Charles Atlas

The collaboration between the two artists began in 1984 when the young dancer, Clark, performed in two single-channel films by Atlas: Parafango and Ex-Romance. However, it was not until the groundbreaking Hail the New Puritan in 1986, that the relationship between the two artists was deeply cemented. Originally commissioned as an arts documentary by Channel 4 of the BBC, Hail the New Puritan turned the genre on its head, presenting a highly stylized and fictionalized version of a typical day in Clark’s life – an “anti-documentary”, as Atlas has called it. The two artists also worked closely together on another Channel 4 production, Because We Must (1989), which was full of extreme theatricality in its dance, choreography, scenery, costumes, and directorial position.

Lady Bunny at the end of the world.

Charles Atlas has been a pioneering figure in film and video for over four decades. Atlas has extended the limits of his medium, forging new territory in a far-reaching range of genres, stylistic approaches, and techniques. Throughout his production, the artist has consistently fostered collaborative relationships, working intimately with such artists and performers as Leigh Bowery, Michael Clark, Douglas Dunn, Marina Abramovic, Yvonne Rainer, Mika Tajima/New Humans, Antony and the Johnsons, and most notably Merce Cunningham, for whom he served as in-house videographer for a decade from the early 1970s through 1983; their close working relationship continued until Cunningham’s death in 2009.

In 2006 Antony and the Johnsons and Charles Atlas took their collaborative performance TURNING to major cities in Europe. This documentary film explores the heart of that performance.

Фильм о выдающихся андерграунд-хаус-танцорах и танцах «золотого» десятилетия Нью Йорка — 1990-х годов. Лента не только включает в себя интервью и редкие кадры творчества легендарных хаус-танцоров, но и следует за этими виртуозами импровизации в клубах, на работе и в их повседневной жизни. Снятая на улице и в студии, на фоне белого задника, в полутенях или под светом прожектора, часовая документальная лента показывает всю тонкость и изящество этого эклектичного уличного танца. Сегодня Хаус — это международный стиль музыки и танца, сводящий с ума людей по всему миру. Лента проведёт исторический экскурс по стилю Хаус, который изучает все разнообразие форм этого танца, отвечая на вопросы: Как выглядел Хаус в 90-е годы? Кто танцевал этот стиль? Почему они танцевали именно Хаус?

John Cage’s original concept of Ocean, in 1991, was for a dance to be performed in a circular space, with the audience surrounding the dancers, and the musicians (112 of them) surrounding the audience. The last performance was in the Rainbow Quarry in Minnesota, September 2008, at which time the piece was filmed by Charles Atlas.

Charles Atlas’ five-channel video installation, Tornado Warning, draws from the filmmaker’s early memories of the tornado alerts in his childhood town of St Louis, Missouri. The piece contrasts an orderly space of grids and numbers with a chaotic environment of found images cut from old films, news footage, and the Internet. Ordinary objects fly around an empty room, swirling abstractions dominate the walls, and distorted bodies dance over images of radio waves. Seemingly in motion, the space of Tornado Warning appears unruly, alarming, violent and relentless.

"For me Rainer Variations is a hybrid: a weave of impressionistic portrait, found footage construction, and video sampler. Aside from formal issues, Yvonne Rainer’s knotty process of thinking, her unique brand of humor, and her engaging presence are the things that were foremost in my mind as I worked on the tape. What I hope will emerge from this process is an interrogative portrait of an artist for whom I have great respect and affection." --Charles Atlas

Welcome to the over-the-top, extravagant world of Leigh Bowery, a key figure in New Romanticism and London nightlife in the 1980s. With his bizarre outfits, a mix of kitsch and fetish, and his eccentric performances, he influenced artists, musicians and stylists like Boy George, Lucian Freud (of whom he became the muse), Vivienne Westwood, Anthony and the Johnsons, John Galliano and David LaChapelle. Born in Australia into an intensely religious family and brought up in a Melbourne suburb, Leigh moved to London where he worked as a fashion designer and a promoter, and started the legendary disco club night "Taboo", the first outrageous polysexual party in London. The documentary offers a fully rounded portrait of this artist, including interviews with the people who knew him, who describe a complex, extreme, and ironic personality, a performer, actor and designer ahead of his time, from his difficult early life to international success, up to his death in 1994.

A history of the work of Merce Cunningham.

Based on his own video documentation, Atlas constructs a delirious montage of New York club performances from the late 1990s. Impersonators of pop-culture figures, including Martha Graham, Kurt Cobain giving a "final performance," and Sid Vicious lip-syncing to Nancy Sinatra, are emceed by two matronly (and bitingly sarcastic) upper-crust women. Featuring legendary drag, transgender, and queer artists, It's a Jackie Thing celebrates the flexibility of performance art's boundaries: "high" and "low" culture, "good" and "bad" taste, amateurism and professionalism, and, ultimately, gender and identity.

A video portrait of the legendary late performance artist, fashion designer and nightlife icon Leigh Bowery. Atlas's camera follows Bowery as he flamboyantly strolls through Manhattan's Meatpacking District, outrageously costumed in a self-made reinterpretation of "Mr. Peanut," the Planter's Peanut mascot. Bowery's molded full-bodysuit, accessorized with a floral print dress, top hat and transparent-heeled platform shoes, draws stares from onlookers. Peanut-related pop songs accompany him on the soundtrack.

Gay erotica from director Charles Atlas.

Gay erotica from director Charles Atlas.

In this futuristic danse macabre, Charles Atlas creates a fully realized cyber-gothic world, rife with both erotic and physical danger. We follow our heroine on her travels through a world inhabited by libidinal robots, human profligates, statuesque hairdressers and a bevy of other intriguing individuals. Her stylized and blank-faced nonchalance mirror the performative passion and violence which surrounds her.

We Interrupt This Program (1991) was a live television broadcast presented by The Kitchen in association with Visual AIDS for Day Without Art 1991. The broadcast was directed by Charles Atlas and includes contributions from artists whose work addressed the AIDS crisis in diverse ways included performances by DANCENOISE, Richard Elovich, Karen Finley, Bill T. Jones and Estella Jones, John Kelly, Lavender Light, and Robbie McCauley.

New York City 1988. Raging homophobia. A killer on the loose. Disco dancing till dawn. Performers struggle to survive. Delilah seduces Samson in song. Gender illusionists go shopping. Samson and Delilah, 1991. This tape is an entertaining amalgam of cross-cut scenes featuring New York performance luminaries including John Kelly, Hapi Phace and DANCENOISE. It is a dark vision of an America where life is cheap and even the moments of tenderness have a life threatening edge.

New York City 1988. Raging homophobia. A killer on the loose. Disco dancing till dawn. Performers struggle to survive. Delilah seduces Samson in song. Gender illusionists go shopping. Samson and Delilah, 1991. This tape is an entertaining amalgam of cross-cut scenes featuring New York performance luminaries including John Kelly, Hapi Phace and DANCENOISE. It is a dark vision of an America where life is cheap and even the moments of tenderness have a life threatening edge.

The three short, low-tech works in this compilation celebrate downtown New York nightlife at the beginning of the 1990's. Set in a New York Meat Market restaurant after hours, Butchers' Vogue features a voguing waiter and waitress, two prostitutes on the run, and a cop. In The Draglinquents, the performances of two drag queens are superimposed over cliched images and intercut with 1950's muscle-boy movies. Disco 2000 mixes footage of a crowded dance floor, homemade optical effects, and a dancing chicken. Butcher's Vogue – Choreography: Richard Move. Music: Madonna. Featuring: Connie Fleming, Gina Vetro, Rebecca Weinberg, Keoki, Joseph Lennon. The Draglinquents – Featuring: Chucky, Shuck E. Music: "Maybe" by The Three Degrees, "Travelin' Man" by Dolly Parton.

Marina Abramovic collaborated with videomaker Charles Atlas on this striking work of autobiographical performance. Abramovic delivers a monologue that traces a concise personal chronology. This brief narrative history, which references her past in the former Yugoslavia, her performance work, and her collaboration with and separation from Ulay, is intercut with images of Abramovic engaged in symbolic gestures and ritual acts—scrubbing her feet, staring like Medusa as snakes writhe on her head. Closing her litany with the phrase "time past, time present," Abramovic invokes the personal and the mythological in a poignant affirmation of self.

The Michael Clark Dance Group perform to the music of T.Rex, Chopin, the Beatles and the Velvet Underground.

PBS produced documentary in two parts: the first is dedicated to saxophonist and composer John Zorn; the second is about Sonic Youth at the height of their powers in 1988.

Hail the New Puritan is a fictionalised documentary about the Scottish dancer and choreographer Michael Clark. Set design by the inimitable Leigh Bowery.

Coast Zone […] explores the use of deep-focus, contrasting background figures (often in motion) with those in the foreground (sometimes in extreme close-up). Shot in January 1983, the first screenings at Dean Junior College in Franklin, MA, 7 April 1984; Merce Cunningham Studio, Westbeth in New York, NY, 16 April 1984. (via mercecunningham.org)

Coast Zone […] explores the use of deep-focus, contrasting background figures (often in motion) with those in the foreground (sometimes in extreme close-up). Shot in January 1983, the first screenings at Dean Junior College in Franklin, MA, 7 April 1984; Merce Cunningham Studio, Westbeth in New York, NY, 16 April 1984. (via mercecunningham.org)

“Westbeth” was Cunningham’s first video collaboration with Charles Atlas, and the first video project to be made at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio on the eleventh floor of Westbeth.

Atlas' 2013 film Exchange is based on the 1978 dance piece of the same name by legendary dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. Atlas created the newly completed film from never-before-seen footage that he shot in 1978 and that was only recently rediscovered by the Merce Cunningham Trust (MCT). The film captures a performance of Exchange by Cunningham and his company, with costumes and backdrop designed by Jasper Johns and music by David Tudor.

Atlas' 2013 film Exchange is based on the 1978 dance piece of the same name by legendary dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. Atlas created the newly completed film from never-before-seen footage that he shot in 1978 and that was only recently rediscovered by the Merce Cunningham Trust (MCT). The film captures a performance of Exchange by Cunningham and his company, with costumes and backdrop designed by Jasper Johns and music by David Tudor.