:00:02. > :00:10.provide -- prevent serious crime and terrorism. The move has been
:00:10. > :00:16.criticised by many. Now it is time for HARDtalk.
:00:16. > :00:21.The rock star of ballet, the bad boy of Byley, ballet's highest
:00:21. > :00:26.profile nerd. Wayne McGregor is known for pushing the boundaries of
:00:26. > :00:31.an art form, only associated with easy on the I entertainment. He has
:00:31. > :00:35.been the resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet for some time. He
:00:35. > :00:41.continues to push his audiences and his dancers to the very limit,
:00:41. > :00:46.constantly concocting new ways of marrying ballet with science, art
:00:46. > :00:56.and architecture. Is that why he remains a maverick inside the
:00:56. > :01:17.
:01:17. > :01:21.Wayne McGregor, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. You have made headlines
:01:21. > :01:30.for 20 years in the dance world. A mover, a shaker, a real headline
:01:30. > :01:35.maker. One of the things you can do in life is what you believe in. I
:01:35. > :01:42.am interested in developing my work. It is not me who describes myself
:01:42. > :01:47.in that way. You are someone -- someone who writes a lot about you
:01:47. > :01:51.is Luke Jennings. He says of your agenda that you have always try to
:01:51. > :01:57.push dance into new and uncharted areas, beyond the limits of
:01:57. > :02:02.classical geometry and prove that by, in so doing, no-one will fall
:02:02. > :02:06.of the edge of the Earth. What is important is that dance should
:02:06. > :02:12.incorporate the real world. I am fascinated by the technology of the
:02:12. > :02:16.body. I am interested in pushing the body. I am pushing the dancers
:02:16. > :02:21.to challenge themselves, not only with their technical instruments
:02:21. > :02:25.but with their creative capacities. I am interested in pushing
:02:25. > :02:30.audiences to look can see different things. I am interested in looking
:02:30. > :02:34.at the way they engage with the product in new ways at may be
:02:35. > :02:40.taking on a different intellectual journey. Dance is a contemporary
:02:40. > :02:44.art form. -- maybe take them on. It should keep challenging people to
:02:44. > :02:48.understand their world differently. That is one of the challenges of
:02:48. > :02:53.art. Many important points to do with your work, the relationship
:02:53. > :03:01.with dance, the body and the audience. I will come back to those
:03:01. > :03:07.points. We're sitting in advance studio. We are in the ballet house
:03:07. > :03:13.in London's Covent Garden. What about pushing technology and
:03:13. > :03:17.investigation, is that your brand? I do not think there is a
:03:17. > :03:22.restricted brand. This is a creative organisation. It is made
:03:22. > :03:26.up of individuals with fantastic ideas. The big theatres and opera
:03:26. > :03:33.houses have the capacity and do them for this kind of Endeavour. It
:03:33. > :03:38.is not that you are all the sudden decrying the heritage that exists.
:03:38. > :03:43.These are points of departure. What is lovely about this theatre is you
:03:43. > :03:50.can have both of those in a week. Classical and cutting edge. The
:03:50. > :03:55.audience is acclimatising to that. You are able to, but how welcome
:03:55. > :04:00.visit by the establishment, the Swan Lake diehards, when you were
:04:00. > :04:05.brought in as the choreographer, Monica Mason felt obliged to say
:04:05. > :04:10.that you were a challenge to the company. Have you been a challenge?
:04:10. > :04:17.I hope so. I am here to create a different type of conversation.
:04:17. > :04:22.That is valuable. As a hunger and an appetite, they have to engage
:04:22. > :04:26.with the real work, living artists, do things that were not possible in
:04:26. > :04:31.the past. That is the wonderful thing about working with bodies,
:04:31. > :04:35.like people. You are working with incredibly well trained individuals
:04:35. > :04:40.who have dedicated their lives to an art form which, for them, is the
:04:40. > :04:44.most important thing in their lives. You have to have people in front of
:04:44. > :04:47.you who challenge you to think differently and explore new ways
:04:47. > :04:52.and put people in a different way. Talking about doing the impossible,
:04:52. > :04:57.you have done that by becoming the resident choreographer here cut the
:04:57. > :05:02.Royal Ballet the very first person to come from a non ballet
:05:02. > :05:07.background, contemporary dance, the first non- in-house product. The
:05:07. > :05:12.Jew face opposition? Not in the building. I was working with open
:05:12. > :05:16.arms. When there is a type of attitude or agenda in an
:05:16. > :05:20.organisation, you have assumptions. We all look for evidence to
:05:20. > :05:24.reaffirm our opinion before we look at something openly. There is
:05:24. > :05:29.always a little bit of people who don't like the work. That will
:05:29. > :05:34.happen. I don't like certain types of film-makers. There is a taste
:05:34. > :05:39.issue. One of the things about my residency is it is not just about
:05:39. > :05:43.my work, it is about the creativity and the organisation and doing
:05:43. > :05:49.things in ways that have not been done before. One of my big drives
:05:49. > :05:54.has been to offer opportunities to younger choreographers to have the
:05:54. > :05:58.confidence to start making things. That will be part of my legacy here.
:05:58. > :06:03.It is not just about my work, and is about encouraging others. I
:06:03. > :06:06.believe anyone can do it, you can make a dance, anyone can do it. You
:06:06. > :06:13.need to have the skills, understanding and knowledge to
:06:13. > :06:20.start. You are brought a new spirit of the house. A celebrated cultural
:06:20. > :06:25.commentator wrote that the world was a part from the warm, central
:06:25. > :06:31.heating classrooms and the sandwiches off Covent Garden. He
:06:31. > :06:37.says you engage with Concert, a binding cruelty and the technical
:06:37. > :06:41.revolution. The question is, how did you get here? Yukon from
:06:41. > :06:46.northern England, Stockport. Your parents wanted to pursue to be
:06:47. > :06:52.academic. Where did this drive from dance come from? I did not set out
:06:52. > :06:55.to be the resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet. I knew I had grid
:06:56. > :07:00.pagans who gave me the confidence to try anything. I was one of those
:07:00. > :07:07.young people who tried a lot of different sports and clubs. -- grid
:07:07. > :07:14.parents. I grew up in the 1970s, John Travolta, Rees, these were the
:07:14. > :07:17.type of things I wanted to do. I got the bug. As soon as you have an
:07:17. > :07:22.understanding of your body and you have your body working in a
:07:22. > :07:26.language that you're not familiar with, it is motivating and exciting.
:07:26. > :07:30.That kept me going. Then I went into amateur dramatics at
:07:30. > :07:34.university. My parents were keen for me to have a strong academic
:07:34. > :07:41.body of work. They would support the extra-curricular stuff as a
:07:41. > :07:45.hobby. In terms of an education, it was quite broad and well-rounded.
:07:45. > :07:50.You have stayed in the world of academia, even within dance. We
:07:50. > :07:56.will go back to that. You trajectory, I love that along the
:07:56. > :08:03.way you organise tea dances for a local council in the UK, in
:08:03. > :08:08.Redbridge Council, you started your dance company, Random Dance, at the
:08:08. > :08:14.age of 22 and it is still going strong. It is youthful arrogance. I
:08:14. > :08:18.did a degree in semiotics. I came back to the UK. It is hard to
:08:18. > :08:24.become a choreographer and make a living out of it. I came back to
:08:24. > :08:28.London and got this first job in Redbridge and my first job was to
:08:28. > :08:33.animate dance activity in a range of contexts. That was with schools,
:08:33. > :08:37.community groups, bilingual learners. One of my favourite
:08:37. > :08:43.sessions was the weekly tea dance and a Thursday afternoon. For me,
:08:43. > :08:49.what is interesting, the first encounter I had was with an amazing
:08:49. > :08:54.post-modern choreographer called William Forsyth. It was through an
:08:54. > :08:59.elderly lady who told me I had to go and see this incredible American
:08:59. > :09:04.experimental choreographer, rolled and precise. That, for me, was
:09:04. > :09:09.incredible. -- William Forsyth. You never know what will come from
:09:09. > :09:13.engaging with people. Being a choreographer, you have to interact
:09:13. > :09:17.with other people. One of the most powerful things about dance is its
:09:17. > :09:21.opportunity to be able to make cohesive groups of people
:09:21. > :09:27.collaborate, discuss and share ideas. It does not matter what the
:09:27. > :09:32.context of that is, it can be acted as, hip hop, ballet, contemporary,
:09:32. > :09:38.the process is similar. That is why I find it easy to slip around all
:09:38. > :09:43.of those contexts. You are still slipping around. You might think
:09:43. > :09:48.that you may close yourself of here and play with these amazing and the
:09:48. > :09:58.pressure of dancers but you continue with Random Dan's Aja work
:09:58. > :10:02.outside the world of dance with art installations all the world. There
:10:02. > :10:07.are pop videos, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, you are going
:10:07. > :10:13.into the madness of the Olympic Games, London 2012, the festival,
:10:13. > :10:18.The Big Dance, that is part of the Olympic festival in the UK. You
:10:18. > :10:22.will takeover to father's career and get people like me,
:10:22. > :10:29.enthusiastic but talentless dancers involved. -- takeover Trafalgar
:10:29. > :10:32.Square. What do you get from that? Everyone has a talent for dance but
:10:32. > :10:41.it is undiscovered. I would love to give everyone the opportunity to
:10:41. > :10:44.see if dance is for them. It is not that, first of all, I would love to
:10:44. > :10:49.have the first dance for young people. Dancing is important for us.
:10:49. > :10:55.We have to engage with lots of people as choreographers. In the
:10:55. > :11:00.large-scale events, there are experts, choreographers, directors,
:11:00. > :11:05.they teach the dance to a whole lot of people and they do it. That is
:11:05. > :11:11.one way of working. You saw that at the Beijing Olympics. Mass
:11:11. > :11:15.participation, incredible accuracy, detail. One of the things I want to
:11:15. > :11:21.do is encourage people's creative capacity. I want people to make
:11:21. > :11:25.their own dances. For The Big Dance, I want to have thousands of dancers,
:11:25. > :11:30.each making their own choreography with a structure so that each
:11:30. > :11:33.person in that project has made their own dance and are each a
:11:33. > :11:37.choreographer. That shift of power and ownership of material is
:11:38. > :11:42.different to learning from someone else. Let's talk about your
:11:42. > :11:46.choreography. It is a world away from what one might expect of the
:11:46. > :11:51.Royal Ballet, the romantic costumes and storylines and movement of Swan
:11:51. > :11:59.Lake. With the Nutcracker, your work is known for a jagged, rapid
:11:59. > :12:03.movement. Often an absence of narrative. Some have said, I think
:12:03. > :12:09.you said, that has been inspired by your own body when you work. I have
:12:09. > :12:14.got a very long body. I am interested in fracturing lines and
:12:14. > :12:18.dysfunctional behaviour. I think one of the things about
:12:18. > :12:21.choreography is working with expert bodies, you're able to deviate the
:12:21. > :12:27.body in strange ways. That's strange is has an inherent beauty.
:12:27. > :12:32.The body is capable of so much. -- that strangeness. I have to explore
:12:32. > :12:37.that territory. I grew up in the age of computers and the Internet.
:12:37. > :12:41.That way of thinking, and debt -- a dendritic way of thinking, you
:12:41. > :12:47.start of some were quickly Adjei Musa Morrell's. It is lot a linear
:12:47. > :12:55.way of thinking. It is amazing how you work in the world. -- you start
:12:55. > :12:59.of somewhere quickly, -- back neuroscience is connected with the
:12:59. > :13:05.body. You find interesting collaborators that you would not
:13:05. > :13:08.have had access to. I think in a way there is a fantastic function
:13:08. > :13:12.of new technology and the Internet in bringing people together,
:13:12. > :13:18.interesting people together and they would never have been able to
:13:18. > :13:24.have that collision of forces. That is inspiring. We talked about your
:13:24. > :13:28.academic background and how that is ongoing. You have worked in
:13:28. > :13:32.collaboration with scientists at Cambridge University, as San Diego,
:13:32. > :13:39.he seemed fascinated by this connection between the mind and
:13:39. > :13:49.body and dance. -- you seem. You have been described by critics as a
:13:49. > :13:49.
:13:49. > :13:56.new Renaissance man. Not at liberty So much of what happens cognitively
:13:56. > :14:00.is invisible. Some only talk about dancing terms of non-verbal
:14:00. > :14:05.communication. I am here sitting talking to about dancing. When I'm
:14:05. > :14:09.in the studio I am talking about dancers, two of is that ideas from
:14:09. > :14:14.them. I am using intonation, sonification to shape movement. I
:14:14. > :14:18.wondered, what is going on creatively in the mind when you are
:14:18. > :14:25.organising the mind? Through dancing itself, or creating things.
:14:25. > :14:30.There is a cognitive, create -- creative technique. You can learn
:14:30. > :14:34.ways you can be creative and think with the body. We do that naturally.
:14:34. > :14:40.The job of the brain is to make models for things, to look for
:14:40. > :14:45.patterns. To do routines. If I am to get out of the habit of making
:14:45. > :14:49.the things I always do, if the dancers are going to get away from
:14:49. > :14:53.when they are improvising from things they're always tend to do,
:14:53. > :14:58.you have to ask, what are some of the mental models that make that
:14:58. > :15:02.happen? As soon as I can do that I can subvert and challenge it and
:15:02. > :15:12.take it somewhere else. How would that translate for example into a
:15:12. > :15:13.
:15:13. > :15:23.work of yours, kronur, asked what - - which has known as fast-track you
:15:23. > :15:23.
:15:23. > :15:28.here. Minimalist in sight and sound. How does that translate into his
:15:28. > :15:32.theory of yours? It translate to do with the capacity, what is the
:15:33. > :15:38.capacity of eight dancer? The capacity is not an inherent way of
:15:38. > :15:43.moving. It is actually a cognitive map. To do complex core nations
:15:43. > :15:47.with my body going in different directions by have to train my mind
:15:47. > :15:51.to see it and to do it. With something like that work, that kind
:15:51. > :15:57.of rewiring of a dancer's attitude to moving is something that happens
:15:57. > :16:02.in the making of that. How did the dancers react to that? You say
:16:02. > :16:08.rewire. One of your favourite ballet dancers said that working
:16:08. > :16:13.with you makes you feel like your brain has been rewired. But some
:16:14. > :16:18.have been disturbed by it. Darcey Bussell says, you need Wayne
:16:18. > :16:23.MacGregor, he is very nice. Many see his steps and you say, he is
:16:23. > :16:27.not so nice. You push them. have to. To keep engaged in the art
:16:27. > :16:32.form you are working in you have to be really hungry and pushed. This
:16:32. > :16:37.is not a place for complacency. It is a place for experimentation. It
:16:37. > :16:41.is like in anything. Some dancers are receptive and open to the
:16:41. > :16:46.challenge, curious, wanting to engage in the relationship with you
:16:46. > :16:50.and will do anything to facilitate that. I am not a dictator at
:16:50. > :16:54.progress. I am very collaborative in the way I elicit these moods.
:16:54. > :16:58.Dancers offer things as well. They offer opportunities and options.
:16:58. > :17:01.And then you get the dancers who are not into it. They're quite
:17:01. > :17:04.closed it down and have a particular view of the world.
:17:04. > :17:09.that depend on their training? Is there a difference between those
:17:09. > :17:14.who are trained in classical compared with contemporary? Perhaps
:17:14. > :17:16.even nationalities? I think it is partly the training institutions
:17:17. > :17:24.internationally and how different they trained their young people. It
:17:24. > :17:28.is not so much a genre specific. It is not about styles. The
:17:28. > :17:33.contemporary dance world has always had its students' learning about
:17:33. > :17:39.creativity and improvising in a way that often ballet schools have not.
:17:39. > :17:44.But that is changing now. But here, I think it does not matter. Another
:17:44. > :17:49.thing is the individual. Some individuals are curious and open
:17:49. > :17:55.wind -- open-minded and some do not. I always work with the ones who do.
:17:55. > :18:00.How far do you push them? The dance world is known for exotic -- for
:18:00. > :18:05.exhausting them, for pushing them to the edge. You read define what
:18:05. > :18:12.is possible for a body. In that do you feel a pastoral responsibility?
:18:12. > :18:17.On HARDtalk we spoke to another ballet star -- another ballet staff.
:18:17. > :18:23.He spoke of the pain and the sacrifice as well as the jury.
:18:23. > :18:27.course. I am working with him at the moment. Of course there is pain
:18:27. > :18:30.and sacrifice. But dancers are not empty vessels with no intelligence
:18:30. > :18:33.to be able to have that conversation with you. We have a
:18:33. > :18:36.stereotyped view of a dancer that they are waiting for the master to
:18:36. > :18:40.come in and have all of this information and they will do
:18:40. > :18:44.anything they can to make it work and will not say anything. That
:18:44. > :18:48.they suffer in silence. That is just not true. The dancers I have
:18:48. > :18:54.worked with for a long period of time now, they want to come back.
:18:54. > :18:57.They asked, what more have you got for me? There seems to be a
:18:57. > :19:02.voracious appetite for them to be pushed in different directions. I
:19:02. > :19:06.don't experience any resistance. I just don't. Some people find that
:19:06. > :19:09.uncomfortable to listen to. But wherever I go in the world I don't
:19:09. > :19:17.experience that. By Shakespeare is the opposite. Passionate
:19:17. > :19:24.individuals who are desperate for you to be with them. The dancers
:19:24. > :19:29.you meet having this thirst and to learn. But what about your
:19:29. > :19:35.audiences? Are they as thirsty? I am thinking here... There is a
:19:35. > :19:40.Telegraph Review, for example, of one of your works. It was linked to
:19:40. > :19:43.your scientific research. They write, there is great theory behind
:19:43. > :19:49.Wayne McGregor's new piece, but it does not necessarily make great
:19:49. > :19:58.dance. It is interesting. That is one person's point of view. I tend
:19:58. > :20:04.not to listen to critics in that race. I'm not them, they are not me.
:20:04. > :20:10.What is important is that... It is interesting for me when I see the
:20:10. > :20:13.lineage of the work. A reviewer might write about a piece and their
:20:13. > :20:18.first confrontation with it in a particular way. Two years later
:20:18. > :20:22.when it comes to London again it is different. They say that I have
:20:22. > :20:27.changed the choreography, the structure, I adapted it. Actually,
:20:27. > :20:30.the piece is the same and what has changed is the reviewer. They have
:20:30. > :20:34.had the sense an understanding of the peace and have gone to a
:20:34. > :20:37.journey and faced it in a different way. Sometimes when you face
:20:37. > :20:41.something for the first time, you have all of the questions about it.
:20:41. > :20:46.And those questions come out in a particular piece of writing. For
:20:46. > :20:50.some people it is a step too far. They don't have a feeling for it.
:20:50. > :20:54.But I know because at the number of audiences that keep coming to see
:20:54. > :20:57.the work all over the world that there is something that attracts
:20:57. > :21:07.them. There is something that they find maybe. There are things that
:21:07. > :21:11.they find emotional in the work. That gives me confidence to make
:21:11. > :21:15.more. Talking to you about your theory and the passion you have for
:21:15. > :21:20.it, would you say that the process is more important than the product?
:21:20. > :21:22.What is interesting about that question is, it is more whether or
:21:23. > :21:29.not the process has to be communicated with the audience and
:21:29. > :21:35.how much they understand it -- have to understand it before they watch
:21:35. > :21:38.the peace? Some audiences do not like to hear about the process. I
:21:38. > :21:45.am totally OK with that. What is difficult is when you read about
:21:45. > :21:49.the process and then overlaid that onto the object of the dance and
:21:49. > :21:53.look at through a filter. As an audience member you have to make a
:21:53. > :21:57.conscious decision about whether or not you want to watch the object
:21:57. > :22:07.fresh, with no information around it, or whether you want to watch it
:22:07. > :22:13.through a filter. If you simply want entertained? The Nutcracker,
:22:13. > :22:17.something must provoking. The White Cromer. You can come to many of my
:22:17. > :22:26.pieces and just enjoy the visceral thrill of dancers moving for
:22:26. > :22:31.anomaly in space. Or an interesting collision between design and space
:22:31. > :22:38.-- design and choreography. My job as a choreographer is to work
:22:38. > :22:42.choreographic lights in relation to music. All of those hierarchies are
:22:42. > :22:45.unbalanced, if you like. But if you want to come and experience an
:22:46. > :22:51.event, to have something that gives you a direct moment, then
:22:51. > :23:00.absolutely calm without reading of the theory. Hopefully it should
:23:00. > :23:04.still grab you and make you want to see it again. Let me put to you a
:23:04. > :23:09.quote from a celebrated choreographer who says,
:23:09. > :23:14.choreographer is easier than using. Just go and do and don't seem so
:23:14. > :23:19.much about it. -- easier than you think. That is interesting. Often I
:23:19. > :23:23.go into the studio and it just do. That is a practice in itself. He
:23:24. > :23:28.grew up in an area where communication technologies were not
:23:28. > :23:35.how they are now. He has a different way of thinking about how
:23:35. > :23:39.dance is made. The revelation - Mackie replied Jacques -- he
:23:39. > :23:45.revolutionise the way dance was made at this time. Another of his
:23:45. > :23:49.famous quotes is that in ballet the warm and dancer is the most
:23:49. > :23:55.important, the most celebrated. Now if you said that to any male
:23:56. > :23:59.performer they would have a worry with that. -- the woman. It is my
:23:59. > :24:06.job to test some of those stereotypes from the pass. To find
:24:06. > :24:12.new ways. I don't think he would make the pieces he made then now.
:24:12. > :24:16.You feel you still have a long way to go? I have got so far to go. So
:24:16. > :24:21.many exciting possibilities. It is just opening up. The more we start