Last Updated on November 23, 2025
McGregor channels Atwood in The European Premiere of MaddAddam
The Royal Ballet presented MaddAddam on Opening Night to rapturous applause – it was met with a well-deserved standing ovation. A new three-act ballet by Sir Wayne McGregor, with an inspired creative team behind him and the most enthusiastic and committed dancers, completely immersed in the story and the choreography MaddAddam is a wonderful collage of choreography, music, visual imagery and the use of words, both spoken and sung.
The ballet MaddAddam is based on the trilogy of books by Margaret Atwood, the Creative Consultant for this production. The trilogy consists of Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam, published between 2003 and 2013; they are set in a dark futuristic world that could be closer than we would like, and study the themes of dystopia, love and loss, pride, survival and hope for the future.
Wayne McGregor, the Royal ballet Resident Choreographer, and his team have been able to stage the story as a ballet, and set it as an imaginative and thought-provoking tale, which is abstract in the sense that it moves back and forth between the past, present and future, and which contemplates complex themes, such as what makes us really human; can we live without aggression, romantic rivalry, or symbolic thinking and ritual; can we live in harmony with our environment?
MaddAddam was first performed in Toronto in 2022 and is a co-production with the National Ballet of Canada. The opening night’s performance by the Royal Ballet was its European premiere.
The stunning and dynamic music is by the British composer Max Richter, who likes to fuse classical technique with electronic technology. He has worked with McGregor before in Infra (2008), Woolf Works (2015) and now MaddAddam (2022). The set design was by We Not I, costume design by Gareth Pugh, lighting design by Lucy Carter, film design by Ravi Deepres, dramaturgy by Uzma Hameed and sound system design by Chris Ekers.
The title of the first act is Castaway, which is introduced by a Biblical-like text, narrated by Tilda Swinton, ‘In the Beginning there was chaos…the chaos makes them do bad things…and Oryx only had one desire – she wanted the people to be happy…and so Crake took the chaos, and he poured it away…’ and we meet The Snowman/ Jimmy, danced wonderfully by Joseph Sissens, dressed in a black shirt, long grey tartan shorts and a red cap. He dances before a backdrop of tall trees, thinking he is the last man alive in the aftermath of a global pandemic – the Waterless Flood.
He reminisces about Oryx whom he loved, danced exquisitely by Fumi Kaneko, in a shimmery white dress. She was the partner of Crake, a superb William Bracewell, dressed all in black, portraying the brilliant but proud scientist and bioengineer. The three of them dance together, in an elegant trio showing their mutual love and dependence. In Act 1, Oryx and Crake are dead – because Act 2 goes back in time. The Snowman now leads the Crakers, a people that Crake created through genetic engineering, to be a peace-loving people – no aggression, no sexual or romantic rivalry, no general violence and no violence against women, a people who live in harmony with nature.
We are next introduced to other survivors; Toby is a former member of the eco-pacifist God’s Gardeners group, danced elegantly by Melissa Hamilton dressed in a rather lovely pink boiler suit. She dances first with her blond hair down and remembers dancing with her love, Zeb (a terrific Lukas B. Brӕndsrǿd).
We also meet her friends, Ren, an exotic dancer (Sae Maeda, dressed in gold) and Amanda (Leticia Dias). The music becomes more agitated as we meet the strange Pigoon creatures, monsters like with large arms and heads, who the various dancers inside control splendidly. There is a big red eye on the backdrop and the violent Painballers enter with their cruel leader Blanco, played with menace by Gary Avis, attacking Amanda and murdering her, a backdrop of wolves projected behind the scene, then a sinister splash of red.
The Act ends with the Crakers, their faces masked with stocking-like fabrics to create the effect of blank featureless heads, visually capturing their uncanny non-humanness. They listen to a Creation story explaining how Crake made them, and how Oryx wanted them to be able to sing because she loved birds and if people cannot sing, they are ‘like stones’.
The second act, Extinctathon, starts at the beginning of the story, in which the teenage Crake and Jimmy are playing a computer game about extinction and survival. The scene takes us into the game and simultaneously shows Crake’s later bioengineering efforts as a scientist; set in a laboratory, all the characters are dressed in white, and Crake and his scientists are carrying out experiments.
We meet Adam here (Giacomo Rovero), the leader of the God’s Gardeners group. There is a particularly expressive duet between Adam and Zeb, invoking the biblical relationship between God and Adam, both yearning for a new world.
Time moves back and forth; we see the interactions between the characters throughout time, such as Blanco’s abuse of Toby. There is a spectacular instant when the dancers take turns to spin in superlatively fast chaḯné turns. To appease Oryx, who wants the chaos taken away, and to assert order, Crake decides to end it all and bring in ‘the Great Rearrangement’. He creates both the Crakers and also a deadly virus that will wipe out humanity.
In the third act, ‘Dawn’, it seems as though most things have gone according to Crake’s plan – everyone is living in harmony and the world is populated by evolved Crakers who have cross-bred with the surviving humans. There is no strife over relationships and there is a delightful scene when all the Crakers dance together and pair off at the end in pairs for seasonal reproduction, with no rivalry!
However, although Craker did not want his people to create rituals, they do, because that part of their humanity remains; they create effigies, keep sacred objects of their ancestors such as their clothes, hats and caps, a gun, and believe Oryx and Crake are gods. They create rituals and start creating stories about their past. Marco Masciari was wonderful as Blackbeard, the descendent of Adam, who performs a sublime solo and gives Jimmy’s hat to a young Craker at the end.
MaddAddam is a dynamic ballet, rich on many levels and able to astound and excite the audience. The choreography is excellent, and the music and work of the creative team are exceptional. It was wonderfully conducted by Koen Kessels, and well done to the orchestra.
MaddAddam runs from 14 – 30 November, and there is another incredible cast to see as well; Marcelino Sambé, Yasmine Naghdi, Matthew Ball, Leo Dixon/Harris Bell and Claire Calvert.
Highly recommended, get a ticket while you can!
Royal Ballet and Opera
Bow Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2E 9DD
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