''Yugen'' is a one-act ballet by

Wayne McGregor Wayne McGregor, CBE (born 12 March 1970) is a multi award-winning British choreographer and director. He is the Artistic Director of Studio Wayne McGregor and Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet. McGregor was appointed Commander of the ...

, to

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

's ''

Chichester Psalms ''Chichester Psalms'' is an extended choral composition in three movements by Leonard Bernstein for boy treble or countertenor, choir and orchestra. The text was arranged by the composer from the Book of Psalms in the original Hebrew. Part 1 ...

''. The ballet premiered on 15 March 2018 at the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...

, danced by

The Royal Ballet The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in ...

Production

The ballet was McGregor's first new work for The Royal Ballet in two years, and was created for Bernstein's centennial. The ballet is performed by eleven dancers. The sets are designed by

Edmund de Waal Edmund Arthur Lowndes de Waal, (born 10 September 1964) is a contemporary English artist, master potter and author. He is known for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels often created in response to collections and archives or th ...

, a writer and

potter A potter is someone who makes pottery. Potter may also refer to: Places United States *Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US * Potter, Arkansas *Potter, Nebraska * Potters, New Je ...

, and features light boxes. The costumes are designed by Shirin Guild, and all dancers are in red loose-fitted outfits. The title of the ballet means the "beauty evoked with an economy of means" in Japanese (幽玄 in

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

). ''Yugen'' is a co-production with the

Dutch National Ballet The Dutch National Ballet (Dutch: Het Nationale Ballet) is the official and largest ballet company in the Netherlands. History The Dutch National Ballet was formed in 1961 when the Amsterdam Ballet and the Nederlands Ballet merged. The company h ...

, and the company will debut the ballet in September 2022. It is rescheduled from the original April 2020 date due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands The COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. The virus reached the Netherlands on 27 February 2020, when its first COVID-19 case was confirmed in Tilburg. It involved a 56-year-old Dutchman ...

Original cast

Original cast:

Critical reception

''The Guardian'' Judith Mackrell wrote, "McGregor’s choreography is expertly musical, seeking out the lyricism of Bernstein’s melodies in long, floating lines, and riding its energies in such cleverly massed configurations that his modest ensemble can look like a tribe."

Roslyn Sulcas Roslyn Sulcas is a dance critic and culture writer for ''The New York Times''. She was raised in Cape Town, South Africa, and studied English literature at university, receiving post-graduate degrees from the University of Cape Town and Paris VII ( ...

of the ''New York Times'' commented, "remains intensely responsive to the slightly strange fusion of sacred text and tone, with jazzy undercurrents in 'Chichester Psalms.'" The ''Evening Standard'' Emma Byrne wrote that ''Yugen'' "marks a new maturity: gone are the attention-grabbing pyrotechnics, and in their place just sumptuous, lyrical movement." At the 2018

National Dance Awards The National Dance Awards are presented annually in the United Kingdom by The Critics' Circle, and are awarded to recognise excellence in professional dance. They are widely regarded as the most prestigious award presented for dance in the UK, a ...

, McGregor was nominated for Best Classical Choreography.

References

{{Reflist 2018 ballet premieres Ballets by Wayne McGregor Ballets to the music of Leonard Bernstein Ballets created for The Royal Ballet