ARTISTS

Wayne McGregor and his company Random Dance will work closely with Pan Optikum in the months ahead to develop this once-in-a-lifetime experience. McGregor’s choreography will embrace a 100 strong dance company of local people of all ages, as well as professional performers. German performance company Pan Optikum - who specialise in epic, outdoor, spectacular events - will animate buildings, create the stunning, large-scale fire objects, and interweave the theatrical and pyrotechnical elements of the show. Electronic wizard and super-talented musician/composer Scanner provides the soaring sounds to complement the sights.

WAYNE MCGREGOR

Wayne McGregor is a multi award-winning British choreographer, renowned for his physically testing choreography and groundbreaking collaborations across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science. He is Artistic Director of Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, Resident Company at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London and Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet (appointed 2006). In January 2011, McGregor was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). From 2008-2010 McGregor was appointed the government’s first Youth Dance Champion. In 2004 McGregor was a Research Fellow at the Experimental Psychology department of Cambridge University.

McGregor is a frequent creator of new work for La Scala, Milan, Paris Opera Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, New York City Ballet, Australian Ballet and English National Ballet; as well as movement director for theatre and film (including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). In 2010, McGregor had two Royal Ballet revivals – Infra and Chroma -  as well as premieres for New York City Ballet (Outlier, May 2010) and Stuttgart Ballet (Yantra, July 2010). In 2011, Wayne will premiere new work for The Royal Ballet and The Paris Opera Ballet, as well as an opera/dance collaboration with Mark-Antony Turnage, for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance at Sadler’s Wells. In 2012, McGregor will create a major public dance work in Trafalgar Square for the Olympics, and in 2013 he will create a new Rite Of Spring for Bolshoi Ballet.

WAYNE MCGREGOR | RANDOM DANCE

Wayne McGregor | Random Dance was founded in 1992 and became the instrument for McGregor to evolve his fast and articulate choreographic style. The company became a byword for its radical approach to new technology and incorporating animation, digital film, 3D architecture, electronic sound and virtual dancers into the live choreography. In Nemesis (2002), dancers duelled with prosthetic steel arm extensions to a soundtrack incorporating mobile phone conversations; in AtaXia (2004), McGregor's fellowship with the Experimental Psychology department of Cambridge University fuelled the choreography; in Entity (2008), choreographic agents are imagined to a soundscape created by Coldplay collaborator Jon Hopkins and Joby Talbot; and in FAR (17-20 November, 2010), cutting edge design is fused with choreography made from a radical cognitive research process.

Wayne McGregor | Random Dance is Resident Company of Sadler's Wells, London.

www.randomdance.org

PAN.OPTIKUM

The Pan Optikum action theatre ensemble, under the artistic direction of Sigrun Fritsch, has specialised in site-specific open-air theatre and music productions as well as multi-disciplinary performances with theatres and cultural institutions. Invitations to major theatre festivals all over the world are indicative of the esteem in which the ensemble is held internationally.

Artistically, Pan Optikum seeks to bridge the gap between the genre of action theatre and themes taken from literature, classical theatre and opera. Past work includes Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium (1998), Schubert’s Winterreise with the Freiburger Barockorchester (2000), Orpheus at the Ruhr Triennale (2004), The Civil Wars by Philip Glass with the Freiburg Opera (2004) and the Duisburg Philharmonik Orchestra (2007), Medesa. Stimmen with the Freiburg Theater (2007) and Carmina Burana with the Basel Opera in the antique Theatre of Kaiseraugst/CH (2008).

www.theater-panoptikum.de

SCANNER

British artist Robin Rimbaud traverses the experimental terrain between sound, space, image and form, creating absorbing, multi-layered sound pieces that twist technology in unconventional ways.

Scanner is committed to working with cutting edge practitioners and has collaborated with artists including Bryan Ferry, Radiohead, Laurie Anderson, The Royal Ballet, Merce Cunningham and Random Dance companies, Michael Nyman, Steve McQueen, Derek Jarman and Philips Design. 

Since 1991 he has been intensely active in sound art, producing concerts, compositions, installations and recordings including the albums Mass Observation (1994), Delivery (1997), and The Garden is Full of Metal (1998). His work has been presented throughout the globe and he has produced work for the Tate Modern, Artangel, The Science Museum, The Royal Opera House, the Hayward Gallery, The Pompidou Centre, Hanoi Opera House, Kunsthalle in Vienna and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

www.scannerdot.com