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Leigh Bowery is chasing me. Not content with haunting my childhood, he’s following me around in my twenties as well.

A couple of days ago I went to see the Michael Clark Company’s mmm…. at the Barbican. Michael Clark is endlessly referred to as a “former enfant terrible of dance,” because his shows in the 1980’s used to have overtones of sex, and frequently nudity. And I was aware that Leigh designed many costumes for Clark in the 80’s, and even appeared on stage in a couple of shows.

mmm… is a two-part show, like its predecessor at the Barbican O. Both feature a first half set to punk music and second halves set to the music of Igor Stravinsky - Apollo for O, The Rite of Spring for mmm… . I’d never heard The Rite of Spring before, although endless repetition of the story of its riot-inducing premiere had given it almost legendary status in my head. And I was genuinely astonished by the jerking discordancy of it. But Clark, showing a contrariness that has stood him in good stead over the years, took the opportunity to spin a warm tale full of love and humour.

As much as I enjoyed the dance, though, I enjoyed the costumes more. A succession of simple bodystockings mingled with orange leather skirts and furry purple muffs - but far from the tacky campery that may conjure up, the results were thrilling. From the opening costumes - black lycra bodystockings with the sleeves and upper torsos replaced by cut-off white t-shirts - every costume teemed with internal contradictions. In the second half, several dancers wore beige bodystockings with green leaf patters on the chest. Doesn’t sound like much, but the effect was to achieve a sense of pastoral simplicity without interfering with the cleanly modern lines of the general look of the piece - a sort of modernist Puck image.

Then Michael Clark came on, dressed as a toilet.

OK, not dressed as a toilet. But in a costume that incorporated a toilet seat. In a horizontal orientation, around his neck, so that his head appeared to be rising out of a toilet. And the lycra of the outfit, skin-tight around the waist and legs, rose out to the rim of the seat, essentially making Clark a toilet on legs.

Hmmm, I thought to myself. I sniff a bit of Bowery.

And I was right! In fact, several of the costumes from the show were Bowery’s. The show was revived from its original incarnation from 1992, to which Bowery contributed (O premiered in 1994, just before Leigh’s death, and I don’t remember seeing anything in the revival that smacked of his style - but then, I didn’t know about him then). Both the toilet-thing, and a large white faceless blob-creature that ran around earlier, were, I’m sure, Bowery designs (it turns out Bowery “played” the blob-creature in the original).

Once the show was over and I delved into the programme, the connections started to become clear. There Leigh was, credited with “original costumes.” The show’s main costumes credit, however, went to Clark and to Stevie Stewart. Stewart, it turns out, was one-half of Bodymap, the highly influential 80’s fashion house that created most of Clark’s costumes and whose defining characteristic was the figure-hugging lycra the show featured. The other half of Bodymap, David Holah, was Clark’s lover for some time in the 80’s; apparently, they lived in a council flat in Camden, a jarring of that strange time, post-punk, when the country’s most creative individuals neither started, nor became, rich. That Holah’s name no longer appears anywhere near Clark’s work is, presumably, an indicator of some huge schism at some point in the past. A site that appears to belong to Holah does feature a page on Clark, which oddly shares its text with Clark’s entry in Wikipedia. Thanks to the magic of Wikipedia, it’s impossible if the entry has copied the site, or the other way round.

So we have some sort of complex costume-triangle: Boy meets boy, boy and female friend design costumes for boy, boy and boy split up, female friend remains involved in costume making, when not dressing West End productions of Wilde. But the Rock Family Trees-style connections don’t end there. Jane, the dance aficionado with whom I attended the performance, mentioned how much she liked the show’s lighting. I looked at the programme: “Lighting by Charles Atlas.” Why was that name familiar? Jane looked through the programme and exclaimed, “look at this!” Atlas, it said, was a filmmaker and longstanding collaborator of Clark. He had also made a feature film - 2003’s The Legend of Leigh Bowery.

Talk about full circle! Quite unknowingly, without having thought about Leigh for a few weeks, I’d come to see a show featuring his costumes, lit by the man who made the very film which properly introduced me to him. As if that wasn’t enough, I exited the theatre and saw a poster featuring Anthony Hegarty of Anthony and the Johnsons. A fan, I picked up a leaflet to see when they were playing. It turned out that very week, the following Saturday - today - they were playing a gig at the Barbican indeed, they’re probably playing as I write this). But this was no normal gig - the band were to soundtrack a moving backdrop, live video of dancing women processed and edited by - go on, guess - Charles Atlas.

What’s it called when, quite unintentionally, you find yourself drawn to people who have long been drawn to each other? It’s a wonderful feeling, whatever it is. We’re so aware of “scenes” now - every time a handful of creative people get together, it’s labelled, considered and is old hat within months. It becomes impossible to consider the individual without considering the wider movement they’re perceived to be part of. How many people can honestly say they discovered Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin separately, and liked them both, before any sense developed of the “young british artists”? Now, we like a person or their art, and we are told they’re part of something larger, and we get into that too. It’s easy to forget that to really feel synergy or identity with a movement means to be drawn to the individuals before you even realise there is a movement - because the very thing that draws you to each individual is that thing which draws them together. Just as I came to realise that Leigh was at the forefront of much of what I found most exciting about urban British culture of the 1980’s and early 90’s, now I’m beginning to realise that many other artists whose work I’ve sensed the same colour and energy and wit in also sensed it in each other, and indeed, helped foster it in each other.

I wish this story ended with me attending the Anthony/Atlas gig, but it was totally sold out. However, the upcoming Charles Atlas season at Tate Modern should give me a chance to explore some more.

UPDATE: It turns out tonight’s gig isn’t Atlas’ first collaboration with Anthony and the Johnsons. He made the video (below) for “You Are My Sister”, the third single from their debut album I Am A Bird Now. The Song features Boy George, a friend of Anthony’s and the creator of Taboo, the musical about Leigh. The web grows ever more tangled.

See other articles about: barbican, bodymap, dance, fashion, leigh bowery, michael clark, mmm..., stevie stewart

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