A Beautiful Stream of Consciousness, Meets Stunning Physical Intelligence

More than ever, artistic practice has merged. If nothing else, the collaboration or even bringing together of diverse creative practices has become far more visible. These collaborations can allow those inspired by one creative practice to engage with a new, lesser-known, or less experienced process, by further opening up a person’s enjoyment and empowering deeper understanding across less familiar genres. A retelling of the ballet inspired by three Virginia Woolf’s books and her writings by Wayne McGregor, with a soundtrack by Max Ritcher furhter offers opportunities for a deeper engagement with three diverse creative pursuits. The artist McGregor is an inspiring and eloquent orator on the subject of dance who opens up the subject for each and every one to have their own interpretation and exploration of this mesmerising subject. Find out more in A Beautiful Stream of Consciousness, Meets Stunning Physical Intelligence…Image of left Marco Masciari in Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works ©2023 Asya Verzhbinsky

Collaboration circle

From the perspective of the maker, collaborations are vital because they fuse diverse skills, perspectives, and experiences to spark innovation, generate unique ideas, and produce richer, higher-quality work that a single individual could potentially achieve alone.

Wayne McGregor, choreographer and director, at the 2025 Biennale Danza in Venice, Italy, for the Biennale Danza Awards. LucaFazPhoto

Networks of Excellence

Also, they expand networks and audiences for all involved. They push creative boundaries, offer fresh inspiration, build professional capabilities, and ensure projects meet complex demands in today’s interconnected world. The ultimate experience becomes richer for both the creator and those engaged as viewers or listeners.

Woolf Works, Royal Ballet

Take, for example, the latest dance show Woolf Works, which returns to the Royal Opera House this January, a combination of literature, dance and music, with the creative drivers being Sir Wayne McGregor, Max Richter and Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

Virginia Woolf was a pioneering British modernist writer and a central figure of the Bloomsbury Group. Her work explored the inner lives of characters, time, identity, and social constraints, particularly for women. Noted for using innovative techniques like stream of consciousness to capture modern emotions and feelings, she often focused on the contrast between inner thoughts and external reality. She also challenged societal norms around gender, class, and sexuality, including the fluidity of self, and capturing life’s fragmented moments. Considered groundbreaking in her time, she still remains a subject of literary and cultural scholarship worldwide.

Sir Wayne McGregor, CBE, British Choreographer and Director 

Three of her works were transformed into a ballet by British choreographer and director Wayne McGregor, who has won multiple awards and a CBE in 2011 for Services to Dance. His work is about pushing the boundaries of dance by merging movement with science, technology, and art, exploring the body’s potential through innovative, collaborative processes. He often incorporates AI, genetics, and radical interdisciplinary research to create unique, original choreography for ballet, contemporary dance, opera, and film. His productions have been lauded for daring reconfigurations of classical dance language.

Installation view of Wayne McGregor Infinite Bodies at Somerset House. Photo_ Andrea Rossetti

Resident Choreographer, Royal Ballet

From 2006 onwards, he has been a Resident Choreographer at the Royal Ballet, the very first from within the contemporary dance practice to be invited into the role. With over 20 works for the Royal Ballet, including Chroma (2006) set to music by The White Stripes and Joby Talbot and winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production, to Woolf Works (2015), a full-length ballet based on the life and writings of Virginia Woolf, his works continue to break boundaries.

Physical Intelligence

He’s known for his “physical thinking,” creating new movement vocabularies and challenging traditional notions of choreography by partnering with scientists, coders, and artists. He also happens to be a great orator on the subject of dance. He has talked in the past of dance being a form of ‘physical intelligence’, likening the idea of movement to those of cognitive intelligence, think of our IQ or how we refer to our emotional intelligence, both of which we talk of far more commonly these days.

A Beautiful Stream of Consciousness Meets Stunning Physical Intelligence

So what is physical intelligence? Think of it in the most simple terms of the fact that when we move, walk, dance, stand, etc., we don’t have to actually think about it, it’s an automatic process; a conditioned process that we learn and never really stop to think about the idea we have learnt do do it that way. At a recent event to highlight another work of his at Somerset House called Infinite Bodies, he says of physical intelligence…

‘And actually, when we think about it, more than 80% of our communication in the world, the way in which we interact with the world is through and with our audience. So actually, what we’re doing all the time is we’re sense-making with our bodies. And that’s a, that’s a, a prime example of physical intelligence.’

Wayne McGregor

Natalia Osipova and Artist of the Royal Ballet for Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works ©2023 ROH. Photographed by Andrej Uspenski

He further explores the idea of our physical bodies within the space around us, and at a recent press event held regarding his project at the Southbank, he refers to the previous speaker, saying

Have you ever thought about your back space, the space that’s behind you?. It is so interesting; we see a full physical intelligence straight away. Jonathan came ready to stand here for this speech, and everybody moved back. This is a kind of spatial dimension of community and people, meaning that’s very interesting, right?

He carries on explaining in simple terms complex ideas

Why do we do that? How does that work in terms of interaction? If we learn how to do that better, or learn more about it, or learn about our biases, maybe we can communicate better. Maybe our kind of relationships with others will be informed by this physical intelligence that we can improve. So I guess the big aspiration for me is to say, it, it is almost, an opportunity for us just to think slightly differently about our own bodies.

I really love that I’ve been bringing some of our staff and some other people through the exhibition, they’ve been sort of introduced to that concept or perhaps reintroduced, and then understood that it’s not just dance experts who have physical intelligence that we all do.

Wayne is fascinated by technology and AI and has explored these practices through his works extensively as a creative partner, utilising AI tools trained on his choreographic archive to generate new movement, and in projects like Autobiography, which intertwines his DNA with AI to create dynamic, evolving performances. He leverages AI to explore new movement possibilities, create dialogues between dancers and algorithms, and blur the lines between human instinct and machine generation, using tools from data visualisation to motion capture to push the boundaries of choreography. Asked about his thoughts on the most important technology, he said

I’ve not seen any forms of technology that surpass the live body, the ability to be able to be inventive and creative and spontaneous and respond in the moment and have empathy and love, and fear and feel and sense. So I’m not a believer, I’ve never been a believer that technology is gonna replace physicality.

McGregor uses algorithms, computer graphics, motion capture, and 3D software to analyse movement, create digital landscapes, and build performances where technology acts as a collaborator and even a performer.

You know, one of the greatest moments, sitting together in the theatre watching live dance, where the collective audience breeds together, where you share and watch those elite performers do something in real time in the moment. But what you’re doing is also marvelling in kind of the technology of the body that’s really important.

Real life is in three dimensions, but a screen is two-dimensional. And this is having a kind of psychological effect on the way in which we experience the world. So I think when we’re thinking about technology, I think as we move forward into the future, technology is going be more embedded in our environments, and it’s going to require us to be even more ’embodied’ in our bodies to be able to interact with it.

He has, over the years, taken unusual topics for exploration of the body and of dance, as well as worked with a myriad of other creators in quite different fields. Going on to talk about collaboration, he says

You know, what’s been really gratifying about the works that we’ve made together? The incredible group of scientists and artists, you know, in a way, it’s like a group show in many ways.

You know what we’re doing is working together to think through a problem, and we might set up a problem, and we think we’re going in one direction, but we end up exploring ‘over there’. And that is the beauty of creativity, and that is the beauty of collaboration, and that is the real gift of people thinking together. It’s the gift of people. It’s a version of distributed cognition.

Natalia Osipova in Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works ©2023 ROH. Photographed by Andrej Uspenski

And talking of collaborating, the third party in this ménage of beauty for the Woolf Works show is Max Richter. His work explores profound human themes like memory, loss, hope, and our place in a complex world, blending classical and electronic music to create immersive, emotional experiences that often serve as meditations on history, societal challenges, and the human condition, frequently using art and technology to offer solace and new perspectives. His works are about connecting to fundamental experiences, responding to geopolitical events, exploring the mind-body connection, and reimagining human rights.

Three powerful, stirring and questioning artists together, bringing more than the sum of their individual parts. This piece of dance, with contributions from very powerful cerebral artists who have made something so physically beautiful, with a spiritual, emotive depth, a dance, if you like, layered far deeper than the first layer of movement to music.

Let’s leave with a final comment from Wayne…

So I think this notion of physical intelligence is around how we can prime the audience’s attention to think differently about their own bodies, which I think in turn will help you watch dance differently and enjoy dance more. But also, how is it that you can, for yourself, think about some of these aspects perhaps you’ve never thought about?

Please note that many of the quotes attributed to Wayne here come from the press opening of Infinite Bodies; more of this style of interview can be found on the Channel on the Somerset House website, which you can find here. 

Wayne McGregor’s Olivier award-winning Woolf Works returns to the Royal Opera House 17 January – 13 February 2026. Inspired by three of Virginia Woolf’s novels: Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves. Set to an original score by Max Richter Tickets from £9, available at rbo.org.uk

Wayne McGregor: Infinite Bodies, Somerset House.org Embankment Galleries, Somerset House Victoria Embankment, WC2R 1LA until 22nd February 2026

StudioWayneMcgregor.com  

If you enjoyed reading A Beautiful Stream of Consciousness, Meets Stunning Physical Intelligence, then why not read Infinite Bodies here

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