British Choreographer Wayne McGregor Is Ready to Storm the Stage of the Met (2024)

LONDON — Wayne McGregor is preparing for the biggest opening of his career.

The British choreographer will premiere his ballet “Woolf Works,” based on three novels by Virginia Woolf, at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York from June 25 to 29.

The ballet is based on “Mrs. Dalloway,” “Orlando” and “The Waves,” with each act representing one of the books. The acts are titled “I now, I then”; “Becomings,” and “Tuesday.”

“It’s kind of insane. My work has obviously been in Europe many times, but it’s really special that this piece about an English novelist with a full British team is going to storm the Met — hopefully,” says McGregor, who a few days ago became Sir Wayne McGregor, and who will be officially knighted by King Charles later this year.

In “Woolf Works,” McGregor breaks with many ballet traditions. He combines three stories into one and relies on a stream-of-consciousness narrative that imitates Woolf’s writing. The costumes are not colorful, nor are they embellished with gems and sequins. And the principal dancer isn’t in their 20s.

“I wanted to completely break with the form of conventional storytelling in ballet, I didn’t want to do adaptations, I didn’t want to do like for like. I wanted an opportunity to make something which was a rendering of an idea, but which also had its own life,” McGregor says.

The ballet is also unusual because the prima ballerina, Alessandra Ferri, is in her 60s. McGregor coaxed her out of retirement nearly a decade ago when the ballet first premiered. She was 52 years old at the time and now, at 61, she will take her last bow at the June 28 performance.

“She’s of the age that Virginia Woolf was when she committed suicide. This is incredible because so often dance is thought of as a young person’s game. Ferri’s got this incredible artistry in her 60s,” he says.

The choreographer says there were a number of reasons for choosing an older dancer.

“Partly, I’m getting older, I’m 54. It’s really important that the stories we tell in major art forms, and the voices that we hear, are not just always the young and youth. As our body ages and changes, we lose something, but we gain something. We invest in the physicality in a different way. We have all of this emotional experience and semantic memory. Given that, we should be accessing it,” he adds.

Many dancers retire in their 40s, but McGregor wants to change this notion, comparing the practice to visual artists who continue producing work well into their 60s and 70s — or even longer.

He is an evangelist for dance, and wants it to be better recognized and funded. A new report from Equity, the union representing performers and creative practitioners, showed that arts funding has been cut by 16 percent since 2017.

“There’s cultural vandalism from the [U.K.] government, they’re taking money away from the arts and cultural education — it’s stopping young people from having the opportunity to develop an appreciation for it [the arts],” says the choreographer, who grew up in Stockport, a town just outside Manchester, in a working class family.

The ballet and opera performances that are being staged at the opera houses have “the scale of Taylor Swift’s [tours] and it has more people,” he contends. Despite that, “the economics around [the arts] just doesn’t allow enough people to [see] it to be able to get involved in it,” he adds.

In addition to his day job as a choreographer, he’s also the director of dance for the Venice Biennale Danza, which runs until Aug. 3. He’s been in the role for four years and runs the Venice Biennale College. Since McGregor joined, the budget for the program has doubled.

“Our big plan in Venice is investment — investment in new voices to make the work that they want and to showcase it, which has that huge element of risk, but massive reward. It’s really starting to bear fruit now,” McGregor says.

This year he’s taking over the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido, home of the Venice Film Festival.

“It’s never had a dance performance before, and we’re taking up the seats from this amazing 1930s cinema. We’re building a stage and using the cinema as a massive light box,” says McGregor, who is also a curator at the Biennale.

Clearly he’s a busy man.

He is artistic director of Studio Wayne McGregor, a creative platform that embraces dance as well as technology, visual art, film, fashion, opera and education. He also heads Company Wayne McGregor, his own touring company of dancers, which was founded in 1993. It is the resident company at Sadler’s Wells, London.

Since 2006, he has also been resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet, the first choreographer from a contemporary dance background to take up the role.

McGregor has shown works at the La Scala Theatre Ballet in Milan, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany and more. He’s even been called upon for movement direction for Hollywood blockbusters such as “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”; “The Legend of Tarzan”; “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” and “Mary Queen of Scots.” Last Saturday his was one of the top names in King Charles’ annual birthday honors list, which is issued in mid-June during the British monarch’s official birthday celebrations. The king is giving McGregor a knighthood for services to dance.

“Building a career in the arts, creative thinkers make a vital and significant contribution to public life and to the nation’s economy while experimenting, risk-taking and challenging convention,” he said over the weekend after the honor was revealed.

“Recognizing that the arts matter, this honor reminds us that every young person given access to culture and creative expression has the opportunity to fly,” he added.

Kevin O’Hare, director of The Royal Ballet, says the knighthood was well-deserved.

“Wayne has transformed the dance landscape in his 18 years as resident choreographer at The Royal Ballet, and all of us are proud to call him a collaborator and colleague. His unrivaled curiosity has led him to create masterpieces that have been celebrated the world over, and his collaborative dialogue with artistic, scientific and technological disciplines puts him at the vanguard of contemporary arts.”