✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Cinema

Dancer film review ★★★★★

10 Mar 17 – 07 Apr 17, Times vary

Who is Sergei Polunin? Dancer documentary shows him to be more of an unhappy adolescent than fast-living playboy

By Teresa Guerreiro on 7/3/2017

1 CW reader is interested
Documentary 'Dancer', Sergei Polunin – Take Me to Church video
Documentary 'Dancer', Sergei Polunin – Take Me to Church video
Dancer film review 3 Dancer film review Teresa Guerreiro
The tone of Dancer, a documentary about ballet star Sergei Polunin, is set in the first scene. Filmed backstage just before a performance, Polunin boasts that he sometimes takes so many stimulants that he can’t remember being onstage. Then Black Sabbath’s Iron Man starts playing on the soundtrack, in case the film-makers weren’t clear enough about their angle: Polunin is the rock star of the dance world.



Superficially, this makes sense. The young Polunin has the mix of exuberance and arrogance, campness and virility, that found its first and most perfect expression in the 1960s' Mick Jagger. There are cheekbones, a wide white smile and luscious curls; there are Daily Mail headlines, tattoos and idolatrous fans. But Dancer constantly feels like it’s trying to justify Polunin’s bad boy reputation rather than looking beyond or behind it.


The story it actually tells is almost mournful, at odds with the blazing rise, epic fall narrative it subscribes to. Polunin was born in relatively humble circumstances in Ukraine, his talent clearing a path to bigger things. The most mesmerising parts of Dancer are the home videos of from his infancy: effortlessly shimmying himself up the jamb of an open door, his prodigious strength and co-ordination makes the young Polunin seem truly special, though as a picture-book superhero rather than a rock star.


Polunin wasn’t born with these powers, of course. There were hundreds of classes, hours of rigorous training. Of his mother, Polunin says: ‘I think she was angry with her parents for not having pushed her, so she made sure she pushed me.’ This story is the same for millions of children with ambitious parents, and it’s an entirely unremarkable one. The only thing that sets Polunin apart is the extent of his mother’s ambition, and the astonishing, mindless, unforgiving talent that resulted from it.


Dancer charts Polunin’s stint at the Royal Ballet (where he became its youngest ever principal), his move to Russia (where he appeared on humiliatingly tacky TV shows), and his redemptive collaboration with David LaChapelle on a dance choreographed to Hozier’s Take Me to Church, the video of which went viral.



Sergei Polunin in David LaChapelle's video for 'Take Me to Church'


Aside from the Take Me to Church footage, there’s not much in Dancer that demonstrates why Polunin is such an exciting dancer, and he’s not exciting enough off-stage to interest otherwise. Dancer’s examples of his ‘hard living’ aren’t shocking; they’re actually pretty endearing, especially the videos of Polunin and his adolescent contemporaries mugging for a smartphone camera, flaunting the cigarettes they’re audaciously smoking. Polunin’s consumptions and late bedtimes are only transgressive for those who have to treat their bodies like thoroughbreds. The effect of vodka shots on Polunin’s nervous system is predictable: he had a reputation for falling asleep at parties after ten minutes.


Dancer is most intriguing in its examination of the psychological toll of excellence. The existential trap of being drilled in a single discipline from toddlerhood is exacerbated by the physical trap of being a professional dancer at the highest level. As a top-tier ballet dancer, you are a ‘prisoner to your body’: your muscles seize up if you stop putting them under the relentless pressure of performance, a series of extreme tests that preclude most other activities due to the risk of injury. Polunin says that he always hoped he’d get injured, which is a desperately sad thing to admit to.


But there’s an obvious compensation, made most apparent in one of Dancer’s funnier moments: a crowd of female ballet students, watching Polunin practise, all have the same awed, hungry expression on their face. Mick Jagger might be jealous, especially these days.

by Matthew Robinson

What Dancer film review
Where Various Locations | MAP
Nearest tube Leicester Square (underground)
When 10 Mar 17 – 07 Apr 17, Times vary
Price £determined by cinema
Website http://rutlive.co.uk/event/dancer/



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 24th - 26th June
Things to do in London this weekend: 24th - 26th June
London Theatre Guide: best plays on now in London (Photograph: Peter Lewicki)
London Theatre Guide: best plays on now in London, 2022
London's loveliest indoor swimming pools
London swimming pools you can visit without membership

Editor's Picks

Things to do in London: March edition
Things to do in London: March edition
Ermonela Jaho made her Covent Garden debut at a few hours' notice. Photograph: Fadil Berisha
Ermonela Jaho interview: 'I got through five Otellos!'
Maliphantworks Afterlight Dancer Daniel Proietto photo Johan Persson
Five Dance Shows to See in March
Sergei Polunin: photo by Bryan Adams
Sergei Polunin: the rebel dancer returns to the spotlight
Cameraperson – Kirsten Johnson film
Cameraperson film review
Alma Har'el documentary LoveTrue 2017
LoveTrue film review
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

1

Cinema

Documentary

Sergei Polunin

Dancer

Project Polunin

Take Me to Church

Natalia Osipova

You might like

  • Isabelle Huppert – Elle film 2017

    Elle film review ★★★★★

  • Lily Gladstone, Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams – Certain Women review, Kelly Reichardt film

    Certain Women film review ★★★★★

  • Sonia Braga as Clara. Kleber Mendonça Filho film

    Aquarius film review ★★★★★

  • Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson - Trespass Against Us film

    Trespass Against Us film review ★★★★★

  • Xavier Dolan film It's Only the End of the World – Marion Cotillard (Inception)

    It's Only the End of the World film review ★★★★★

  • Michael Keaton – The Founder review

    The Founder film review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×