Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Four lifts the curtain on ballet, tap, street dance and more
3 May 2018
Explore the thriving world of dance with a major season of programmes from Sunday 6 May. Highlights include a Michael Clark broadcast premiere, a film on famed choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan, dancer Zenaida Yanowsky's swansong and Clarke Peters on the history of tap.
Michael Clark’s To a simple, rock 'n' roll . . . song.
Jarvis Cocker introduces the latest work by groundbreaking choreographer Michael Clark.
To a simple, rock 'n' roll . . . song is a triple bill that pays homage to three of Clark's greatest musical influences. Act 1 features commanding choreography, pulsating with a propulsive force to the punk rock of Patti Smith's landmark album, Horses. Act 2 is a reflection on Erik Satie and his influence on Clark's mentors past and present, the dance meticulous, minimalist and coolly refined. Act 3 is an iridescent tribute to David Bowie, intricate, sublime, the mood moving from elegiac to joyously rebellious.
Recorded at the Barbican, London, this Olivier Award-nominated production features gorgeously arresting choreography performed by a company of fearless dancers including Harry Alexander, who won the Critics' Circle Emerging Artist Award last year.
The production also features a stage adaptation by Charles Atlas - a long-time Clark collaborator - of his multi-channel video installation Painting by Numbers.
An adrenaline shot that sends you away buzzing.London Evening Standard
Ballet's Dark Knight: Sir Kenneth MacMillan
This film explores the life and work of celebrated yet controversial choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan, whose pioneering creativity unleashed over sixty new ballets that changed the dance landscape forever.
The documentary weaves stunning performance footage, never-before-seen Super 8 home movies and MacMillan's own voice from the archives to reveal a complex figure who lit up the ballet world with his bold choreographic genius while struggling privately with alcoholism, anxiety, and depression.
Packed full of extraordinary ballet excerpts showcasing a wide range of MacMillan's work, including Romeo and Juliet, Manon and Mayerling, the programme also offers a surprisingly moving and intimate portrait of a true giant of 20th-century culture. It features contributions from MacMillan's family, Darcey Bussell, Dame Monica Mason and Sir Anthony Dowell.
I prefer to explore the human psyche. I try to make people sometimes feel uncomfortable in the theatre. I have always been drawn to the narrative, to real people and what they feel... people at odds with the world.Sir Kenneth MacMillan interview, Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Two, April 1990
Tap America: How A Nation Found Its Feet
Actor and producer Clarke Peters embarks on a personal journey to discover the origins, development and contemporary significance of the art form he has loved since childhood: Tap Dancing.
Clarke first learned to tap dance as a child in the kitchen of his home in New Jersey, when his mother showed him the "Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy-Floy)". He has been fascinated by tap ever since, performing it himself in numerous stage productions such as Bubbling Brown Sugar.
Clarke has always been curious about the origins of this uniquely vernacular form of American dance and goes on a journey to discover its beginnings and development that reveals an art form as American - and Afro-American - as hip-hop; from the 19th century conflict between Irish and African-American dancers through to the troubled Hollywood heyday of tap in the 1930s and '40s.
He discovers that Hollywood greats such as Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly were indebted to and inspired by the great Afro-American tap dancers, who were routinely excluded from significant roles in the movies. It is those performers who are by far the biggest influence on today’s generation of tap dancers.
8pm on Friday 18 May | Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Four and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iPlayer
It’s almost as if when Fred Astaire was doing this routine, he was trying to make a confession. The dance style white America had taken to its heart came from the one place that they didn’t want to acknowledge: Black America.Clarke Peters, Tap America
Danceworks Series 2 (4 x 30)
Following an award-winning first series in 2018, ClearStory and Sadler’s Wells collaborate on a second series of Danceworks. These artist-led, observational films take viewers behind the scenes in the world of contemporary and classical dance today, telling the human stories behind the creative process of choreography, rehearsal and performance in some of the world’s most beloved dance genres. This second series immerses us in the stories of multi award-winning choreographers and performers at the top of their game. Four films follow Maria Pages, Sharon Eyal, Ballet Black and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ One’s Strictly Come Dancing’s Gorka Marquez and Karen Hauer as they go on tour and create bold new works in radically contrasting styles. Their exquisite choreography is showcased in extended sequences within each film.