Michael Clark (Number One...)

Michael Clark's reputation as the bad boy of dance rests mainly on the works that he made in the 1980s: choreographies like No Fire Escape in Hell and Curious Orange married dance with a post-punk ferocity and queer decadence in a time when these ideas were still threatening. Clark's early work was challenging and disorientating, using his ballet training to distort traditional dance movements into something alien and strange.

If he has never quite lost both the playfulness and vitality of his 1980s' work, Clark's recent choreography is far more obviously influenced by ballet. Thanks to the programming of New Territories, Edinburgh International Festival and Tramway, he has become a familiar presence in Scotland - it has been possible to trace the development of his process through the repeated booking of the show that eventually became come, been and gone. Having a company predominantly trained in ballet has lent his choreography a more recognisably classical shape.

This isn't so much about the young radical maturing into a conservative - part of the pleasure of No Fire Escape was the importance of ballet as a foundation, and far less skillful choreographers have followed his lead in seeing that contemporary dance, once in opposition to ballet, can be informed by ballet technique and grace. The alluring, yet alien, dances of his Barrowlands' Project - which is likely to have been a beginning for the show arriving at Tramway this weekend - are the result of Clark's interesting in testing how the fundamental ballet postures, such as the outward rotation of the leg - can reach some distinctly unfamiliar places.

Aside from the ballet, Clark's use of music is another distinctive quality. It's not so much that he choses rock music over classical (or electronic, which is increasingly fashionable), but that he has a genuine affection for his choices. The various collaborations with The Fall - eventually, he had them on stage for Curious Orange - the repeated visits to Wire's back catalogue, the various Bowie numbers suggest that Clark choreographs to music he loves - no afterthought in the process for him. He even used an iconic image of Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed as publicity, affirming that "rock had been his rock."

So the arrival of Scritti Politti in Tramway should be no surprise. They come out of the same post-punk time that energised Clark and, like him, have a respect for traditional forms given a subversive twist. Green Gartside may have realised very quickly that a polished production could allow him to infiltrate popular culture - in the early 1980s, they stood up alongside mainstream pop bands despite  their lyrical interest in serious left-wing aesthetics and politics. And Clark, who now gets commissions for community projects from Glasgow City Council, has noticed how the veneer can enhance and hide the more radical yearnings that were on the surface in his youthful productions.

Tramway, 4 - 6 October