ARcHITecTURe, DiSPAtCHeS ART, MUSIc, ARcHITecTURe, FILM, SHoPPINg, NeWS AND THINgS To MAke AND Do… ART, MUSIc, ARcHITecTURe, FILM, SHoPPINg, NeWS AND THINgS To MAke AND Do…
UNDeR THe INFLUeNce
MIcHAeL cLARk oN TeAcHeRS
portrait RogeR DeckkeR
When I Was thIrteen I set off from
scotland for the royal Ballet school
In london, and to Be truthful, I Was
terrIfIed. Not only had I never really been
away from home for any length of time, but
I was also starting two years later than
everyone else, so I had a hell of a lot of
catching up to do. Fortunately, in Richard
glasstone I had a wonderful teacher.
He continues to teach my dancers and me to
this day. Initially I had secretly decided
to spend only one year studying in London,
then return home to carry on from where
I had left off with my new, improved
technique. Well, it only took a couple of
days to realise just how much I didn’t know
and how very much I had to learn. And
ballet began to look extremely challenging.
I doubt if Richard was very aware of my
presence initially, but over time my hunger
for more knowledge and more detail caught
his eye. I remember having to stay behind
every day after class, in order to go
through a series of exercises devised
specifically by Richard in order to improve
my elevation (my jump and the height of it,
or lack thereof). I’m sure I loved the
special attention, but it was bloody hard.
every day for three years Richard taught
us cecchetti technique as devised by enrico
cecchetti at the turn of the twentieth
century. It really is, for me, the most
human and well-rounded expression of
classical ballet. The most fundamental
difference between his sequences of
movement, or enchaînement, and that of
teachers before him is that his work
demands that the whole body dances – that
is, the upper body is as articulate as the
legs. I need my dancers to have as broad
a range of movement as possible. For me the
worst form ‘ballet’ takes is very stiff,
almost rigid, bolt upright with arms stuck
on as an afterthought. This is not dancing.
The Maestro cecchetti was the ballet Master
at Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet Russes, which
means he taught vaslav Nijinsky, creator of
the original rite of Spring ballet (1913),
his sister, bronislava Nijinska, creator of
les noces (1923), and george balanchine,
creator of the definitive version of apollo
(1928). These three masterworks of the
twentieth century – all with revolutionary
scores by Igor Stravinsky – form the core
of the three-year project I am nearing
completion of, which opens at the barbican
in exactly ten weeks from today. What the
hell am I doing chatting away to you for…?
I have the very foundations of modern dance
MIcHAeL cLARk IS A DANceR AND cHoReogRAPHeR LIvINg
as we know it to DeSTRoy!
IN LoNDoN. Michael clark coMpany: StravinSky project,
31 ocTobeR To 10 NoveMbeR, THe bARbIcAN, LoNDoN,
WWW.bARbIcAN.oRg.Uk, WWW.MIcHAeLcLARkcoMPANy.coM
Artreview 44
Dispatches_M.Clark.indd 2 31/8/07 13:56:34
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