London’s Wayne McGregor dances his ‘Autobiography’ at the Touhill

When Christopher Mohnani decided to bring British choreographer Wayne McGregor’s Autobiography to St. Louis, he didn’t completely know what the show would look like. McGregor and his eponymous company, which performs Wednesday at the Touhill Performing Arts Center, don’t really know, either, because Autobiography is never the same twice.

It sounds like a risk, but Mohnani, co-managing director at Dance St. Louis, jumped at the chance to book Autobiography as part of his first full season in charge of programming for the 53-year-old presenting organization. Mohnani says Company Wayne McGregor is just what St. Louis audiences are looking for, and is perfectly aligned with Dance St. Louis’s mission to introduce the city to world-class dance from all over the globe.

Autobiography is created anew each time it’s performed by applying an algorithm to a series of choreographed sequences called “volumes.” McGregor developed 23 volumes—one for each chromosome—by tapping into the “bio” part of his autobiography, collecting information on his genome from 23andMe and Europe’s Genetics Clinic of the Future.

But while the dance is reconfigured every time it’s performed, a few things don’t change: McGregor’s arresting movement vocabulary; an intoxicating original score by Midwestern electronic music phenom Jlin, and stunning industrial designs. So perhaps Autobiography isn’t that great of a risk, after all.

McGregor encourages audiences to see the piece as “a snapshot” of his life, rather than a literal story or genetic map.

“What we’re looking for all the time is concreteness,” he says, “and, actually, dance doesn’t do concreteness very well. It deals with that slippery space of ambiguity. And that’s the beauty of dance.”

Company Wayne McGregor performs Autobiography Wednesday at the Touhill Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $35–$69. For more information, go to dancestlouis.org.