“Michael! Michael! “
I’m trying not to get too nostalgic here, as any nostalgia suggests there’s nothing worth dipping into in contemporary culture, but Charles Atlas’ fictionalised account of Michael Clark was like a firework going off in my soul. Something just sparked within me. Epiphany is an understatement. This was something I wanted in on, something that gripped and never let go.
I think about this mock-documentary often, with its jump -cuts and high kicks. Michael Clark, was and remains the doe -eyed doyen of dance, a fawn with a Mohawk dancing iconoclastic post-ballet to The Fall. This choreography was like nothing else. It was witty, sexy and knowing, knocking over preconceived ideas of ballet as bourgeoisie. This was contemporary dance with a waspish, post-punk soundtrack: the aforementioned mighty Fall; Glenn Branca, Wire. Elegance, transgressive art and queer culture overlapped.
Atlas’ restless, cinema verite sat somewhere between homage and pastiche, as did the club kids, really Clark’s dancers: including Gaby Agis, Matthew Hawkins, Leslie Bryant and Ellen van Schuylenburch. They bitch, rehearse and preen, drawing attention to scenesters and the affected, artificial nature of dance film making alike. It’s really meta, funny and pointed.
At a re-screening of this a few years ago, someone I know said they didn’t like it “because the dancers seem too cliquey”. Good old-fashioned irony seems lost on some people. That’s their problem. This film still holds up, indecently fun and a poke in the eye to the trend of over-earnest mid-eighties UK arts programmes.
Hit The North 