Viva Brighton Issue #68 October 2018

DANCE
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Michael Clark
Homage to his heroes
Photo by Hugo Glendinning
“I think it’s quite a strange thing to choose to
do. I understand why people can be resistant to
it because it looks… weird.” It’s not exactly the
way you imagine a choreographer talking about
dance. But Michael Clark never has been much
like other choreographers.
A Royal Ballet School graduate who swapped
tutus and leotards for toilet bowl hats, giant
dildos and on-stage nudity, his avant-garde
approach and close alliances with artists and
musicians quickly turned him into a cult figure
of the 1980s. The following decade was less
joyful, characterised by the loss of various
friends and a messy heroin addiction.
These days he’s moved on from the shock
shenanigans of his early career. “The classical
ballet world was an easy place to be provocative.
The only thing that the critics would write about
were these attention-grabbing elements, not the
dance itself.” Now, having emerged from relative
oblivion to regain his place as one of dance’s
most unpredictable stars, he is more concerned
with how one remains relevant with age.
He founded his company back in 1984, partly
as a defence against the inevitable redundancy
that awaits an aging dancer, partly because there
wasn’t enough work being made that interested
him. He still choreographs on his own body first,
alone in his studio at night. “It’s the only way I
can make work. If I can’t do it, it doesn’t seem fair
to ask someone else to do it. But really it’s about
understanding something from the inside.”
It was a shrewd move but not without its
challenges. It’s strange to work now with dancers
half his age, he muses: “They’re much more
physically capable than I am.” Then there’s
the popular assumption that artists make their
best work when they’re young. “How do you
keep being interesting? You’re deteriorating
physically so you strive for something deeper.”
It’s one reason Clark has always held David
Bowie up as an icon. “Bowie is a good example
of someone for whom each new thing challenged
what had gone before,” he says. When the star
died in January 2016, Clark was devastated. His
latest show, to a simple, rock ’n’ roll… song pays
tribute to the music of Patti Smith and Erik
Satie but particularly to Bowie, with a haunting
piece underpinned by his Black Star and Aladdin
Sane realised as a wild, Dadaist riot.
There’s a glimmer of the old mischief when Clark
describes how he has planned a cameo for himself
dancing to Little Fat Man, the song Bowie wrote
for Ricky Gervais when he appeared in Extras.
When Clark met Bowie in 2012 he says: “I felt
like Ricky Gervais in a way. Everything I said
he bounced back on me. He said ‘Michael, this
music, fashion, costumes, dance thing… it won’t
catch on, you know.’”
Does he imagine that he, like Bowie, will be
making new work until the end? “I hope so,” he
says. “I just hope it’s still interesting.”
Nione Meakin
Brighton Dome, Oct 10th, 7.30pm
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