The Eye

by Nathan Williams

  Though McGregor is often lauded for his innovation, he says that it isn’t something he strives for. “You just have to ‘do,’” he explains. “You have to jump in and get your feet—actually, your whole body—wet and hope that something interesting will come of it.”

  It’s immediately evident that McGregor’s work, whether in the studio or on the stage, is about much more than dance. “What I’m looking at is human physical potential,” he clarifies. “My goal is to create a brilliant generation of fluent, physical beings. That’s what I do, which so often does reach beyond the dimensions of dance.”

  He cites American postmodern choreographer Merce Cunningham as a major influence. A pioneer in modern dance, Cunningham was known for bringing visual arts, music and technology into his work. “He posited that all of these influences can have an equal weight in performance,” McGregor says. “Dancing and choreography don’t necessarily have to be at the top of the food chain—they’re just elements of something that coalesce to a really interesting, engaging moment for an audience.”

  McGregor lists Zaha Hadid and John Pawson among his list of favorite architects. He has collaborated with Pawson twice. “I absolutely love how he explores the idea of emptiness,” he says.

  To create that sort of cross-pollination, collaboration is essential, so McGregor has worked with artists like Olafur Eliasson, musicians Jamie XX and Mark Ronson and architecture firm Ciguë (he was also tapped as movement director for the Harry Potter films, director for Max Richter’s chamber opera and choreographer for Thom Yorke’s music videos). When asked how he chooses his collaborators, McGregor says he is usually “just a fan.”†

  “I’ll reach out if someone’s work inspires me. Then it’s important to determine whether we have a good energy together,” he explains. “I never go into a collaboration knowing what it’s going to be. Rather, I come with an invitation to explore, to say, ‘What can we do together?’ My most pleasurable collaborations are typically where we are very lost for a time and then suddenly, something emerges—I just love that.”

  Working with people, McGregor says, is the highlight of his job. “Collaboration,” he continues, “is really all about psychology, a transfer of energies, trust and interpersonal skills. Building teams, working toward and achieving something—that’s what I find exciting.” McGregor is still in awe that a part of his job involves traveling the world, having incredible encounters with people “that [he] never could have imagined meeting.” Though he enjoys touring, he prefers when he gets to stay in a city for extended periods of time. “I’m lucky that while making something, I often have the opportunity to stay somewhere for eight weeks or so. I really get to live it.”

  McGregor also appreciates travel outside of his work-related obligations. When he goes to his space in Lamu, a remote island with no roads and few motorized vehicles, he spends time reading and reflecting, or what he refers to as “zooming out.” McGregor also frequently enjoys exploring new parts of the world and references a recent trip to Pakistan and Iran. “I was able to just be a cultural tourist, which was very refreshing,” he says. “When you see the intelligence, the rigor and the beauty of a place that you’ve never seen before, and you start to understand that culture better, that of course also feeds itself into your work.”

  With extensive interests and a deep curiosity, McGregor has lots to say, but frequently, the conversation returns to just that—his work. “I’ve only ever really had one job and that was in the rug department at Debenhams as a teenager,” he explains. “For me, my work now doesn’t feel like work—it’s just living.” *

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  McGregor became Resident Choreographer at the Royal Ballet in 2006, the first person to hold the post in 16 years—and the first from the world of contemporary dance.

  WARREN HOUSE

  McGregor’s fascination with Modernist architecture led him to one of his most ambitious personal projects: the painstaking restoration of his Devon home, Warren House. Built in 1935 for German choreographer and Tanztheater pioneer Kurt Jooss, the house was designed by architect William Lescaze as an angular cluster of interlocking cubes complete with ballet studio and purpose-built dance floor. Now that it’s been revived after years of neglect, McGregor is keen to maintain the clarity of the space, admitting to the Wall Street Journal that the decor is “restrained; monastic even.” As he explained, “I did not want to have too much conflict with the views, the greenery that you can see. We wanted to keep it all really, really minimal.”

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  Moran’s first prop job in film was on The Good Son starring Macaulay Culkin, the 1993 psychological thriller written by English novelist Ian McEwan.

  KRIS MORAN

  The Darjeeling Limited

  The Meyerowitz Stories

  Moonrise Kingdom

  It’s safe to say that Kris Moran holds one of the most coveted jobs in Hollywood. Aside from her notable prop work in hits such as The Cider House Rules and Good Will Hunting, Moran is known as one of the creative minds responsible for bringing the infamous “Wes Anderson” look to life in films like Moonrise Kingdom, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. She spends her time building layers of the cinematic environments—from the hand-loomed carpeting to the keys in the key bowl—that make up Anderson’s beloved film aesthetic. “Filmmakers like Wes know what the movie should look like before I even come in. They’ve seen it already in their minds,” Moran says. “It’s complex because their characters are often built from people they know, or set in places they’re connected to. It’s so important to get it right.” She loves the teamwork most of all, and emphasizes how important “the freedom of trust” can be at that scale. “When someone trusts your aesthetic or work ethic, it allows you to follow your instincts and be bold in your decision-making,” Moran explains.

  She attributes her aesthetic choices today to her background in art. “My studies in painting taught me how important it is to consider every single element within a frame and what it means to hold responsibility for that,” the set decorator reflects. “Wes was the first director I worked with who cared so much about this—his energy for these details is ridiculous, and it’s contagious!” Moran remembers the process as magical, the con­­ver­sations around the monitor intriguing.Each film since has had a unique visual identity, and for Moran, it’s about diving into the mind-set of a character. “It’s empathy that I feel for the actors and all the silent inner work they’re doing to prepare right before the camera rolls that drives me,” she says. Her job lies in the details—the small, everyday objects that make up each set, char­acter and history. “Really, I’m in the service industry—a glorified waitress of sorts!” she exclaims before elaborating on her own de­­termination. “I’m like a lion who brings back the kill after a hunt, and I don’t stop until I am proud of my work. I will fight for what I believe in, no matter what it takes,” she ex­plains, adding after a pause, “and I’ll smile while I’m doing it!”

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  Moran has worked alongside a number of notable directors—Jim Jarmusch, Barry Jenkins, Jodie Foster, Noah Baumbach and Todd Haynes, to name a few.

  Moran emphasizes the importance of tuning in to the work completely. “Everything relates to the project. It’s all I see, like an eagle eye looking for clues in people on the street, in cab rides, on my way home on the subway,” she says. “I see the film’s color palette, and I notice it in places and things I never saw before.” Moran also takes inspiration from her own experiences. As a child of the ’70s, she tends to be drawn to things like brightly hued rotary telephones, colorful patterned couches and shaggy carpets. “I remember details from my childhood, and I get completely hooked on textures that are found within my memories,” she says. Moran’s mother had a keen interest in furniture and decorating—she would often strip the same set of colonial furniture and re-create it according to design trends of the t
ime. And her father was equally talented. “My family owned a paint and wallpaper shop in New Jersey, where my dad was the king of color,” she says. “Before there were computers to read paint colors, he was able to match any sample by eye with incredible accuracy.” From those beginnings at the family store to her own art studies and her career, painting remains a theme. “I approach set decoration like making a painting in 3D,” she says. “I always considered how the eye travels across a painting. Similarly, with a set, I think about how the actors will be seen through the lens.”

  “Whenever I think of The Royal Tenenbaums, I just see that pink,” Moran told Hypebae. The New Jersey native was hired as assistant prop master for that film, a role not to be confused with that of on-set dresser, a distinction that she says many mix up.

  It’s not surprising that Moran takes great responsibility and care when bringing these imagined details to life. “I don’t think of myself as having a vision,” she explains. “I always feel like I’m trying to tell someone else’s truth. In life, lies are too obvious, and somehow the brain knows something isn’t quite right. If I don’t do my job well, the viewer will be taken out of the illusion that so many people have worked tremendously hard to create. The illusion will be broken, and the cinematic experience will be a bust.” And, she adds, “I can’t be responsible for that.” *

  I’m like a lion who brings back the kill after a hunt.

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  “I’m aware, as a black musician, that I will never be seen on par with white people that do what I do,” Hynes told Pitchfork in 2016.

  DEVonté HYNES

  Blood Orange

  Test Icicles

  Lightspeed Champion

  Nearly every interview promoting Devonté Hynes’ latest Blood Orange album, Freetown Sound, has something in common: its location. Washington Square Park is more than a setting for press; it’s a place of inspiration for Hynes—and even appears on his album. Hynes incorporates sound bites that he records daily, and ambient sounds can be heard in the songs throughout.

  “I really like to be alone but surrounded by people,” Hynes reasons. The musician and producer likens visiting Washington Square Park to being in his own apartment or studio. “I get that same feeling,” he says. “It’s really comforting, the idea of finding mental isolation in an overflowing city.” And Hynes actively treats the park like a second home. “I’ll go to write, come up with melodies, production and video ideas,” he says. “I work there, and I read there.”

  “I think part of it is that I never really had that kind of space growing up,” he continues. The child of a Guyanese mother and a Sierra Leonean father who immigrated to England, Hynes was raised in Essex, East London. “I obviously feel English,” he says. “But I spent my 20s in New York, so it’s almost like I came of age here. Now my memories of England are basically just that: memories.” Hynes feels “indebted to” New York, and his love for the city, flaws and all, is palpable. His relationship with the Big Apple extends over a decade. “When I first moved to New York, I lived in Williamsburg. Comparatively, now, it feels like a completely different place, and that’s happened in a relatively short period of time,” he reflects. But he discusses those changes cautiously: “I can’t work out if things are really changing or if I’m just older. It’s easy to point fingers, but maybe it’s just that I’m not in my 20s anymore.”

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  Hynes has synesthesia, a neurological condition that causes the senses to blur. He told NPR that the sound at the top of the Empire State Building registers as a G-ninth and appears “slightly green” with “shades of gray.”

  It’s really comforting, the idea of finding mental isolation in an overflowing city.

  Hynes is a self-described “full-on tourist” and still visits what he calls “the classics”— the Met, Central Park, Carnegie Hall and the Empire State Building, to name a few—with regularity. Recently, he began exploring other cities, too.

  In 2017, he participated in an artist-in- residence program at Numeroventi in Flor-ence, which resulted in a piece titled Suite Per il Servo Moro, featuring cello, piano, horns and synth. “People make fun of me for it, but I’m really in love with Florence,” he says. “I can see myself spending a lot of time there.” He has also been traveling and working in Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Osaka and Tokyo. “I wouldn’t say that I’m running away from New York,” he explains. “I’m just not being here. That’s kind of new for me, and it’s really enjoyable.”

  Hynes claims that he doesn’t have rituals—“I’m too frantic to ever stick to one,” he clarifies—but back in New York, he visits bookstores like The Strand and McNally Jackson at least four times per week. “For the first five years of living here, I was buying obsessively, but I had to slow down. Now I tend to browse more and pick the things that really speak to me.”

  He reads fervently, and always multiple books at once. It is hard for him to name favorites, but he starts on his current reading list: Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell, Tennessee Williams’ Moise and the World of Reason, Susan Sontag: The Complete Rolling Stone Interview and The Paris Review’s collection of interviews.

  “I treat books almost like music. At different times, or in different moods, I need different things,” he says. When Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings was published, for example, Hynes immediately started reading. “But it’s so dense that I had to give it a break. I was in Jamaica recording recently and fell back in the mood.” Hynes also watches “a disgusting amount of TV” and cites film as a major influence. “But I watch a lot of trash, too. My taste has no bounds,” he laughs.

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  Hynes has long found refuge in independent bookstores. McNally Jackson, a personal favorite of his, introduced an on-demand printing press in 2011 capable of producing fully bound books in minutes.

  Hynes’ influences shine through in his work. Ashlee Haze’s poem For Colored Girls (The Missy Elliott Poem), an interview with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and vocals from Malcolm McLaren are among the samples that appear under his Blood Orange moniker. He looks to a multitude of people, both inside the music industry and out, for inspiration. His list includes Alice Coltrane, Joan Didion, Joni Mitchell and Janet Mock, all of whom he admires for how they are “creating and moving through the world.” He stops short after naming a few more “because a lot of the people that I look up to aren’t necessarily the nicest people—like Miles Davis.

  “I’m also a really big Kanye fan, which I know some people never admit,” he says. He reminisces on West’s seminal record College Dropout, which was released shortly after Hynes dropped out of school and took a janitor job at the British department store Marks & Spencer. “I would listen to it while I was working,” he remembers. “It really stuck with me, and even now, going through the years, it’s still inspirational.”

  I’m very aware that the main channel people understand me through is music.

  As an artist at Numero-venti’s residence program in Florence, Hynes stayed at the Palazzo Galli Tassi. The 16th-century palace near Santa Croce Square in the heart of Tuscany’s capital dates back to 1510.

  Meeting Solange Knowles, he says, is another standout moment in his career. “She was the first person who really put trust in me musically,” he admits. “She set the course to help me become myself a bit more.” Hynes helped to both produce and write for Solange’s debut EP, True, and was a featured artist on A Seat at the Table.

  He has worked as a writer or producer, sometimes both, for a slew of other celebrated artists, including Carly Rae Jepsen, FKA twigs, Sky Ferreira and Kindness. He scored Gia Coppola’s film Palo Alto, contributed to David Byrne’s solo album American Utopia and in 2018 performed alongside Philip Glass at The Kennedy Center. Despite working with some of today’s most acclaimed cultural icons, he remains humble. Hynes enjoys the sense of community he has created at his Chinatown studio—“I like people to pass
by, and I’ve always said that anyone can pass through.”

  A composer, producer and singer, Hynes has a diverse set of musical talents, and it is evident that he is multifaceted as an artist more generally. He has written short stories, has drawn comics and is an amateur photographer. A Fujifilm point and shoot, Contax G2 and Yashica medium format are his cameras of choice, and he develops an average of seven rolls of film every two weeks. Though his images frequently appear on his Instagram account, no formal exhibitions are in the works. “One thing that can be a detriment to myself is that I grew up a huge fanboy of certain people and things,” he explains. “People of course have multiple channels, and nowadays that’s more natural, but I’m very aware that the main channel people understand me through is music. If I presented my photos, I would be a musician presenting photos, and that just cringes me out.” Regardless, Hynes continues to leave his footprint on the world of music and beyond.*