JJS

Clark is, as ever, both egotistical and self-deprecating at once and that combination always comes across as angst-ridden. I love the music and get a thrill listening to Iggy Pop being blasted from the Barbican speakers because rock music will always be slightly subversive. The lighting has a clarity and intensity. The costumes are amazing, with holes cut out in inappropriate places at the tops of bum cracks, little leather jackets, stripy blazers and dyed pointe shoes as occasional accessories. I dread to think about the budget he has for them; the unitards actually look cool, which you would think was an absolute impossibility and they each wear about seven different ones in the show (whilst Clark swaggers on, as well as a ballet dancer can swagger, in baggy shorts and sleeveless hoody combos).

I also did not think I could ever approve of a show that costumed its dancers in pointe shoes, but somehow I forgive Michael Clark these things. He does not try to be clever like many choreographers, he shamelessly cameos in every piece I have seen by him, and in this piece a solo is performed by a dancer in a unitard covered in syringes, whilst Lou Reed croons about his love for heroin - an utterly cringeworthy reference to Clark's drug addiction that made me roll my eyes rather feel the seriousness of it. He does what he says on the tin and you get the feeling that he loves it - the form the music the costumes the dance - I can't help but respect and appreciate that.

Although, by the end of the evening I was feeling slightly disturbed by the inhumanness of it all - only in the last part was there one dancer whose face showed expression. The dancers were like machines, just bodies outlined in lycra, moving in ways that no human body would do without years of training. Though, it must be said that this is a much better company of dancers than I have seen in past performances. It's become an old-fashioned concept that the performers lose their own humanity in order to become vehicles for the choreographer’s vision but then, Clark is stuck in the past. This isn't a problem though; I watch his work for an aesthetic, an aesthetic that is presented through the bodies of a company of skilled technicians. I am entertained. I am pleased by the slow pelvis led walks that seem to be presenting a dancer’s unitard-coated vagina [I can't believe I have used unitard so much in this review], I chuckle to myself as they hump the floor in a robotic way, muscular orange-clad buttocks bouncing up and down, when they gyrate their hips in a disturbingly stiff and distant way. It is funny. Maybe because I am juvenile. But so what.

LS

The only thing I knew about Michael Clark Company, as I waited for the curtain to rise at the Barbican last week, was that it’s a contemporary dance company for which rock music is a big influence. In my hand was a programme graced by Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and David Bowie and as a music lover of all three, I was excited to see what would unfold.

Swamp, a MCC classic from 1986 was up first. Initially I enjoyed the Bowie-esque eye makeup and the controlled, ascetic choreography, which contrasted against the thumping grunt of the score by Bruce Gilbert and Wire. As things progressed and the music flat-lined to an arrhythmic monotone, Swamp started to lose my interest. Is this it? I wondered. Strong Cunningham-influenced choreography with dancers clad in unitards that would not look out of place at the Olympics?

come, been, gone; a series of dance pieces set to classic tunes hit the stage after the first interval. The mood of the pieces was propelled entirely by the music and I enjoyed Clark’s choreography better here as it strove to turn the tunes into flesh. There were moments during Venus in Furs, White Light/White Heat, Aladdin Sane and Jean Genie, where music and dance synchronised so seamlessly that I found myself watching the music and tapping my foot to the choreography. The visual impact of a silver gimp costume and sienna unitards with funky jackets further enhanced the impact of this section.

Throughout the show, the dancers delivered a constrained, precise choreography with automaton exactitude. As striking as the contrast was between this and the guttural urgent rhythms coming from the speakers, when the music was especially raw, I yearned to see the dancers roar too.

'come, been, gone' by Michael Clark 28 Oct - 7 Nov 2009 Barbican Theatre