Custom byline text:
Michael Clark’s Barrowlands Project is making dreams come true for amateur dancers lucky enough to get the chance to work with the iconic choreographer, writes Mary Brennan
But when the call went out earlier in the year for people to join in a large-scale event to round off the Cultural Olympiad 2012, the emphasis was on recruiting amateurs with no dance experience necessary, beyond an ability to get down on the floor (and up again) and to run. Clark's own dancers would also take to the floor, but weren't going to hog the limelight: the dozens of volunteers were, as with Clark's earlier community involvements at Tate Modern in London and the Whitney Museum in New York, a crucial part of his choreographic concept.
And for sure, all the participants who are preparing to perform in Clark's Barrowlands Project next Saturday are proud, almost beyond words, to be lining up in the formations that have been created and rehearsed in various Glasgow spaces since July. You only have to read the blogs – these can be accessed through Clark's company website – to appreciate how much the experience has been affecting folk.
For some, it's been a chance to reconnect with long-discarded dreams. For others, it's been an uplifting antidote to personal glooms and disappointments. And for others still, it's been a key to unlocking a creative inner self they now feel confident about acknowledging and sharing with the strangers who are now friends-in-dance.
For Anne Dean, the Barrowlands Project has brought her into the same orbit as her lifelong idol. She's still in possession of a flier, a programme, the tickets for an 1987 show when Clark – who at 50 is just two years younger than Dean – was already kicking over the classic traces of his ballet training for a punk-inflected take on contemporary movement that was (and still is) very much his own distinctive style.
"I don't know if people quite understood how he was trying to move forward," says Dean. "But I remember thinking how, even though he had this classical training – and was so beautiful – he was so wonderfully free. He'd moved on, and away. He was free. It was a joy to behold." If a wistful note has crept into this remembering, it's an echo of how she had, by then, been forced to discard her own dancing ambitions.
"Oh – you know how it goes," she adds with a smile and a shrug. "The need to get a 'real job', and that becomes all-consuming - Nursing meant working shifts, so I had to give up my dance classes." There's a pause before she continues. "But the longing never went away. I went to lots of performance, not just Michael's company, but any dance. And I used to wonder how some children manage to make their dreams come true, and other children – they just have their dreams evaporate."
But then, as Dean herself puts it, she took a bravery pill. She started going back to classes last year and now finds herself not only breathing the same air, in the same space as Clark, but stretching on the same floor during rehearsals at Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom and striving to follow his moves. "And it rushes over me. How magical this venue is, how privileged we all are to be a part of this. To have Michael Clark watching us, directing us, creating something on us that will go on to become a part of the Michael Clark body of work. For me, it's a dream come true." And she laughs. "I lose coherence when I even think about it!"
Christopher Honey, 19, cheerfully admits he had no idea who Clark was when he penned his 250-word application and emailed it to Dance House, the Glasgow-dance agency which has been working with Clark's company to co-ordinate the project. "Did I google him? Nope. But I did mention him to my parents and they were like, 'Michael Clark? MICHAEL CLARK! Go for it, go for it.' So here I am."
For Honey, the lure lay in working alongside professional dancers (even the specially recruited dance leaders who are on hand, supporting and tutoring the 45 community participants, are all professional dance-makers). But if Clark was an unknown quantity to Honey at the start, he's now a flesh and blood creative force that the teenager finds "really very interesting". "I've learned about him by watching him work. Choreographers – well, this one anyway – seem to be curious people. They speak a different language to the rest of us; maybe they see the world differently from us. It's something I've had no experience of. And it's fantastic. No matter what kind of day I've had, rehearsals are just - phenomenal. The best thing in any day, really. To be surrounded by people who are so passionate about dance, and so nice as well."
For Ailsa-Mary Gold, the artistic director of Dance House, this kind of response is ticking a lot of the boxes she had in mind when the Barrowlands Project was first mooted well over a year ago. "For us, it was exciting to be part of the partnership with Glasgow Life and Creative Scotland – and when Michael Clark agreed to do it, we just knew it was going to be a hugely significant event. We were looking at an internationally iconic choreographer, making a major piece of art in an iconic Glasgow venue – which was Michael's own choice. I think he responded to the history and the atmosphere of the Barrowland. He's choreographing on a dancefloor that is a bit of a Glasgow legend. He's putting out a strong message that there's a dancer in everyone. In terms of the Get Scotland Dancing programme over the next four years, that's a message we want everyone to take on board."
Gold is thrilled at the diversity of the participants, with ages from 17 to over 60. She's looking forward to the legacy inherent in the experience for the eight dance leaders who are joining in morning class with the Clark company, learning the choreography from them and then working with the amateur dancers on the movement.
"It all adds up to a great investment for dance in Glasgow and in Scotland, because it's basically an investment in people," she says. "And there is a tremendous integrity at every level. The amateur dancers aren't 'add-ons'. They're seriously involved. I popped into one rehearsal and the atmosphere was tingling, really fizzing – and Michael's leading the session. He's on the floor, surrounded by this huge group of very different ages and stages, talking about how to use their bodies to get up off the floor. Showing them. And what they're getting is a sense of how much a part of this major piece of choreography they are."
Sorcha Monk swithered over applying because she works for Dance House and didn't want anyone to think she'd pulled rank. She reckons this is as close as the participants will ever get to the rigours of being a professional dancer. "Rehearsals are really vigorous," she explains. "We're going over the material again and again – and again. People are visibly tired, but we all have to keep going. And we all want to, because we all want to live up to what Michael expects of us. And it keeps changing. His own dancers are used to this, of course. But for us, it's an insight into how he works. And that's such a very special experience.
"Some of the work is mathemathical – the formations have to be exact. And when we've finished a run-through, got it right, the way people feel is 'I did this!' and it's amazing. It's more than dancing now. It is community. And friendships. One guy has started writing a song about it, and we're hoping to record it next month. It's opening up possibilities we never dreamed of. Even when Michael isn't in the room, he'll still be there in a way – inspiring us all to be the best we can be."
The Barrowlands Project is at the Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow on September 8 and 9 at 8pm (Sunday matinee, 3pm). Michael Clark's new company piece premieres at Tramway from October 4-6 and will be influenced by the Barrowlands Project experience. For more information, visit www.barrowlandsproject.com
Contextual targeting label:
