosomes of the human genome. These pieces of choreography were then fed into the algorithm based on McGregor\u2019s genetic code.<\/p>\n

For every performance, the algorithm randomly selects a different section of code from McGregor\u2019s genome to determine which 15 of the 23 pieces of choreography will be performed and in which order, book-ended by a fixed beginning and end. Thus every performance is unique. (Apparently the dancers find out two days in advance, and the order is also posted in the wings.)<\/p>\n

Says McGregor, \u201cLife unfolds without our having any control, and we have to deal with those instances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, Autobiography is life \u2014 writing itself anew, and his collaborators used this concept in their creations.<\/p>\n

American electronic composer Jlin based her score on McGregor\u2019s genome reading. Ben Cullen Williams<\/strong>\u2019 set comprises of banks of steel triangles welded together that resemble a DNA thread, while Aitor Throup<\/strong>\u2019s costumes came out of the designer\u2019s own 12 year archive.<\/p>\n

But it is the dazzling lighting of Lucy Carter<\/strong> that is like a tenth dancer in the piece \u2014 banks of neon lights that move up, down and all around, augmented by back lights that swivel, so their beams can travel in different directions.<\/p>\n

In the talk back with the nine dancers after the performance, they mentioned such things like the human quality they feel in the choreography, that it is like living in real time, that each section is like a little pocket of life, that it is like existing in Wayne\u2019s life, that the piece is unpredictable, and it\u2019s like meeting new dancers every time.<\/p>\n

The V98 and V99 in the title refer to the number of times Company Wayne McGregor has performed Autobiography, and in fact, describe the two different performances in Toronto. We are versions 98 and 99.<\/p>\n