Wayne McGregor: UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey

Duration: 70 minutes

UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey is a moving meditation on the climate crisis, exploring themes of exploitation, destruction, apathy and ultimately hope. Originally inspired by The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson’s cult fantasy movie about an ailing planet and a divided race, this piece depicts an earth riven by extremes and urgently in need of healing.
Immersive digital environments and cutting-edge costumes create a stunning blend of fantasy and documentary, while high tensile choreography in dialogue with spoken word, powerfully evokes the inseparability of humanity and nature. Performed by the extraordinary dancers of Company Wayne McGregor, this is a modern eco-myth that asks how we can come together to be whole again.

A team of world-class creatives led by choreographer and director Wayne McGregor, includes composer Joel Cadbury, film designer Ravi Deepres, lighting designer Lucy Carter, spoken word artist Isaiah Hull, dramaturg Uzma Hameed, costume designer Philip Delamore and face-and-body artist Alex Box, with special thanks to Brian and Wendy Froud.

Wayne McGregor

Born in 1970, Wayne McGregor CBE is a multi-award winning British choreographer and director, internationally renowned for trailblazing innovations in performance that have radically redefined dance in the modern era. Driven by an insatiable curiosity about movement and its creative potentials, his experiments have led him into collaborative dialogue with an array of artistic forms, scientific disciplines, and technological interventions. The startling and multi-dimensional works resulting from these interactions have ensured McGregor’s position at the cutting edge of contemporary arts for nearly three decades. 

In 1992 McGregor founded Random Dance, which has grown into Studio Wayne McGregor to encompass his extensive creative output in fields both beyond, and in dialogue with dance. Company Wayne McGregor, his ensemble of highly skilled dancers, was the original instrument through which McGregor evolved his distinctive visual style, revealing the movement possibilities of the body in ever more precise degrees of articulation. McGregor has made over thirty works for the company and today it continues to be his laboratory for ambitious and experimental new choreography, touring his work across the UK and around the world. Company Wayne McGregor is Resident Company at Sadler’s Wells, London.

Since 2006 McGregor has been Resident Choreographer at The Royal Ballet, the first choreographer from a contemporary dance background to be invited into the role. McGregor's work has earned him a multitude of awards including four Critics' Circle Awards, two Time Out Awards, two South Bank Show Awards, two Olivier Awards, a prix Benois de la Danse and two Golden Mask awards. In 2011 McGregor was awarded a CBE for Services to Dance and in 2021 was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Prix de Lausanne.