Wayne McGregor


Sir Wayne McGregor, CBE is a British choreographer and director who has won multiple awards. He is the Artistic Director of Studio Wayne McGregor and Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet. McGregor was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire 2011 for Services to Dance.

Biography

McGregor was born in Stockport in 1970. He studied dance at Bretton Hall College of the University of Leeds and in New York. In 1992 he was appointed Choreographer-in-Residence at The Place, London, and in the same year he founded his own company, Random Dance. Company Wayne McGregor was invited to be the first Resident Company at the new Sadler's Wells in 2002. Appointed in 2006, McGregor is the first Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet from a contemporary dance background. In 2021, McGregor was announced as the Director of Dance for the Venice Biennale until 2024. McGregor is Professor of Choreography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and holds an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Plymouth University as well as an Honorary Doctor of Letters from University of Leeds and University of Chester. McGregor also holds an Honorary Doctor from University of the Arts London. He is part of the Circle of Cultural Fellows at King's College London. In 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association. McGregor topped the list for dance in The Progress 1000 celebration of London's most influential people in 2018. In 2021 McGregor was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Prix de Lausanne.

Career

Founded in 1992, Studio Wayne McGregor encompasses McGregor's touring company of dancers, Company Wayne McGregor, and all of McGregor's creative work in dance, film, theatre, opera, fashion, technology, and TV. Studio Wayne McGregor also leads extensive learning and engagement projects nationally and internationally, artist development initiatives, and research and development work with science and technology partners. Significant large-scale engagement projects include Big Dance in Trafalgar Square as part of the 2012 London Olympics, and LightLens for Aarhus European City of Culture in 2017.
McGregor has made over 30 works for Company Wayne McGregor, and over 20 works for The Royal Ballet.
He also regularly creates new work for international companies including National Ballet of Canada, La Scala Theatre Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Bayerisches Staatsballett Munich, American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, New York City Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Ballett Zürich and Rambert, and has works in the repertories of companies including Bolshoi Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
McGregor has worked on choreography and movement direction for numerous feature films and documentaries including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Legend of Tarzan, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Sing, Mary Queen of Scots and Audrey as well as choreographing music videos for Radiohead, Atoms for Peace and The Chemical Brothers. He has also worked on numerous fashion and TV works and projects including choreography for Paloma Faith's performance at the 2015 Brit Awards as well as directing and choreographing the opening sequence for the award show in 2016, collaborating with Gareth Pugh for his London and New York Fashion weeks in 2014 and 2017 respectively, and fashion films Soma for COS and Torus for SHOWstudio. In 2016, McGregor directed and choreographed Selfridges' everyBODY advertising campaign.
McGregor has directed opera, and choreographed for theatre. In 2022 he choreographed ABBA Voyage, a concert featuring virtual avatars of pop band ABBA depicting the group as they appeared in 1977.
McGregor has collaborated with composers, visual artists and designers, filmmakers and photographers, architects, and writers.
Studio Wayne McGregor's building opened at Here East on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in March 2017. Designed by architectural practice We Not I, the creative arts space for making contains three large dance studios, meeting and collaboration spaces. It also features artwork installations by Haroon Mirza, Carmen Herrera, a work by artist Ben Cullen Williams, original artworks by We Not I based on Josef Albers' Structural Constellations and Homages to the Square, and Anni Albers' Study for Camino Real, with permission from The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.

Credits

Dance

  • A Body for Harnasie for NOSPR, LPO and Company Wayne McGregor
  • Herrera Codes for The Royal Ballet
  • Untitled, 2023 for The Royal Ballet
  • UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Novacene for National Youth Dance Company
  • MADDADDAM for National Ballet of Canada
  • LORE for Teatro alla Scala
  • ABBA Voyage
  • The Dante Project for The Royal Ballet
  • A Dance Response to In Memoriam for Culture Weston
  • No One is an Island for Studio Wayne McGregor, Random International and BMW i
  • Morgen for The Royal Ballet
  • McGREGOR + MUGLER for MuzArts
  • Kinds of Life for Random International and Company Wayne McGregor
  • Living Archive: An AI Performance Experiment for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Noye's Fludde for English National Opera and Stratford East
  • Bach Forms for Company Wayne McGregor and The Royal Ballet
  • AfteRite for American Ballet Theatre
  • Sunyata for Bayerisches Staatsballett, Munich
  • Yugen for The Royal Ballet
  • In Residence: Haroon Mirza Exhibition at Zabludowicz Collection
  • Autobiography Edits for Company Wayne McGregor and Jlin
  • Mix the Body for British Council
  • Autobiography for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Home Turf for Sadler's Wells / West Ham United Foundation
  • +/- Human for Company Wayne McGregor and The Royal Ballet
  • LightLens for Aarhus Capital of Culture
  • Multiverse for The Royal Ballet
  • Witness for Fall for Dance Festival
  • Self and Other for Random International and Company Wayne McGregor
  • Obsidian Tear for The Royal Ballet
  • Ice Watch for Studio Olafur Eliasson
  • Alea Sands for Paris Opera Ballet
  • Tree of Codes for Company Wayne McGregor and Paris Opera Ballet
  • Woolf Works for The Royal Ballet
  • Random Raw for Mercury Theatre
  • Kairos for Ballett Zürich
  • Tetractys – The Art of Fugue for The Royal Ballet
  • Scavenger for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Atomos for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Azimuth for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Raven Girl for The Royal Ballet
  • Borderlands for San Francisco Ballet
  • Rain Room for Random International and Company Wayne McGregor
  • Ambar for The Royal Ballet
  • Big Dance Trafalgar Square 2012 for Big Dance
  • Machina for Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 for The Royal Ballet
  • Future Self for Random International and Company Wayne McGregor
  • Carbon Life for The Royal Ballet
  • UNDANCE for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Tiny Dancer for Elton John's Million Dollar Piano at Caesar's Palace
  • Blink for McMc Arts
  • Infinite Freedom Exercise for John Gerrard / Manchester International Festival
  • L'Anatomie de la Sensation for Paris Opera Ballet
  • Sum of Parts for Sadler's Wells
  • Live Fire Exercise for The Royal Ballet
  • Soma for Find Your Talent / Jarrow School
  • FAR for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Yantra for Stuttgart Ballet
  • Outlier for New York City Ballet
  • Stairwell for OpenEndedGroup / Hayward Gallery
  • Limen for The Royal Ballet
  • Dyad 1909 for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Dyad 1929 for The Australian Ballet
  • FINA World Swimming Championships: Opening Ceremony
  • Infra for The Royal Ballet
  • Renature for Nederlands Dans Theater
  • SENSE for Endeavour House
  • Entity for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Nimbus for The Royal Ballet
  • Genus for Paris Opera Ballet
  • Untold for Yorkshire Dance
  • for D.A.N.C.E.
  • Chroma for The Royal Ballet
  • Erazor for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Skindex for Nederlands Dans Theater
  • Ossein for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Amu@Durham for Company Wayne McGregor at Durham Cathedral
  • Amu for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Engram for the Royal Ballet
  • EDEN | EDEN for Stuttgart Ballet
  • Dragonfly for National Glass Centre, Sunderland
  • AtaXia for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Series for Company Wayne McGregor at Houses of Parliament, London
  • Qualia for The Royal Ballet
  • Polar Sequences 3 for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Binocular for Adam Cooper Dance Company
  • 2Human for English National Ballet
  • Alpha for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Xenathra for Wayne McGregor, Dance Umbrella
  • Nautilus for Stuttgart Ballet
  • Bio-Logical for BodyCraze, Selfridges London/Manchester
  • ICE Floe for Trinity Laban and Greenwich Dance Agency
  • PreSentient for Rambert Dance Company
  • Game of Halves for National Youth Dance Wales
  • BodyScript for Sadler's Wells
  • Nemesis for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Phase Space for the Gothenburg Ballet and Company Wayne McGregor
  • L.O.V.E for Imagination Frankfurt
  • HIVE for National Youth Dance Wales
  • CastleScape for East London Dance
  • detritus for Rambert Dance Company
  • Codex for First Class Air Male - Dance East
  • brainstate for Company Wayne McGregor and The Royal Ballet
  • digit01 for Company Wayne McGregor
  • 11 digital mantras for The Roundhouse London
  • n-body for Kerry Nicholls Dance Company
  • Velociraptor for Dance East/Bury Festival
  • The Trilogy Installation for Greenwich Dance Agency
  • Telenoia for Canary Wharf Arts and Events
  • The Field for East London Dance/Greenwich+Docklands International Festival
  • Symbiont for The Royal Ballet
  • net/work Narrative for South East Dance/Brighton International Festival
  • The Square Root of Ark for The Hammersmith and Fulham Arts Team
  • Aeon for Company Wayne McGregor
  • After Pneuma for David Hughes Company
  • A Fleur de Peau for Viviana Durante, The Royal Ballet
  • Equation for the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
  • Zero Hertz for Cork Opera House, Ireland
  • A Trial by Video for Melbourne International Festival
  • INTER:ACTION for the Hayward Gallery, London
  • Intertense for Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company
  • Sulphur 16 for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Angel for the Natural History Museum, London
  • Scottish Opera/Random Collaboration for the Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow
  • Pointe for the Saatchi Gallery, London
  • The Millennarium for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Neurotransmission for Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Aldeburgh
  • Encoder for Shobana Jeyasingh's Away Game
  • 53 Bytes in a Movement for Le Groupe de la Place Royale, Ottawa
  • Skinned Prey for 4D
  • x2 for the Royal Museum, Edinburgh
  • Chameleon for the Barbican Centre, London
  • Black on White for the South Bank Centre Ballroom, London
  • S.I.N. for Shed O, London Docklands
  • Bach Suite for Crusaid Gala
  • Ventolin for West Yorkshire Playhouse
  • Esc...otherspace for Birmingham Royal Ballet
  • 8 Legs of the Devil for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Urban Savage for Ricochet Dance Company
  • Medusa for Olympic Ballet Company, Milan
  • Vulture commissioned by Cultural Industry
  • Cybergeneration for the Belfast International Festival at Queens
  • Time Lines for alt.dance: LeedsDance96 Festival
  • Slam for The Arches, Glasgow
  • Dragonfly for the Alternative Hair Show, Drury Lane
  • CeBit Dances for Imagination/Ericsson, Hanover
  • Cyborg for Company Wayne McGregor
  • Jacob's Membrane for Company Wayne McGregor
  • For Bruising Archangel for Company Wayne McGregor
  • AnArkos for Company Wayne McGregor
  • sever for Company Wayne McGregor
  • 9.7 recurring 2%Black for National Youth Dance Company
  • Artificial Intelligence for National Youth Dance Company
  • Cyberdream for The Boys Project, The Place
  • White Out for The Boys Project, The Place
  • Vulcan for Swindon Youth Dance Company
  • Labrax for Company Wayne McGregor
  • GCSE National Set Study for Northern Examinations & Assessment Board
  • Xeno 1 Xeno 2 Xeno 3 for Company Wayne McGregor