Yugen (ballet)

External video
Yugen – pas de deux (Sarah Lamb, Calvin Richardson, The Royal Ballet), YouTube video
How Leonard Bernstein inspired Wayne McGregor's 21st century ballet Yugen, YouTube video
Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon rehearse ballets inspired by Bernstein, YouTube video

The ballet was McGregor's first new work for The Royal Ballet in two years, and was created for Bernstein's centennial.[1] The ballet is performed by eleven dancers.[2] The sets are designed by Edmund de Waal, a writer and potter, and features light boxes.[2] The costumes are designed by Shirin Guild, and all dancers are in red loose-fitted outfits.[2] The title of the ballet means the "beauty evoked with an economy of means" in Japanese (幽玄 in kanji).[1][2]

Yugen is a co-production with the Dutch National Ballet. The company was originally scheduled to debut the ballet in April 2020 but it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands.[3][4]

Original cast:[5]

The Guardian's 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."[6] Roslyn Sulcas 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.'"[1] The Evening Standard's Emma Byrne wrote that Yugen "marks a new maturity: gone are the attention-grabbing pyrotechnics, and in their place just sumptuous, lyrical movement."[7]

At the 2018 National Dance Awards, McGregor was nominated for Best Classical Choreography.[8]