CriticalDance Forum

See <A HREF="http://www.criticaldance.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000423.html" TARGET=_blank><B>Press Releases</B></A> for news of Random Dance Company's tour of Nemesis, a new work by Wayne McGregor exploring the use of machine and screen. Sounds fascinating.<P><p>[This message has been edited by Emma Pegler (edited October 15, 2001).]

<P><B>RANDOM DANCE COMPANY</B><P>Presents Nemesis<BR>1 & 2 March 2002, 7.30pm<BR>Sadler’s Wells<BR>Tickets £9 - £22, Ticket Office 020 7863 8000 or online <A HREF="http://www.sadlerswells.com" TARGET=_blank>www.sadlerswells.com</A> <BR>Talking Dance: 1 March pre show talk at 6.30pm with Rebecca Marshall, Executive Producer of Random & post show talk with Wayne McGregor with BSL Interpretation by Mary Connell<P>Random Dance Company, celebrates its 10th anniversary year with an ambitious new work, Nemesis at Sadler’s Wells 1 & 2 March 2002. This is the company’s first performance at Sadler’s Wells since Random became Sadler’s Wells Resident Company in June 2001. Born out of progressive collaborations with artists working at the top of their fields, Nemesis explores the interfaces of body, screen and machine – extraterrestrial dance meets reality TV. <P>Here is the link to the <A HREF="http://www.criticaldance.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000423.html" TARGET=_blank><B>full press release</B></A>

Article in The Observer on the forthcoming tour of Nemesis.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Beneath, behind, between the surfaces of even the grandest of buildings lurks a secret army, armour-plated roaches that will survive the worst manmade or natural disasters. Familiar and alien, we regard them as a plague, yet for Wayne McGregor, they have their place in the order of things. In Nemesis, his latest work for Random Dance Company, dancers who start out as people inhabiting a desolate set of rooms end up as insects, their arms grotesquely extended into pincers. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,647577,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

Article in The Times.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>He looks like Rocky Horror’s Riff Raff, he moves like a strand of cooked spaghetti and his choreography is so pumped-up it feels as if it’s about to explode. His dancers inhabit a world that’s closer to Blade Runner than Sleeping Beauty, and his dances are the product of strange, seductive adventures in choreography. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,266-210877,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

"Nemesis" will be performed at Sadler's Wells Friday 1 and Saturday 2 March. I imagine this event will be over-subscribed so you should book your tickets as soon as you can.<P><B>The ugly bugs' ballet</B><P>Nemesis<BR>Random Dance Company<BR>Wayne McGregor<P>by Luke Jennings<BR>Evening Standard<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>In one of the most bizarre art events of the year, choreographer Wayne McGregor has teamed up with Jim Henson's Creature Workshop to transform a company of dancers into insects. In McGregor's futuristic ballet Nemesis, which premieres at Sadlers Wells next month, the 10-strong Random Dance Company will perform with prosthetic steel extensions fitted to their arms. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/hottx/theatre/dance_review.html?in_review_id=490828&in_review_text_id=469423" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A><P><BR>Wayne McGregor is a fascinating man. He started life as a ballroom dancer which is why you see a number of rumba and tango moves and couplings in his chorepgraphy.<BR>

<B>Nemesis</B><BR>Nadine Meisner (probably) in The Times <BR> <BR> <BR>IT’S ALL happening for Wayne McGregor. At 32, the independent British choreographer has never been busier, his diary full of commissions from home and abroad. Suddenly his strange, elusive adventures in choreography, his alien visions and sci-fi landscapes, are what everyone wants to see. <BR>This year he celebrates the tenth anniversary of his company, Random, a milestone being marked by his most ambitious work. Nemesis, which came here last night, is a 70-minute multimedia foray into the “interfaces of body, screen and machine”. The piece bursts with images, with choreography itching to speak its mind. But for all its scrupulous thought and good intentions, it doesn’t add up. <P><A HREF="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,685-223624,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><BR>

Did anyone go see - unfortunately I was away and missed it.

<B>Nemesis <BR>4 stars<BR>Sadler's Wells, London<P>Judith Mackrell<BR>Guardian<P>Monday March 4, 2002</B><P><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Random had planned to mark its 10th anniversary, and its appointment as company in residence at Sadler's Wells, with the acquisition of a new star for its latest work: an animatronic figure that could dance its own steps as it moved among the company's performers. The cost of the project proved prohibitive, but even so an army of fantastically futuristic beings can still be seen marching through Nemesis, Wayne McGregor's unsettling and often beautiful new piece.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4367029,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A>

<B>The Frontiers of Possibility</B><BR>Choreographer Wayne McGregor and Jamie Courtier of Jim Henson's Creature Shop talk to Allen Robertson about their creative collaboration on londondance.com.<P><BR>The cutting edge has never been sharper. Choreographer Wayne McGregor’s radical vision bristles with a restless, relentless energy that is sculpted into lush, futuristic shapes which allow the human body to move in unexpected unorthodox ways. There’s a stunning sensuousness to all this, a kind of seductive future world that is as ravishing as it is unknown.<P>Random, McGregor’s company, celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, and during the past decade he has been as busy as any other three dance-makers you could name. <P><A HREF="http://www.londondance.com/Content.asp?Level=2&SubSection=667" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

Random Dance Company have marked the occasion of their tenth anniversary with Nemesis, the first piece that Artistic Director Wayne McGregor has created for the company in two years. This ambitious work combines the talents of lighting designer Lucy Carter, photographer and video artist Ravi Deepres and features animatronics from Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop, all set to a soaring, pulsing score by sound creator, Scanner. Multi-layered in narrative as well as media, the overriding theme of the work is that of transformation: from harmony to conflict; from grandeur to decay; from human to extraterrestrial. <P>Against the prosaic backdrops of a deserted hotel foyer, a public lavatory and a sparsely furnished sitting room, the Random dancers appear in twos and threes, seemingly overwhelmed by the bleak emptiness of their surroundings. The eye is drawn to their sleek muscularity as they spiral their limbs in and out of awkward, misshapen configurations, finding fleeting moments of harmonious symmetry, creating beauty out of ugliness. Their actual, live bodies disappear from the space for their projected selves to slowly filter in one after the other, imprisoned within the photographic image of the decaying interior: flattened against peeling walls, slumped into shabby armchairs, sprawled on threadbare carpet. This soporific vision suddenly implodes in a burning roiling mass as the entire company of dancers erupt on to the stage against a wall of fire from which they gradually emerge, Terminator-like, as ten genetically modified mutants brandishing shiny metallic prosthetic limbs. Drab realism and the vulnerability of human flesh are superseded by science fiction as an invincible army of steely beetle-black warriors wield their mechanical arms with the same deftness and assurance they demonstrated with limbs of bone and muscle. <P>In an epilogue of pure contrast the choreographer himself appears, making his pliant, elastic-limbed journey across the stage alone, moving in harmony with the projected image of an animated technicolour tube that snakes and swirls around him. The final image - McGregor’s transformation - is that of a delicate moth-like creature, its fragile wings fluttering tenaciously before turning away and being swallowed by the encompassing darkness. Beautiful.

Many thanks DianeP for your review. I only enjoyed the work intermittantly, but i was pleased to read your take on it.

Thanks DianeP - very interesting - I'm sorry I wasn't there.

<BR><small>Random Dance Company - 'Nemesis', dancer: Laila Diallo</small><P>Dance can always divide fans and critics, but Random's latest is proving more marked than most in this respect.<p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited March 06, 2002).]

<B>ET meets the Muppets</B><BR>John Percival<BR>The Independent<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Wayne McGregor is a better choreographer than you might imagine from some of the pretentious twaddle printed about him (in which he has himself not been entirely innocent). What he does best is to set dancers moving in a distinctive manner, often with a great deal of speed and vigour. He goes in for a lot of sharply angled shapes, and that is true of his leisurely moments and static poses as well as the more active elements.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/reviews/story.jsp?story=271573" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A><P>

In some articles and in posts around criticaldance there has been discussion about Wayne McGregor's Kirov project. Many thanks to Wayne for the information below and congratulations on the two new commissions:<P>*************************<P>A few words from Wayne McGregor:<P>Last year, I was invited by the artistic director of the Kirov Ballet to create a work for the New Choreographers programme, scheduled for the Maryinsky in December 2001. Unfortunately, due to Random's USA touring programme and 'Nemesis' rehearsals, I was unable to accept the invitation. <P>Later, a new project surfaced: <P>In June 2002, the Kirov were to present an evening of dance, in honour of Igor Zelensky, at the Maryinsky Theatre during the White Nights Festival. <P>I was asked to choreograph a new 30min work to end this evening - featuring Zelensky (of<BR>course) and Zakharova and a cast of 8 further Kirov dancers.<P>In November 2001, I spent a week with Igor (at the Kirov), watching class,<BR>performances, casting dancers and starting some choreographic sketches.<P>I was to return in March (2002) for rehearsals and then again in June for further rehearsals and then the premiere.<P>However, due to unforeseen circumstances, the proposed evening has had<BR>to be placed on hold until further notice.<P>In the meantime, I have accepted new commissions from Rambert (Oct 2002)<BR>and Stuttgart Ballet (June 2003).<P><p>[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited March 29, 2002).]