The Legend of Leigh Bowery is a brilliant documentary about a brilliant man.
Directed by Charles Atlas, the film covers Bowery’s life and times from his suburban beginnings in Sunshine, Australia, to his fame on London’s club scene in the 1980s and his success as one of the most influential and daring fashion designers in the past thirty years.
The Legend of Leigh Bowery has incredible archive footage and excellent contributions from Michael Clark, Sue Tilley, Michael Bracewell, Richard Torry, Donald Urquhart, Damien Hirst, Boy George and Leigh’s wife, Nicola Bowery.
Although saddened by the recent passing of dance legend Merce Cunningham, I was happy to read that “punk” ballet dancer and choreographer, Michael Clark—whose style I find has much in common with Cunningham’s kinetic choreography—was creating new work again.
I followed Michael Clark’s career closely in the 1980s and early 90s and was always curious about what had happened to him. Back then, Clark seemed touched by the gods. His angular, asymmetrical, yet bizarrely graceful form of movement caused a sensation in the dance world. On a trip to London I caught an astonishing performance of I am Curious, Orange, his ballet conceived around the music of The Fall, who played live while Clark and his company danced. I was completely and utterly floored. It was one of the best things I’ve ever seen. I thought Clark was a genius. Nijinksy with a mohawk.
I met Clark once, in a Manhattan nightclub and I have to say, he did live up to his reputation for druggy excess. He was a glamorous figure, to be sure, but his eyes were rolling back into his head. After a certain point, you just stopped hearing about him.
Anyway, he is back working, that’s the main thing. At one stage, in the mid-90s, he disappeared so completely that rumours swept around London that he had died, perhaps of AIDS, perhaps of drugs. He was the boy from nowhere - in fact, a farm near Aberdeen - who went to his sister’s Scottish dance classes when he was four, and ended up the brightest star of the Royal Ballet School. But then, to the grief of his teachers, he refused to join the Royal Ballet company and instead went to the Ballet Rambert and then the American Karole Armitage company. At 22, he founded his own company and spewed out an incredible stream of new works throughout the 80s, with titles such as No Fire Escape in Hell, Because we Must and I am Curious, Orange. He was the punk choreographer who strapped dildos on his dancers and had Leigh Bowery staggering across the stage in 10in heels with a chainsaw. The ballet world deplored such gimmickry but still admired the beauty of his choreography. He won commissions from the Paris Opera, Scottish Ballet, Deutsche Oper, and was just embarking on a major work for the Royal Ballet when, in 1994, he disappeared.
The Michael Clark Dance Company with The Fall, performing to Big New Prinz:
Here is another fascinating example of Michael Clark’s unusual choreography, featuring the late fashion designer Leigh Bowery (and his clothes) and the Velvet Underground’s Venus in Furs. An excerpt from Because We Must, a film by Charles Atlas.
And yet another, Lay of the Land, with The Fall on the Old Grey Whistle Test TV show
