Glitterbug was Derek Jarman’s final film, compiled from the many hours of Super 8 footage he had shot throughout his life. Originally made in 1994 for the BBC’s Arena. arts strand, Glitterbug is a visual journal that ties together aspects of Jarman’s life from the 1970s to 1990s.

The film opens with the artist awakened by the memory of dreams, of lovers, of friends, of place - Jarman’s lofts on Bankside, Upper Ground, the Thames River; of self, shaving, washing, breakfasting - those small rituals that prepare the day, the structuring of artifice and order. The world outside, My Tea Shop, the day-time existence, Jarman’s curiosity for the world around him. Then at night another world, we see preparation for Andrew Logan’s Alternative Miss World, returning to day, a garden party, is this Andrew Logan singing as Little Nell Campbell dances? Duggie Fields watches, Jarman films.

The dreamer sleeps, travels to the country, Van Gogh fields, standing stones, the memory of place, absence of others, a white-washed cottage room, the creation of art, the structuring of order.

The dreamer awake, and we are now watching Jarman at work, Sebastiane, the sea flecked gold, the actors at play, legs entwined. An office, an apartment, ‘phone calls, then filming the artist Duggie Fields, his designs, his face, a prelude to Jubilee, a young flame-haired Toyah Willcox, The Sex Pistols, Jordan and a dress rehearsal for what will become The Last of England, as she pirouettes around a burning Union Jack, Adam Ant, hair-cutting, the Silver Jubilee.

Jarman is showing us the sketches for preparation, the themes he returned to throughout his life. Rome, ritual, the research for Caravaggio, punk, the art of mirrors, The Slits, William Burroughs, Gensis P. Orridge, Throbbing Gristle, Jarman’s fascinations and obsessions, his idols and co-conspirators. The ritual of sharing tea, sharing cigarettes, a shared communion, youthful faces, sun flecked, smiling in the sun, a future ahead, too often cut short by the frost, this the last summer they danced on the rooftop,  ‘Here I am, here are my secrets,’ he is saying, as we plunder through his film diaries, Super 8 scrapbook, glittering trinket chest, memory is what makes us, what sometimes betrays us, what gives us the love we have to share, returning to the Thames, the friends, the lovers, those living, those dead.

Glitterbug Derek Jarman’s Super 8 films, with Andrew Logan, Duggie Fields, Tilda Swinton, Michael Clark, Adam Ant, Toyah Willcox, William Burroughs and Genesis P. Orridge. Music by Brian Eno, specially commissioned for this film.
 

 
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.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
Watch the rest of ‘The Legend of Leigh Bowery’, after the jump…
 

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.

Clark’s New Work, choreographed to the music of David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed will premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival on August 28th through the 31st.

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

Here’s another clip from Hail The New Puritan, a film by Charles Atlas.

The interview: Michael Clark by Lynn Barber

Thanks John Bertram!