The term renaissance man is used rather too short film Ms. Peanut Visits New Atlas also created the 90-minute documentary freely these days, but it certainly applies to York (1999), before directing the Merce Cunningham: a Lifetime of Dance. And Charles Atlas, whose output includes film documentary feature The Legend in 2008, a year before Cunningham died, Atlas directing, lighting design, video art, set design, of Leigh Bowery (2002). The two filmed a production of the choreographer’s ballet live video improvisation, costume design and have remained close collaborators Ocean (inspired by Cunningham’s partner and documentary directing. – Atlas designed the lighting for collaborator John Cage) at the base of the For the past 30 years, Atlas has been best Clark’s production at the Barbican Rainbow Granite Quarry in Minnesota, the known for his collaborations with dancer and – but it was with another legendary performance unfurling against 160ft walls of rock. choreographer Michael Clark, who he began choreographer, who was himself Alongside his better-known works, Atlas has working with as a lighting designer in 1984. His a great influence on Clark, that directed more than 70 other films, fromAs Seen first film with Clark, Hail the New Puritan, was a Atlas came to prominence when on TV, a profile of performance artist Bill Irwin, mock documentary that followed dance’s punk he first mixed video and dance in to Put Blood in the Music, his homage to the renegade as his company, aided by performance the mid-1970s. diversity of New York’s downtown music scene artist Leigh Bowery and friends, prepared for Merce Cunningham was already of the late 1980s. In the early 1990s he made a new ballet. a leader of the avant-garde when What I Did Last Summer, a short film trilogy that First broadcast on Channel 4 in 1986, Hail Atlas joined his company as an celebrated New York’s gay subculture at a time the New Puritan mixed faux-cinéma vérité assistant stage manager, in 1970. when Atlas lost many friends to Aids. In 1999 style documentary with surreal interludes and He began filming him soon after, he released the film It’s a Jackie Thing, about extraordinary, dada-inspired dance pieces, set in experimental movement studies the excesses of Johnny Dynell and Chi Chi to the music of the Fall. Shot among the decay of shot between rehearsals. He became Valenti’s Jackie 60 parties, thrown in New York’s Thatcher’s Britain, the film now serves as a vital filmmaker in residence in 1974, Meatpacking District (Atlas’s home for many document of 1980s London, when fashion, music, a role he held until 1983, during years) before its regeneration. art, dance and club culture collided. which time he became a pioneer Over the past decade, Atlas has become The pair continued their exploration of London’s of media and dance. “We really absorbed in live improvisation. His work with post-punk subculture with their next collaboration, were committed to human experimental artists such as Mika Tajima and Because We Must. Recently screened to coincide movement and body, and what a William Basinski, electronic producers Christian with To a Simple, Rock’n’roll... Song, Michael Clark body could do,” Atlas explained Fennesz and Julianna Barwick, and his MC9 Company’s new ballet at the Barbican in London, during his installation-based work installation/performance in 2012, has seen him Because We Must was based on an original Charles Atlas and Collaborators, at compose and edit in real time. He’s also forged stage production from 1987. The piece mixed Tate Modern in 2013. “The way that new collaborative partnerships, such as Turning footage of that Sadler’s Wells performance with I learned from Merce is about really with New York band Antony and the Johnsons, hallucinogenic dream sequences and the surreal exploring all the possibilities of any a project that began in 2004. invention of club kid Leigh Bowery, who, as well given situation. We always started In January, Atlas has his first performance as appearing in the film in his own idiosyncratic with the questions and whether we in New York of his “stereoscopic 3D dance film”, outfits, co-designed all of the costumes with found the answer or not was not Tesseract, with choreographers Rashaun Stevie Stewart of 1980s fashion brand, and that important.” Mitchell and Silas Riener. Shortly after the longtime Clark collaborator, BodyMap. As well as collaborating with Michael Clark Company programme at the Atlas teamed up with Bowery and Clark again Cunningham on works that forever Barbican, we caught up with Atlas at his on the video installation Teach (1998) and the changed the way dance is filmed, studio in New York. Words Andy Thomas Portrait Janette Beckman Images © Charles Atlas, courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York CHARLES ATLAS Famed for his filmic collaborations with choreographers Merce Cunningham and Michael Clark, over the past five decades Atlas has been pushing the boundaries of performance on screen. Charles Atlas shot through the window. choreographed five solo dance about phrasing and Godfather where there were a lot of things going And then I made a short pieces and performed each one Atlas and Merce performance, all sorts on at the same time and they used cross-cutting Super 8 film of one of the in a different costume. The Cunningham, Westbeth of technical things between them. So we divided the studio into dancers from the company, last segment was particularly Studio, New York, 1970s about dance. He also separate spaces and had dancers doing different Valda Setterfield, doing one challenging as he choreographed developed my eye, so things and running from one space to another. This of Yvonne Rainer’s pieces it so he could appear on-screen I saw things like he was also the first time I used animated travelling during a residence in with all five costumes at once. The did so I didn’t need to mattes as transitions between shots. Before this Berkeley, California. That main thing we had to learn was the consult him as much I had only used cuts and never used dissolves, but became Valda Dances Yvonne relationship between the body and when editing. It was all I used them to connect to the movement so they from 1971 and was the first the camera and how to think in about rhythm and he would tear or crack into the next scene. time I had ever filmed dance. terms of multiple camera angles. was a master of that. But then I also picked up his Is the concept of space and the use of it one of When you started using How did the creative process work bad habits of being a your main interests? video was that your decision between the two of you? workaholic. I used to go I was interested in everything you could do with or Merce’s? He treated me like an equal, even to the studio every day. film, video and dance, so of course space was part I’d made a 16mm film of though there was a great difference of that. We never used special effects and always one of his dances called in our age and experience. I would tell What do you think respected what a body could do. Our work was Walkaround Time. That was him what kind of video ideas might Merce thought video based on the possibilities of the human body rather an existing stage piece from work for an upcoming piece and then brought to his work? than something you can only do on film. That was the repertoire of the company we would try and get those central to I couldn’t say from his never something that interested me. and so he didn’t choreograph the choreography. Before we started point of view, but I think it for the camera. I filmed the with moving the video camera we did it was an interesting first part at Zellerbach Hall stuff with a still camera, panning and challenge for him and he in Berkeley, using a single zooming, and then when we got it always liked challenges. handheld camera, then the right we started moving the camera. He was interested in section in Paris, where I That took about four pieces for us doing things he hadn’t rented three cameras and to get it right, because it gets really done before, in the same shot the final performance complicated when you move the way I was. So that’s why by Merce’s longtime dance camera and the dancers. I think we worked so well partner, Carolyn Brown, together. I thought he before she retired. Soon after What were the biggest challenges was the most interesting Merce said he wanted to start of filming dancers? I’m thinking in I had used one. We also used a dolly with a crane choreographer at the time and also working with video, so turned particular of pieces like Coast Zone arm to move around the dancers. We really were since. But I was part of that family to me. That was when we from 1983 – that must have been experimenting with depth of field with this piece. so maybe I’m a little prejudiced. Performance artist Bill Irwin in As Seen on TV, directed by Atlas, 1987 Atlas during a live collaboration with composer William Basinski, really started collaborating technically very difficult. Then we had cameras positioned around the room Strange Pilgrims, the Contemporary Austin, Texas, 2016 properly. I had never worked Everything is moving so it takes a and Merce threw a coin to determine where the You became known for your in video so bought a book lot of rehearsal.