Q & A With choreographer Wayne McGregor

In Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes, he took Bruno Schulz’s book, Street of Crocodiles, and physically cut words out from the text to leave a new story on the page. Why did you think that would be a good starting point for a ballet?

The book is amazing. It’s part architectural art object, part novel, part exploration of the process of reading. What I loved is the idea that Jonathan took a book that’s 80 years old and transformed it into another art object. I love those processes of transformation, so wouldn’t it be interesting to transform the book into an object for the stage? Jonathan is super-excited about it.

You’re working with the artist Olafur Eliasson and musician Jamie xx. How did you all translate the book into a new contemporary ballet?

We’ve worked out how we can take this material and convert it into something else. So Jamie found a way of writing an algorithm that plays the text and the spaces on the page, and that gives him a rhythmic structure to write over the top of. I tried to do the same physically with the dancers. Sometimes we would work with the narrative content on the page, sometimes we’d work with the space in between words, and sometimes we’d work with the pages blown up and dance inside them. It’s like a structural game, a collage, a little bit of a maths puzzle.

Have you retained the mood of Foer’s story?

That was one of the things we really wanted to capture. It is an apocalyptic, end-of-the-world story; what would you do if you only had 24 hours left? I think that definitely permeates the physical look and the environments we’ve built.

What is Eliasson doing with the designs?

It’s very light-based; lots of refracted surfaces and dichromatic membranes which change colour. Sometimes he cuts holes out of the stage, as with the book.

And what about Jamie xx’s music?

It’s pretty epic in places yet, at the same time, the intimacy of his work is breathtaking. You’ve got these tiny miniatures which are really haunting and beautiful, and then you’ve got this driven, very propulsive sound. It’s exciting.

When you’re collaborating, how much time do you actually all spend together?

This project took four years to develop. But you have times of concentration, where Jamie and I will both be in the studio in Berlin, or we’d meet in London, or at Olafur’s studio. Presence is really important. You can’t do a collaboration like this without spending time together.

You’ve collaborated with lots of interesting people: Thom Yorke, Mark Ronson and Gareth Pugh, Ben Frost, Audrey Niffenegger. How does it work? Do you just ring these people up?

I’m lucky in that I obviously approach a lot of people, but lots of people approach me. Interesting people are usually connected to other interesting people. I did Paloma Faith’s thing for the Brits because she was in my youth dance group at the Place. If somebody says, “I’m a fan of what you do and I’ve got this idea. What do you think?”, in my experience, people are very open, even if they’re extraordinarily busy. I tend to have a few relationships with artists on the go at the same time.

Your book of contacts would be very valuable ...

I do have a great contacts book. I just think there are so many brilliant people out there. I love being inspired and in a room with them to see what we might be able to do together.