Alchemies Opens at the Royal Opera House, April 18

Wayne McGregor's new mixed bill, Alchemies, runs at London's Royal Opera House from 18 April to 6 May. The programme combines two existing works—Yugen (2018) and Untitled, 2023—alongside a world premiere created in collaboration with young British fashion designer Saul Nash.

McGregor's audiences have never been confined to dance devotees. Artists, fashion editors, and musicians fill his theatres because his productions reach far beyond choreography: scores by Max Richter and Thomas Adès, set designs by Tacita Dean and Olafur Eliasson, costumes by Gareth Pugh and Grace Wales Bonner. His stage is, by definition, a manifesto of total art.

Saul Nash: The Designer Who Dances

The centrepiece of the new work is McGregor's partnership with Nash, who founded his eponymous label in 2018 after years as a professional dancer. His sleek reinvention of sportswear—described by Dazed as "tracksuits for the thinking man"—brought him immediate recognition. Now based in Milan and presenting on the menswear schedule, Nash carries the body's logic into every seam.

"He is a designer–dancer and a dancer's designer," McGregor says. "He works with incredible technical fabrics that are cut for motion and he intimately understands the human form in flow." Nash, in turn, anchors his approach in dance costume history: "I began by modernising what had previously been done for dance—particularly ballet. This approach connects Wayne's dynamic choreography with the cutting and codes of my own design."

A History Written in Fabric: Ballet Costume from Tutu to Bauhaus

The relationship between ballet and costume is one of the great subplots in art history. When Marie Taglioni wore a tutu for the 1832 premiere of La Sylphide, the intention was functional: to expose her intricate footwork. The garment became the icon of Romantic ballet almost overnight.

In the early 20th century, Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes redefined what stage design could mean. The 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring—with Nicholas Roerich's sets and confrontational male costumes—provoked riots as much for what dancers wore as for what they danced. Pablo Picasso contributed the largest work of his career, a monumental backdrop for the 1924 production of Le Train Bleu, now on display at the V&A East Storehouse in London. Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet translated Bauhaus principles into angular movement and avant-garde dress. By mid-century, Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain, and Yves Saint Laurent had all turned their hand to dance.

Yugen: When Psalms Become Space

The bill's anchor work, Yugen, is built on Bernstein's choral masterpiece, Chichester Psalms. Dancers in blood-red costumes by Iranian-British designer Shirin Guild move through a set conceived by ceramicist and writer Edmund de Waal.

McGregor chose De Waal for his liturgical upbringing—his father served as Dean of Canterbury—reasoning that someone raised hearing the psalms daily could translate their resonance into visual form. Guild, a longtime friend of De Waal's, joined the creative team through that existing bond. Her costumes are loose and fluid: simple vests and drop-crotch trousers that move with the body rather than against it. In a standout pas de deux, Sarah Lamb and Calvin Richardson intertwine as Guild's garments flow softly around them. De Waal's set is spare, punctuated by tall, vitrine-like structures that glow and dim, giving the space a breath of its own.

What Comes Next [Expert Analysis]

McGregor's collaborative model may represent the clearest template yet for where performance art is heading. As disciplinary boundaries blur across contemporary culture, productions that unite choreography with haute couture, ceramics, and choral music expand both the audience and the ambition of the form.

Designers with dance backgrounds—like Nash—are likely to find increasing demand in performance contexts, as bodily knowledge becomes a valued design competency. And as this kind of collaborative ballet repeats itself on the stages of major institutions, the form may well shift its cultural role: less a museum piece, more a living laboratory for cross-disciplinary experiment.