Sunday 29 August 2010, 18.30

Charles Atlas, Because We Must, 1989, 50 min

In Because We Must, Atlas continued his collaboration with British choreographer Michael Clark, the enfant terrible of the dance world in the 1980s. Based on an original stage production at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, this is an ironic, irreverent work that is as entertaining as it is provocative. The extravagant stylisation and burlesque humour that pervade the choreography, costuming and staging are mirrored by Atlas’s focus on the theatricality of the performance and the artifice of the behind-the-scenes narrative. Clark thumbs his nose at the conventions of ‘serious’ dance, composing outrageously unexpected and inventive scenarios that include a nude dancer wielding a chain-saw and a psychedelic interlude, all exquisitely if ironically performed.

Tate Modern  Starr Auditorium
£5 (£4 concessions), booking recommended