Lorna Irvine reviews 'a compelling tribute' to Michael Clark from the 80s.
Michael Clark, arguably as much as Merce Cunningham in the sixties, freed ballet from the tutu.
He emerged fully-formed in the mid-eighties, bringing a post-punk sensibility to the art form through working with Manchester indie art noiseniks The Fall, literally tearing a new arse through tradition by wearing Body Map designer clothes with bare bums and prosthetic breasts.
Charles Atlas' rarely seen 1986 film is both knowing lampoon and witty homage to dance scenesters, following a twenty-three year old Clark and his circle of friends around London rehearsal studios, clubs and flats. Stylistically, it borrows from Peter Greenaway, as evinced by the opening tableaux with a decadent Ruebens-esque feast; Godard with jump-cuts and Warhol's screen-tests as the friends testify to Clark's genius.
Many of the featured artists went on to attain fame in their own right: a very young , pre-Turner Prize winning Grayson Perry pops up, along with performance artist Leigh Bowery, muse to Lucien Freud Sue Tilley, and future Alter Image presenter Scarlett.
Some of it admittedly hasn't aged well—the tinny sound is not the best, nor some of the crude Hi-NRG dance music, and one can only imagine it looking ravishing in digital HD rather than videotape, but as a chronicle of mid-eighties dance culture, it holds up well: full of seedy, druggy glamour.
Of course, the finest scenes happen when Clark is given centre stage- full of cheeky charisma (''I got kicked out of my dance college,'' he grins, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, ''for glue sniffing at midnight'') and a mesmeric dancer, along with Matthew Hawkins and Gaby Agis, his jagged, precise choreography mirroring the soundtrack by Glenn Branca and The Fall.
As appointed Fall muse, Clark and his troupe flex and pirouette to Copped It and Spectre V Rector by The Fall in S/M inspired clothing with a surreal polka dot, acid-bright backdrop. Mark and Brix Smith have a cameo spouting their trademark stream-of-consciousness stuff completely deadpan, until Brix gets the giggles.
What strikes you most of all, however, is the real spirit of inclusivity: fat, thin, gay, transgender, cross dresser, black, white—all were accepted and embraced within the alternative/dance community, even then.
A compelling tribute to the Dirty Angel of dance, as beautiful and provocative back in the day as he is now.
Chosen and introduced by Sarah McCrory, Director of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. Run ended.
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