Sunday 7 May 2017

MK Ultra – HOME, Manchester

[seen 06/05/17]



[shooting script]



V/O

This is a story about a dance piece

Cut to /


Stock black and white footage of some 1950s dancers

Cut to /

Static

Cut to /


Stock footage of Miley Cyrus sticking out her tongue

Cut to /


Stock footage of Donald Trump

Cut to /


Stock aerial footage of an anonymous American city



V/O

It starts in 2016, when the choreographer Rosie Kay has an idea.

She realised that no one ever wrote feature articles about dance,

because dance was thought to be composed of abstract movements.

She realised that to make journalists write about dance,

dance had to tell them a story they were already telling.

So she teamed up with Adam Curtis.


Cut to /


Stock footage of ballerina being caught.

Cut to /


Stock footage of Fleet Street in the 1950s


V/O

Adam Curtis had had an idea.

He wanted to tell the British public stories they had already heard

But, he had realised that if you tell familiar stories in a way that appears to blame someone

but never really make it clear who

then your programmes will quickly gather a cult following,

And up and coming choreographers will want to work with you



Cut to /


Crowd cheering at football match

Cut to /


Nuclear explosion

Cut to /


Beauty contest parade

Cut to /


Justin Bieber smiling at the cameras



V/O

So Rosie Kay and Adam Curtis decided to make a show about the Illuminati,

a fictional organisation popularised in the novels of cult American authors

Like Thomas Pynchon and Robert Anton Wilson.


Cut to /


Stock footage of American dollar bill

Cut to /


Stock footage of Britney Spears

Cut to /


Stock footage of ballet dancer




V/O

Their aim was to create a new sort of dance. One where


Cut to /


Grainy VHS format video of 80s TV programme

Cut to /


Stock footage of Olympic athletes

Cut to /


Stock footage of Saddam Hussein


V/O

if you spoke slowly enough...

Cut to /


Miley Cyrus

Cut to /

Justin Bieber

Cut to /


Britney Spears


V/O

and punctuated each line with rapid bursts of footage...


Cut to /


Mickey Mouse 

Cut to /


Vietman carpet bombing 

Cut to /


Marilyn Monroe


V/O

some people might think you intended to be taken seriously.


Cut to /


Black and white slapstick comedy routine

Cut to /


Russian jet figher test flight

Cut to /


Old film of people reading newspapers in 70s Britain


V/O

Kay had realised, that if you made a piece about modern pop stars,

and made the choreography a mixture of recognisable classical ballet,

mixed in with recognisable quotations from pop music videos,

then the reward-triggering functions in the human brain associated with recognition

would make the choreography seem incredibly rewarding to audiences.



Cut to /


Vast cheering crowds in 1970s Iran, probably.


To be fair, MK Ultra is also extremely well choreographed, and [dancer] in particular is amazing. But Adam Curtis is still taken much too seriously in UK. I prefer my German friend’s assumption that he was a video artist, with a sensibility something more along the lines of Bill Drummond than Jon Pilger.



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