Sergei Polunin
"Take me to Church" by Hozier
Directed by David LaChapelle
Choreography by Jade Hale-Christofi
The Guardian: Sergei Polunin dances with his demons to Hozier's Take Me to Church
[http://www.theguardian.com/stage/dance-blog/2015/feb/12/sergei-polunin-hozier-take-me-to-church-david-lachapelle]
David LaChapelle captures the Ukrainian dancer’s battle to make peace with his talent – and in another viral video, Baryshnikov partners Lil Buck
When Take Me to Church was released in 2013, with Brendan Canty and Conal Thomson’s graphically angry protest video, Hozier’s hit song span off into a worldwide anthem for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Now another video interpretation of the Hozier song has appeared online, and it too is going viral. If there’s a political message to David LaChapelle’s film ofSergei Polunin dancing alone in an empty barn, it’s a deliberately oblique one. But Polunin, a Ukrainian dancer who is now working principally in Russia and who has struggled very publicly in the search for his professional and personal identity, brings a story of his own to Hozier’s song.
This solo is far from showing Polunin at his extraordinary best. Jade Hale-Christofi’s choreography is burdened with hackneyed, head-clutching emoting and, atmospheric though the venue is, it’s a constricted space. Yet LaChapelle’s filming creates its own striking chemistry with Polunin, portraying him nakedly, poignantly alone with himself. His numerous tattoos – usually covered with stage makeup – are proudly on display, his dancer’s tights are symbolically torn. And in the huge body-wracking shifts from floor-hugging crouches to airborne leaps, Polunin does seem to bring to his dancing the demons of his difficult life.
Sergei Polunin as Narcisse from Men in Motion at Sadler’s Wells, London, in 2012. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian
The fact that he was pushed into ballet training, sent off to the Royal Ballet school when he was just 13, left Polunin with a deeply conflicted relationship to his own prodigious talent. Three years ago he suddenly exited the Royal, claiming he was unable to work within the constraints of the company’s discipline. And although he subsequently moved to Russia to dance with the Stanislavsky and Novosibirsk ballet companies, he still did not settle. In September last year he announced his intention to leave ballet altogether and begin a Hollywood career, and while he is still dancing it’s unclear for how long.
In his performance for LaChapelle’s video, the gorgeousness of certain dance moments (and paradoxically the ragged quality of others) make painful viewing for those who’ve long admired Polunin’s talent but fear he will never make peace with it. The pure eloquent stretch of his back at 1m37s; the lovely control of shape and rhythm as his airborne pirouettes topple down towards the floor at 2m15s; the tight stretch of the feet in the tours en l’air; the angled line of the jump at 3m37s. These are physical riches, and they don’t come around that often in the ballet world. But Polunin is only 25. And the fact that a career can be as long and flexible as you make it is demonstrated by 67-year-old Mikhail Baryshnikov – the classical prince turned contemporary dancer turned actor, who’s also going viral on the internet right now.
[http://www.theguardian.com/stage/dance-blog/2015/feb/12/sergei-polunin-hozier-take-me-to-church-david-lachapelle]
David LaChapelle captures the Ukrainian dancer’s battle to make peace with his talent – and in another viral video, Baryshnikov partners Lil Buck
When Take Me to Church was released in 2013, with Brendan Canty and Conal Thomson’s graphically angry protest video, Hozier’s hit song span off into a worldwide anthem for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
Now another video interpretation of the Hozier song has appeared online, and it too is going viral. If there’s a political message to David LaChapelle’s film ofSergei Polunin dancing alone in an empty barn, it’s a deliberately oblique one. But Polunin, a Ukrainian dancer who is now working principally in Russia and who has struggled very publicly in the search for his professional and personal identity, brings a story of his own to Hozier’s song.
This solo is far from showing Polunin at his extraordinary best. Jade Hale-Christofi’s choreography is burdened with hackneyed, head-clutching emoting and, atmospheric though the venue is, it’s a constricted space. Yet LaChapelle’s filming creates its own striking chemistry with Polunin, portraying him nakedly, poignantly alone with himself. His numerous tattoos – usually covered with stage makeup – are proudly on display, his dancer’s tights are symbolically torn. And in the huge body-wracking shifts from floor-hugging crouches to airborne leaps, Polunin does seem to bring to his dancing the demons of his difficult life.
The fact that he was pushed into ballet training, sent off to the Royal Ballet school when he was just 13, left Polunin with a deeply conflicted relationship to his own prodigious talent. Three years ago he suddenly exited the Royal, claiming he was unable to work within the constraints of the company’s discipline. And although he subsequently moved to Russia to dance with the Stanislavsky and Novosibirsk ballet companies, he still did not settle. In September last year he announced his intention to leave ballet altogether and begin a Hollywood career, and while he is still dancing it’s unclear for how long.
In his performance for LaChapelle’s video, the gorgeousness of certain dance moments (and paradoxically the ragged quality of others) make painful viewing for those who’ve long admired Polunin’s talent but fear he will never make peace with it. The pure eloquent stretch of his back at 1m37s; the lovely control of shape and rhythm as his airborne pirouettes topple down towards the floor at 2m15s; the tight stretch of the feet in the tours en l’air; the angled line of the jump at 3m37s. These are physical riches, and they don’t come around that often in the ballet world. But Polunin is only 25. And the fact that a career can be as long and flexible as you make it is demonstrated by 67-year-old Mikhail Baryshnikov – the classical prince turned contemporary dancer turned actor, who’s also going viral on the internet right now.
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