Obsidian Tear Mixed

This work is being performed as part of a mixed programme:

Obsidian Tear / The Invitation / Within the Golden Hour.

Three ballets from three very different choreographers, all closely associated with The Royal Ballet: a world premiere from McGregor, dark drama from MacMillan and acclaimed ensemble work from Wheeldon.

Since his appointment as Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet in 2006, Wayne McGregor has won renown for exploring the limits of what the body can do, through a unique language of movement. One-act works such as Infra, Chroma and Live Fire Exercise combine this virtuoso style with an insatiable curiosity about the role of dance today and its interaction with arts and science in the wider world.

Obsidian Tear is McGregor’s latest work for the Company. In it, he collaborates with the Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, and takes inspiration in part from Salonen’s 2011 symphonic poem Nyx – which forms the score for the ballet, along with Salonen’s Lachen verlernt for solo violin. McGregor takes what he describes as the ‘raw viscerality’ of Salonen’s music and generates a contemporary myth on the intense pressures within the human being.