Between 1751 and 1772, the French philosopher Denis Diderot edited Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts , a 28-volume compendium aimed at gathering all the knowledge in the world. Diderot is a central figure in the Age of Enlightenment, a period that would spark both the American and French revolutions. The thinkers of this era emphasised on rational thought and sought to shake the Church’s monopoly on the dissemination of knowledge in Europe. While the Age of Enlightenment did not address race or gender in promising ways, and catered mainly to a Eurocentric world of ideas, it opened up new possibilities – like the detailed study of the human body through autopsies – creating a fresh pool of knowledge about the body and its mechanics. It is this eureka moment (of the body) that British choreographer Wayne McGregor draws inspiration from, in his 2010 dance work FAR .
The title, FAR is an acronym for medical historian Roy Porter’s book Flesh in the Age of Reason , which studies the post-Enlightenment relationship between the mind and the body in the 18th century. Ten performers dance surrounded by a pinboard of tiny white lights, which are manipulated to evoke extremes in situation and emotion. The set is designed by experimental artists of the design collective Random International. In many ways, FAR seems to combine McGregor’s ability to play up the drama of the human body with a quieter, contemplative energy, as the artists explore their own identities against the backdrop of an 18th century renaissance of the body. The movement is simultaneously sinuous and held; sometimes it pours forth in a stream of ideas, while in other moments, it seems to hold back, watching, calculating, before it makes its next move. The set theatricalises a feeling of being cast out to sea in a mysterious landscape, where the execution of the movement becomes performative, yet extremely self-referential.
In the process of making FAR , McGregor and his artists worked with cognitive scientists to understand the impact of the Age of Enlightenment on what we know about the body. A particular challenge, as McGregor explains in a video about the creative process, was to use this history to work creatively and build rich images – acoustic, visual and kinaesthetic – in order to find new information to make dance with.
An interest in watching the body transform over time is at the centre of McGregor’s practice. As a child in the 1970s, he found himself making up dances and enjoying the process. He found role models in popular culture – John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and Grease – were a major influence. His teacher at a local dance studio let him experiment with making new Latin American and ballroom dances for his peers. This early introduction to creativity paved the way for a career as a choreographer. In a TED talk in 2012, McGregor said, “Creativity for me is something that’s absolutely critical, and I think it’s something that you can teach. I think the technicities of creativity can be taught and shared, and I think you can find out things about your own personal physical signature, your own cognitive habits, and use that as a point of departure to misbehave beautifully.”
Besides making work on his own company, McGregor also choreographs for a host of dance companies, including the Royal Ballet, London. In a video interview published by the Royal Opera House, the ballerina Beatrix Stix-Brunell said of McGregor, “His mind works in shapes. There are patterns of geometry – inversing, reversing, counting, counting backwards, and going in different directions. When I think of his mind, I think of it as laser beams shooting everywhere; it works so quickly.”
The term ‘misbehave’ by him in the TED talk is the key in understanding McGregor’s thought process. It epitomises his approach – multiple starting points and triggers, and no thought of boundaries. It explains the frequency with which the word ‘neurotic’ appears in reviews of McGregor’s work. In the same TED talk, he goes on to demonstrate his creative process to an audience, elaborating on three ways of arriving at a movement interpretation inspired by the shape of the word ‘TED’. Working with two dancers, the first interpretation sees him using his body to write the letters in space, prizing image over legibility. In the second version, he uses the dancers as architectural objects in space, working with a series of movement directions and imagined dimensions in space.
In the final interpretation, the letters become three-dimensional, with the dancers placing themselves inside the space of the letters and exploring their shapes and colours. In this manner, McGregor insists that the experience of inhabiting the human body is the only prerequisite to being creative with the body.
FAR will be performed at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA today and tomorrow at 7.30 p.m; more details at bookmyshow.com
