The rebel's Rite of passage

10 April 2012

If Michael Clark used to revel in his bad-boy status (the penises! the peek-aboo crotches! the cock snooping!), he's now in danger of going earnest on us. It could be encroaching middle age (Clark is in his mid-forties), or the seriousness of the Barbican itself, but reimagining all three of the giant Stravinsky ballets in one go is an artistic marathon.

Have you heard Les Noces recently? It's a choral riot, a shouting, gossipy, guttural evocation of a peasant wedding, and the sacrifice marriage involves. If you play it after Apollo and The Rite of Spring you easily tune out at the enormity of it all.

With that pretty big proviso, this culminating season of Clark's three-year Stravinksy Project confirms his re-emergence as a choreographer to follow. The Royal Ballet School-trained Clark burned brightly in the Eighties, but his hard-partying took its toll and he was soon overtaken by a younger generation of British dance-makers. It can't have been easy watching them snag all the commissions.

Then in 2005 he made O (Apollo), in 2006 came Mmm (Rite) and now comes the new I Do (Les Noces). All are assured theatrical creations, all deftly staged, with gorgeous lighting and sly, clever costumes. In Les Noces, the bride wears a top-to-toe knitted wedding dress in giant Arran stitch. The corps wear flesh-toned unitards with shiny insets that echo the wrapped bindings of peasant leggings. In Mmm, Clark himself appears in a "toilet" costume.

Clark's choreography is a robust mix of balletic grace and mild-S&M solemnity. However, he sometimes seems strangely uncommitted to the music's themes. For example, there are few choreographic references to marital sacrifice in his Les Noces, yet it is an anchoring idea of the music. Leaving it out is like forgetting old age in King Lear.
Until 10 November. Information: 0845 120 7511, www.barbican.org.uk.

The Michael Clark Company
Barbican Theatre
Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS

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