WAYNE MCGREGOR
DIRECTOR AND
CHOREOGRAPHER
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes is a beautiful
architectural object. It’s very tactile—it almost has
a body.
At the same time, it challenges the very way you
experience reading. The story and the poetry in
Tree of Codes are so magnetic, conjuring a whole
range of visual, sonic and kinaesthetic images. I felt
it would really be a phenomenal project to try and
translate this book in some way through dance,
imagery and sound—a new iteration.
Initially, our process began with a series of
fascinating conversations: about Tree of Codes,
about our work, about audiences and, critically,
about feeling—how could we genuinely share
aspects of this narrative through our own filters,
while embracing the audience in a sensory
adventure? Swimming in these references and
propelled by the ever-rich content held within the
secrets of Tree of Codes, we each started to develop
ideas—atoms of thought and practice. These
experiments took us in diverse creative directions
and formed the basis of our next exchanges.
The physical language uses the text as a primary
point of departure. Its meaning, its feeling, its
organisation on the page, the negative spaces
between words and the layer upon layer of ideas
all become open for new interpretations.
The choreography attempts to ingest these
generative moments into a visceral experience,
charged with a true emotional temperature. It
has been inspiring exploring a dialogue between
the dancers from the Paris Opera and my own
company, each of whom brings a very individual
style to the work. Each body, with its own history
and signature, solving our physical questions in
many different ways.
The enigmatic environment Olafur has created
is a brilliantly disorientating challenge for both
the dancers’ bodies in space and the audience
as a critical part of constructing this space. It
reminds us of the full circle of exchange between
performers and meaning makers, and encourages
us to reach beyond, through, inside and outside
the proscenium. This incredible prism evokes
an otherworldly reality where Jamie’s rich sonic
landscapes, ethereal songs and primal beats
inhabit our bodies—making us all want to dance.
—WAYNE MCGREGOR