
Celestial Body
“I DANCED MYSELF out of the womb . . . I danced myself into the tomb,” quavers Marc Bolan in the 1971 T. Rex song from which “Cosmic Dancer,” a retrospective marking the fifteen-year anniversary of Michael Clark Company’s residence at London’s Barbican, takes its title. Cosmic suggests earthly transcension—not needing to be grounded—and indeed, the tension between flight and anchorage is what lent this survey its off-kilter coherence, providing room for reflection on what Clark, both a blazing provocateur and an imperially laureled institution of British dance, can and cannot offer audiences