The title for this contemporary ballet by British powerhouse Wayne McGregor takes its name from the ancient Greek word "kairos," which denotes the most opportune time to take action; its other meaning is weather. The ballet is played out to Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, re-imagined by experimental composer Max Richter, and against an imaginative set by Idris Khan.

Ailey is the first American company to perform this work. Like McGregor’s wildly popular Chroma, Kairos uses walls to create a starkly dramatic onstage world—the perfect setting for his sinuous, angular movement.

The ballet premiered as part of STEPS, Switzerland's largest national contemporary dance festival, hosted by the Ballett Zürich for the first time in 2014. In 2015, Kairos was shown at the Edinburgh International Festival, receiving a string of 5-star reviews.

PLEASE NOTE: Strobe lighting is used in the opening section of this ballet.

PRESS COVERAGE

"A visually rapturous work. In its climatic U.S. premiere, the dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater stay true to Wayne McGregor’s intellectual brilliance without sacrificing the trademark spirituality of Ailey." 
–Serena S.Y. Hsu, The Dance Enthusiast, 12/19/18 review of Ailey's U.S. premiere

"Mr. McGregor is one of the world’s most in-demand choreographers. His vocabulary combines ballet, modern and various aspects of modern social dance in a clever fusion." 
–Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times, 12/13/18 review of Ailey's U.S. premiere

"Robert Battle has a keen eye for contemporary choreographers who suit the company, however outside the Ailey mould they may seem, such as the cerebral, spiky Briton Wayne McGregor. His Kairos enters a pastoral and elegiac realm. If splayed ribs count as risqué for ballet dancers, for these troupers the soul rides up and down the spine, flexed or not. They treat the movement as tenderly as they do each other. It gains in depth and complication." 
–Apollinaire Scherr, Financial Times, 12/11/18 review of Ailey's U.S. premiere

"[5 STARS] Poetry in motion. Wayne McGregor’s Kairos strobes a clutch of dancers into our gaze behind the gauze of a musical score. It’s divine. The strings of Max Richter’s Recomposed: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons conduct the pace of the group, as they are transported from this fragmenting radiance into dramatic casts of moonlight, sunset, spotlight, day. Lucy Carter’s lighting design takes an authoritative position. As does the London-based artist Idris Khan’s set design. On his first foray into theatre, he layers full-height sheer and printed scores against a black-turning-blue curved wall, deeply rooted centre stage. Against this alchemical blackboard, the fine-cut, abstract formality of McGregor’s choreography groups and regroups. One, two, five: numbers-of-body formulae are repeated. With a precise but sinuous angularity, the mathematical tone of this sum of parts creates the illusion that the dancers have become the notes, and at times, the seasons, themselves."
–Alice Bain, The Guardian [UK], 8/28/15 review of Ballett Zurich's performance at the 2015 Edinburgh International Festival

"The synchronicity of lyrical choreography, vivacious Vivaldi soundscape and cool design, gel together as an artistic masterpiece. This is the fourth work on which Wayne McGregor has collaborated with composer Max Richter; here his ‘Recomposed Four Seasons’ envelop the movement with both dynamic energy and melancholic mood. Through a gauze screen depicting the orchestral score, Spring awakens with a burst of strobe lighting and flashing, fragmented images of the dancers. Like the calm after the storm, the sonic waves of strings accompany a duet, partnered with gliding grace. Shifting through time and space, light and shade, the rhythms of the seasons flow on with dramatic tonal intensity. The choreographic patterns are fully immersed in the music, note by note, step by step; fast paced sequences performed with sleek, slick physicality and meticulous precision."
– Vivien Devlin, The Edinburgh Guide [UK], 8/29/15 review of Ballett Zurich's performance at the 2015 Edinburgh International Festival

The Company premiere of Kairos is supported by commissioning funds from New York City Center.

Leadership support for the creation of Kairos is provided by Simin N. Allison and The Pamela D. Zilly and John H. Schaefer New Works Endowment Fund.

About Wayne McGregor

Born in 1970, Wayne McGregor CBE is a multi-award-winning British choreographer and director, internationally renowned for trailblazing innovations in performance that have radically redefined dance in the modern era. Driven by an insatiable curiosity about movement and its creative potentials, his experiments have led him into collaborative dialogue with an array of artistic forms, scientific disciplines, and technological interventions. The startling and multi-dimensional works resulting from these interactions have ensured McGregor’s position at the cutting edge of contemporary arts for over two decades.

Since 2006 McGregor has been Resident Choreographer at The Royal Ballet, the first choreographer from a contemporary dance background to be invited into the role. McGregor is regularly commissioned to make new work by the most important ballet companies in the world. His work has also been re-staged and performed by more than two dozen companies including Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. He is in demand as a choreographer for theatre, opera, film, music videos, fashion shows, and television.

His ballet Chroma was first performed by the Ailey company in 2013.