Wayne McGregor, Alchemies Review 3*
Wayne McGregor, Alchemies is a triple bill marking the dance maker’s 20 years as Royal Ballet Resident Choreographer
This article was first published on London Unattached
The Royal Ballet’s latest triple bill, Alchemies, showcasing the work of its resident choreographer Wayne McGregor, consists of a little gem bookended by two difficult works. The gem is Yugen, created in 2018 as part of the Leonard Bernstein centenary celebrations. Either side of it come Untitled, 2023 and McGregor’s brand new Quantum Souls.
Visually and aurally all are terrific, and the performances by their casts of dancers from all ranks of the Royal Ballet are never less than enthralling, the dancers clearly stimulated by McGregor’s demanding and idiosyncratic movement. The choreographer has always shown a special talent for choosing collaborators that complete and enhance his vision and each of these three pieces comes across as a carefully curated offering.
Quantum Souls – the title not immediately relatable, but a reflection of McGregor’s fascination with science – had its world premiere on the opening night of this run. Its complex stage design (McGregor’s own) required an extra long interval to allow for installation, but when the curtain finally went up it revealed an appealing scene. The flooring was yellow. Upstage right was a complicated percussion set. Assorted dancers in blue/grey and yellow individually styled costumes by the award-winning designer Saul Nash filled the stage, under Lucy Carter’s bright, yet warm light.
The piece is performed to Bushra El-Turk’s Ka for percussion and string orchestra. In the pit the strings offer a discreet bed of extended notes upon which on-stage percussionist extraordinaire Beibei Wang has freedom to improvise. McGregor inverts the normal order of things: instead of the steps following the music, here the percussionist is guided by the steps to offer a fascinating display of improvised sound. Watching Beibei Wang tackle her various instruments proved quite mesmerising.
When it comes to the choreography itself, this 40-minute piece offers few surprises and is, I fear, upstaged by everything else. A dozen dancers take turns walking on and off stage. There’s almost aggressive energy in their interactions, all, whether individual or in a number of varying formations, including gender-neutral duets, marked by McGregor’s signature hyper-extensions and quirky lifts.
For Untitled, 2023 Wayne McGregor sought inspiration from the work of the late minimalist Cuban American artist Carmen Herrera, who created her first and only stage designs for this work. Visually stunning in its simplicity, Untitled, 2023 is danced against the background of a white canvas cut across by a gash of baize green, a combination reflected in body-hugging costumes by Burberry, again individually styled.
Here the choreographer opted to bring a range of steps from classical ballet – fouettés, spit jetés, batterie – into his own hyper-modern choreography, with mixed results. Some work well, for example when a couple of male dancers suddenly seem to levitate as they perform beautifully coordinated jetés; but a female dancer suddenly marching downstage and breaking into a set of fouettés begs the question “why?” Set to an eerie, transporting score by the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, which suggest images of denuded, frozen landscapes, Untitled, 2023 is masterfully lit by Lucy Carter with subtle, almost imperceptible light and colour gradations.
Initially interesting with its reliance on the flexibility of bodies in motion, and the way in which the dancers appear to mimic splashes of colour staining an empty canvas, the work runs out steam half-way through, with the result that if feels much longer than its 35 minutes.
By contrast,Yugen (the title referencing a Japanese concept of beauty only partly perceived) left me craving a lot more than its 20 minutes. It is set to Leonard Bernstein’s rousing, intensely religious Chichester Psalms, sung in Hebrew by a mixed choir, with an ethereal solo by a boy treble, that truly got under my skin.
Against such powerful music, McGregor was wise to allow his choreographic language to convey emotion and longing for a heavenly connection, with Edmund de Waal’s set design suggesting portals to elsewhere.
Shirin Guild’s costumes for the 11-strong cast come in tones of deep red, with Lucy Carter’s subdued lighting creating an otherworldly atmosphere. It’s unfair, I know, to single out one dancer from among a true accomplished cast, but I was completely taken by Marco Masciari’s emotional solo.
Regardless of the merits or demerits of the choreography, the sheer quality of the dancing is the stand out point of Alchemies, showing once again the verve and versatility of the current crop of Royal Ballet dancers.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner Image: Lukas B Brændsrød & Melissa Hamilton in Quantum Souls © 2026 RBO Photo: Andrej Uspenski)
Wayne McGregor, Alchemies is in repertoire at RBO until 6 May 2026.
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