Tree of Codes. Choreographic Work. Produced by Manchester International Festival, Paris Opera Ballet and Studio Wayne McGregor. Commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Park Avenue Armory, FAENA ART, Paris Opera Ballet, Sadler's Wells and European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017. Supported by the PRS Foundation for Music and MIF Commissioning Circle. Premiered in July 2015.
- Submitting institution
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Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- McGregor2
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Opera House Manchester: New York; Paris, London, Denmark, Australia, France and Hong Kong
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first performance
- July
- Year of first performance
- 2015
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The challenge was to make an ambitious, accessible work for a large audience, for which I extended the company of dancers, and chose high profile collaborators- Olafur Eliasson and Jamie xx- for very large venues- Opera Garner, Park Avenue Armory and the Bastille.
The piece responds to Jonathan Safran Foer's ‘Tree of Codes’, an artwork in the form of a book carved from his favourite novel. Its post-apocalyptic narrative and reinvention of the process of reading itself creates blurred and disorientating worlds, which provided a point of departure for our collaboration on stage – echoed in designed constellations of light, shadows, bodies, objects and sound. For the research process, II examined the book page by page, drawing on both the content and structure of the artwork to create a visceral, physical movement language, echoing Eliasson’s visual concept for the work, a sequence of disorientating landscapes where the audience become a critical part of constructing the space, and are a translation of the physical impact and visceral nature of reading Foer’s novel. Jamie xx’s musical compositions were also inspired by his own physical reaction to the novel, reflecting the rhythmic nature inherent in the words and spaces of Safran Foer's work.
Research questions led to processes that included; theatrically making the body disappear; to multiply (without video) an analogue solution; seeing movement traces like kinetic paintings; achieving kinetic engagement from the audience by them participating in the work itself; the interpenetration of body and technology; expressing choreography through non-human means. To develop, these processes, I was inherently researching in the development phase: modes of perception; somatic transfer, vicarious touch, kinaesthetic empathy, multi-modal stimuli and touching on interoception – how the chemical states in your body, what you ‘feel’ is changed by your responses to your environment and processing of inputs.
https://waynemcgregor.com/productions/tree-of-codes
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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