Michael Clark at Tate Modern

…presenting their first public performance of new work in Tate Modern‘s Turbine Hall tonight was a lucky stroke for me, having just arrived in town this morning, and being such a super big Michael Clark fan (by way of his films with Charles Atlas – who did the lighting for tonight’s show, and who we had the pleasure of sharing late-night post-show drinks and felafel – especially ‘Hail the New Puritan 6‘ from 1985-86, but also the other editions like this and this) – and from the smart seating position at the far end of the hall we enjoyed a long view towards the distant vertical stripe industrial windows – reflected in the black stripes painted on the dance floor – on the custom made bleachers next to dear old NYC artist friends I happened upon – to watch the evening of new work, entitled th, to the tunes of David Bowie, and Kraftwerk, Pulp, featuring a corp de ballet of 48 non-professionals of all shapes, sizes, ages, and abilities clad in black terry bath towel togas, plus his own company of stunning movers with amazing bodies encased in geometric patterns of tight lycra graduating from black/white, to silver, to radiant red with snappy stripped sport coats for the finale, was an ideal mix of the pleasure from watching amazing dancers perform gorgeous sequences of precise movements across the stage together and alone AND the delight in seeing our 48 surrogates sharing the stage, in a way that we could all imagine sharing the stage, while performing simple mechanical synchronized movements in a grid, turning, running, laying on the ground…though my favorite sequences involved the company of 12 – each a dream to watch in their own way – occupying the stage like a meadow, where movements come and go, in unison, and then apart, close-up and in the deep background, fast and then slow, migrations and herds, alone and in a group – never sure if you were the only person who actually witnessed a particular moment, was that just for me?