Four choreographers, from ballet's own vocabulary to kathak, argue for the Royal Ballet's contemporary future on its own Main Stage.
The Royal Ballet gives the Main Stage of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden to four contemporary choreographers in Disruptors, from Thursday 6 to Tuesday 25 May 2027. Pam Tanowitz, Joshua Junker, Akram Khan and Wayne McGregor share the bill.
Most of the repertoire the company exists to preserve was made between 1870 and 1970. This programme sets four living choreographers, each from a different starting point, against that inheritance.
It is the only all-contemporary Main Stage programme in the company’s year, and it plays a house of 2,000 seats more often filled by the classics.
Pam Tanowitz uses ballet’s vocabulary and drops its narrative habits. Joshua Junker trained at the company’s own school and is the youngest choreographer on the bill. A dancer making work on the company that trained him is the oldest route into the job, and the least common one now.
Akram Khan works from kathak, the north Indian classical form, and has spent twenty years showing that it and ballet can share one body. Wayne McGregor has been the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer since 2006, and his work asks dancers for shapes their training was designed to prevent.