Week 6-Critique and review Wayne McGregor's piece INFRA

Critique and Review

Following on from my vlog on my chosen choreographer, Wayne McGregor, I’m going to explore one of his pieces in further detail.

The piece in which I’m exploring is “Infra” and the section within the piece is the duet. The piece is performed by The Royal Ballet and is overall 28 minutes long, but the duet I will be exploring in more depth is only 3 minutes. Infra is a piece about life beneath the surface and human interactions; however, Wayne McGregor leaves his pieces up to the audiences own interpretation towards how they would view it. The piece is mainly about inferences and it infers particular types of relationships and therefore the emotional content implies itself.

The duet is neoclassical so a blend of contemporary and ballet, the female dancer is in pointe shoes which gives the piece more dimension as she isn’t always on pointe which gives to varied effects and shows the two styles. The costumes are very plain and basic. The male is wearing a grey long sleeve top with black shorts and the female is wearing a nude top with a black half leotard and her hair is a low ponytail and makeup is natural. I believe that having a basic look to the dancers is a really good idea as it allows the audience to not get distract away from the choreography and the movements. It also links within the intention of the piece and making it as realistic so the dancers can portray this.

Additionally, within the movement both dancers start side by side showing no contact, then throughout the piece the dancers are showing contact work. This shows the audience the relationship between the two dancers and the idea of them constantly working together which I really like as it demonstrates the strengths of the movements by the way he has choreographed the section. The duet has sections where it is very static but others where there is travelling, which adds to the momentum of the piece. The movements are slow, detailed, smooth, precise, clean and complex. These elements all link to the dynamics of the duet which connect with the music used in this section, the music is a violin instrumental. The movements all coincide with the music which shows how clean his choreography is which I really like as it makes him look like a strong choreographer. One element of the duet which I dislike is the over use of high leg extensions, I feel as though its repeated to much; however, this doesn’t make me dislike the whole piece as there are other variety of movement including some abstract movements and gestures which is what makes the piece as a whole unique. There are motifs within this section where the male is leading the female in the movements, this is only in some parts. This just adds a different outlook on the piece. The piece shows a lot of emotions through the movement although both dancers use no forced facial expressions which shows the real intimacy of the dance. As their emotions are being portrayed from within which is highlighted to the audience. The music also allows you to interpret the idea of the piece as it allows you to connect the movement and the music together along with the way the dancers are performing the movement. I personally think the idea of having the emotions of the dance link to the music is strong as it allows the audience to have a clearer idea of what the piece is portraying. When watching the piece, I infer the emotions as pain and struggle as there is no elements in which I think that’s a happy section as the dancer’s faces are showing down and low emotions.

Overall, I believe that Wayne McGregor’s choreography shows many strengths which is one of the reasons he’s my chosen choreographer as he is a strong choreographer and his pieces are all clean and well-rehearsed making them more interesting to watch from the audience’s perspective. Especially from first watching the piece, the majority of the sections of the duet were easily drawn to me and I found it able to identify notes about these parts and i was able to identify the intention of the piece and what was wanting to be shown through the movement, which is what i believe is really important from an audiences perspective.

Video link of the section within the piece- final duet  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bjERnGQiJfg

Link to his ideas behind creating Infra https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4xb5fMJrVKs