Michael Clark

I like Michael Clark - I went to a show of his at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival last year where people walked out. One person sitting in front of me stuck his fingers in his ears for most of it. People were dancing nude in one bit. I felt mildly assaulted, abused but largely pleased with what I'd seen. It was a wonderful working of punk rock classics into contemporary dance - followed by a new bit of choreography for Rites of Spring. I went for a couple of reasons; one being that my (then) girl was a dancer and I was keen to understand what on earth contemporary dance was about. It's an alien world, and a little overwhelming - I don't have any background in dance to contextualise. It becomes like trying to understand thermodynamics without any grasp of basic science. I endevour though, and have got far enough to accept that contemporary dance is more than one stream of ideas, or one stream of practice. The term is as non-descriptive as saying 'contemporary literature' - you end up with a general context, but no grasp of what tremendous theoretical diversity exists underneath the surface. Ho-hum, there might be a conclusive point to all this - but I fear it may just be as simple as I like Michael Clark.