Mmm… yeah…

Mmm…. Stravinsky Project Part 2
Dance Umbrella 2006 (III)
Barbican, 30 October 2006

 

A punter coming to a Michael Clark performance with no prior knowledge or inkling of what they were in for would be pretty intrigued by the programme cover. Naked female dancer arched backwards, breasts bared skywards, with slicked down painted on additional black hair and a Hitler mustache.

It’s not going to be Swan Lake.

The dancer is in fact, barely recognisably, Amy Hollingsworth; until recently the darling of Rambert and a key member of Bonachela’s new venture. She’s joyously right at home with Clark. Annoyingly, Clark doesn’t do pics with his dancers’ bios so I’m sticking my neck out after a google search that it’s Melissa Hetherington, but I was mesmerised by her. Fabulously massive eyes topping an incredibly strong, agile and beautiful tiny body – she was particularly stunning during “Rite..” in a vagina defying split leg catsuit. Tit tape at work or Bodymap magic? You decide.

The show opens with four pieces set to music by Wire, PiL, Sondheim’s Send in the Clowns and Sex Pistols’ Submission. Clark is famous for his beautiful lines and here they cut subtly and deliberately through the raw rock basslines. The costuming is integral to the performance, black catsuits and wigs uniformly emphasising the dancers’ classical training and utter control. The second piece is particularly wonderful. Hardly anything happens. Long, slow walks in fawn and black catsuits with arched bodies and impossibly extended legs. The soundtrack screeches “I wish I could die” as the dancers calmly, pervertedly patrol the stage. “Bored” flashes up on the backscreen, challenging the audience’s reaction; impossible to be bored entranced by this.

Already coined by someone else, “the muff dance“, the third movement sees the entire company audaciously naked, bar purple arm muffs which reach from elbow to elbow, the dancers’ arms demurely held obscuring their genitals. For once, the nudity doesn’t distract from the dance. The sculptured bodies are a pleasure to watch and their slow progress is incredibly beautiful. On the backdrop the Mona Lisa slowly transforms into Elizabeth Taylor. Back to the rock and a clip of the wonderfully posh singing teacher that tried to tackle Sid Vicious. Then an orange lit stage with the company in a variety of white pants and billowy tops in a frenzied, disco onslaught. Just stunning.

And so, to the Rite of Spring. I had to do a bit of research here. Despite my childhood spent earnestly reading every ballet book I could get my hands on my knowledge of this infamous Ballet Russes/Stravinsky collaboration is pretty shameful. However, even in spite that, you can see where this is coming from. It’s a pagan spree, all earth and fecundity. The dancers may bear stick on bald patches and have sparkly noses but you get the whole spring thing. Stravinsky’s score, played here by two pianists/four hands is fabulously rhythmic and primal. Odd things happen. Dancers with toilet seats around their necks, a marshmallow creature like the one out of Ghostbusters (but apparently a joke representation of a pregnant Mother Earth that’s a tribute to Leigh Bowery) and the ‘how now sacred wow’ phrase. But it’s Amy’s turn as the Chosen One, that ends the piece and really makes an impression. Dressed in just an oversize pair of white pants and a hitler mustache she dances an incredibly dramatic, Nijinsky-esque solo that seems to be the antithesis of the sacrificial virgin. Whatever, it’s a bold and dominating performance.

The ‘Rite’ section may be odd, but Mmm… as a show is full of colour, beauty, humour and striking images. There’s a happy balance of choreographic intent, idea, music and homage without annoying pretentiousness. It’s a show you emerge from with a sense of wow and a longing to see it again.

Take: best mates, boyfs, girlfs, parents, first dates, foreign exchange students and those who think they’re arty.

Read what the press thought at londondance.com