Taking the Michael

Controversial choreographer Michael Clark takes on sex and sacrifice with Stravinsky

Michael Clark, with his crazy costumes, punk collaborations and contemporary art aesthetic is often described as the enfant terrible of the dance world.
“But, I’m 44, so I’m no enfant,” he says, smiling.
And these days, instead of working with band The Fall he’s making a trilogy of work  for the Barbican to Stravinsky’s ground-breaking music: last year he produced Apollo, The Rite of Spring (Nijinsky’s original choreography premiered in Paris in 1913 and provoked a riot in the auditorium) has just opened and next year it’s the turn of Les Noces.
And two weeks ago artist friends including Damien Hurst and Tracey Emin donated their work to be auctioned at Christie’s  and raised over £900,000 and will enable Clark to have four permanent dancers and a rehearsal space
 “I was originally drawn to The Rite of Spring by the idea of sacrifice,” he explains.
“ I understand as a dancer, and any artist understands that there’s a certain amount that you have to sacrifice to follow your art.”
Of course, he wouldn’t go so far as to dance himself to death, as in the Rite of Spring.
But there’s no denying that the pagan nature of the work appeals to Clark’s sensibilities.
“There’s a whole sexual aspect to Rite of Spring, very present in the music, maybe why Stravinsky eventually disowned it,” he muses.
“ John Cage said that to make great art you have to be above the erotic side of your nature, but I disagree. Of course, nobody in my work is getting aroused while they’re doing it, people think that though about dance. They think, oh, there’s all that touching, it must be really horny. It’s not quite like that, but to deny there’s a sexual side to dance is to deny part of its humanity.
“It’s a question I ask myself many times : what is dance trying to express? Is it really something that is beyond words? These are all things that are close to the Rite of Spring because of its primitive nature.”
And for this trilogy of works Clark pushes the movement and lets it speak for itself – different to some of his past work in which there wasn’t much actual dancing, but more a variety of music, out-there costumes (often designed the late Leigh Bowery ) acting and art.
This was sometimes seen as rebellion against the confines of ballet ( he trained at the Royal Ballet School) although Clark, having begun as a Scottish Dancer as a child, explains that ballet was actually his way into appreciating the possibilities of dance.
“ When I was seven I went to see Gisele and I thought the men in tights were strange.
But then, when I was 11, I was taking a class with the director of the Royal Ballet and sitting on the floor, watching these enormous people doing ballet I then saw that Scottish Dancing is very limited. In ballet there are all sorts of movements.”
Having left Aberdeen to study in London Clark soon got into punk ( “I didn’t tell anyone at those concerts that I was a dancer. I wanted to come out in one piece” ) and his career began.
Recently, after suffering from drug addiction he went back home to spend time with his mum and get better.
And unlike a few years ago, he has a life outside dance, although it doesn’t include getting in the mosh pit any more.
But with his charm and talent this bad boy of dance is still a riot.

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