London (flash-back) - 2

Two McGregors for one. Two for one. Two performances in one day. A cool marathon. A visual feast for a dance scriber. The chance to see two works by Wayne McGregor performed by two different companies: Random and the Royal Ballet. It happened on November 2008 and it was very interesting. I saw Entity performed by Random Dance Company at Laban and, a couple of hours later, Infra (in collaboration with visual artist Julian Opie) as one of the three performances danced by the Royal Ballet for its Triple Bill at the Royal Opera House. Both were engaging works, both expressed McGregor’s vision and both were beautifully danced. However, the Royal Ballet performance stroke me as more fluid. McGregor’s style is asymmetric, with lots of torso and arm movements. The Random dancers seemed to have an earth-bound quality that did not go well with McGregor’s style (even though Random is his company), while the Royal Ballet dancers, probably due to their strong classical background, were quite aerial and his dance approach emerged as wonderfully done.