{"id":940076,"date":"2026-10-20T13:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T13:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/940076\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T13:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T13:10:09","slug":"getting-ziggy-with-it-david-bowies-alter-egos-inspire-dance-show-that-will-transform-his-songs-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/940076\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Ziggy with it: David Bowie\u2019s alter egos inspire dance show that will transform his songs | Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Let\u2019s dance,\u201d sang David Bowie<\/a> in 1983, commanding: \u201cPut on your red shoes and dance the blues.\u201d That call is to be answered \u2013 with footwear TBC \u2013 by an international dance production featuring new choral arrangements of songs from throughout his career.<\/p>\n

Subject to Change: A Dance for David Bowie<\/a> will be staged at Sadler\u2019s Wells in London in autumn 2028 after a world premiere in Luxembourg. It will visit Tokyo in 2029. The show will explore how Bowie \u201cpractised a form of artistic reincarnation\u201d according to Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau who is taking inspiration from the superstar\u2019s transformations into personas such as Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the greatest dangers for an artist is ending up resembling themselves too much,\u201d said Morau. \u201cBowie turned change into a way of remaining true to himself. That inspires me deeply. I believe every new work should force us to let go of some certainty. Art shouldn\u2019t serve to confirm who we are, but rather to accept that life transforms us, that we change over time, and that our own contradictions help us grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018What happens when his songs leave behind the voice we all know?\u2019 \u2026 Bowie in his Thin White Duke era in 1976. Photograph: Jorgen Angel\/Redferns<\/p>\n

Orchestrations of pop and rock classics have powered recent hit dance productions such as Black Sabbath: The Ballet<\/a> and a reworking of The Who\u2019s Quadrophenia<\/a>, bringing in new audiences. In Subject to Change, Bowie\u2019s songs will be interwoven with choral sounds from around the world and the voice of Spanish singer Maria Arnal. \u201cI\u2019m not interested in reproducing Bowie or creating a nostalgic tribute,\u201d said Morau, who wants to explore \u201cwhat happens when his songs leave behind the voice we all know and travel towards other voices, other cultures and other generations\u201d. By employing different choral traditions, he hopes to \u201ctransform something deeply individual into a collective experience. I like to think that a work of art remains alive as long as we are able to transform it, and that perhaps the best way to remain faithful to Bowie is to dare to change him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over his career, Bowie collaborated with significant choreographers including \u00c9douard Lock and Annie-B Parson. He was taught dance by the great mime Lindsay Kemp who recalled him taking part in improvisations such as sailors drowning at sea. Kemp directed Bowie in a 1967 theatre show, Pierrot in Turquoise, and tried \u2013 but failed \u2013 to get him to play Puss in Boots<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pierrot became one of Bowie\u2019s alter egos \u2013 others included Halloween Jack from his Diamond Dogs era and, most famously, Ziggy Stardust, the intergalactic rockstar who \u201ctook it all too far but, boy, could he play guitar\u201d. A black vinyl jumpsuit with stripes known as Tokyo Pop<\/a>, designed by Kansai Yamamoto for Bowie to wear as Ziggy in 1973, is used in the promotional image for Subject to Change.<\/p>\n

The Subject to Change promotional image featuring the Tokyo Pop costume designed by Kansai Yamamoto Photograph: Kazuyoshi Shimomura<\/p>\n

Each of his alter egos ushered in a new musical direction and a fresh look for Bowie but also brought out a different physicality, said Morau. \u201cFor Bowie, the body was just as important as the music or the costumes. It wasn\u2019t simply a matter of appearance, but of how he inhabited space. What fascinates me is that he managed to turn his own body into a territory of fiction, allowing those fictions to become part of reality. When you can transform yourself with that kind of freedom, you can also find new ways of living. In a world obsessed with categorising us and making us follow certain patterns, Bowie turned his body into an act of defiance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Perhaps the best way to remain faithful to Bowie is to dare to change him\u2019 \u2026 Marcos Morau. Photograph: Kazuyoshi Shimomura<\/p>\n

Morau is an in-demand choreographer whose works include Horses<\/a> (2024), created for Nederlands Dans Theater, which featured animalistic dancers prowling around mean streets to music by contemporary classical composer Caroline Shaw. \u00c9tude<\/a>, performed earlier this year by the Paris Opera Ballet, upended the conventions of ballet. The former piece featured dancers wielding giant lamp posts; the latter used a swinging replica of the chandelier in the auditorium of Paris\u2019s Palais Garnier. Both sets were designed by Max Glaenzel who will work on Subject to Change. The costumes will be by another of Morau\u2019s regular collaborators, Silvia Delagneau, and the musical direction is by Alex R\u00f6ser Vatich\u00e9 and Ben Meerwein. It is co-produced by Sadler\u2019s Wells, Bunkamura in Japan and Morau\u2019s company La Veronal.<\/p>\n

Ten years after Bowie\u2019s death, the musician continues to fascinate. Earlier this year, a 3D documentary<\/a> about him was unveiled at the Venice film festival. David Bowie: You\u2019re Not Alone<\/a>, an hour-long immersive portrait, is running at Lightroom in London and the V&A\u2019s Bowie archive, featuring Yamamoto\u2019s costumes for Ziggy Stardust, goes on tour next month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, Let\u2019s Dance inspired a paso doble on Strictly<\/a>. What is Morau\u2019s favourite Bowie song to dance to? \u201cSpace Oddity \u2013 it\u2019s probably not the most obvious choice for dancing, but that\u2019s precisely why I like it,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s something profoundly choreographic about imagining a body losing gravity and drifting away from everything familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Let\u2019s dance,\u201d sang David Bowie in 1983, commanding: \u201cPut on your red shoes and dance the blues.\u201d That…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-940076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}