Movement I: There is No More

ITS been a fucking awful week but my friends have been great but now i have to some how pull myself together and finish with the HELLS ANGELS & PROLIFIC DAEMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Lee McQueen

Duration: 30 mins
This movement encapsulates McQueen’s relationship to music as he was making what was to become his posthumous show Angels and Demons. This collection,  finished by Sarah Burton and its sharing with the world, was imbued with a sense of calm  - the New York Times noting how ‘personal and incredibly reassured the work was’. 

Guests were seated on boxes around the periphery of the room. Before the show, they were all given a note that read "each piece is unique, as was he"

For the soundtrack, the brand used the music  that Lee was listening to while working on the collection. The shows closed with the whispered words "There is no more". The models did not return for the traditional final walk

John Gosling recalls the day Lee gave him the music for the show; the ‘‘presence’ of this moment is the exposition of this new semi-staged concert.

Performance Elements

• Orchestra & Choir: selections from the work of Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Haydn, and Henry Purcell, evoking space initially, moving into rising action in the last third of this section.

• Screen/ Film cues:  Screen begins in white, leading to choreography of the same performer on stage. Images and colours featuring  Lee’s last garments, images from last show, abstracted. The dancer on screen presented on a larger than life scale, over the three screens.

• Dance : Midway through the section, a lone performer moves through an illuminated path through the orchestra wearing ochre garments, prefiguring the use of red later in the film, marking & echoing rising music action. Choreography embodies ‘ There is No More’

• Staging & Lighting :  Stage is white, lighting design using shadow, blocks of colour. Rigged Fabric, up-lit.

Movement II: Dante :  Descent & Ascent

Duration: 25 mins

"I think religion has caused every war in the world, which is why I showed in a church"

-Lee McQueen

This movement captures a moment of personal and cultural emergence for Lee. The erotic, violent and sacred are introduced to the audience. Dante in 1996, Lee’s international breakthrough moment was staged at Christ Church in London. The catwalk was built in a crucifix shape. McQueen was inspired by the work of the photojournalist Don McCullin, who immortalized extremely distressing scenes of the Vietnam War during the 1960s. McCulin's pictures were illegally printed and used in Dante.

Lee was pop. Lee was young. Lee was defiant. Lee’s music during his coming of age was Fuck You.

John Gosling abetted.

Performance Elements:

• Orchestra & Choir & Organ : Selections from Dante including Gregorian Chants, Adagio for Strings, Apocalypse Now building into and driving a turning point in the concert. Voices used here also to create a sense of crowd and momentum.

• Screen/ Film cues: A mesmerizing, hypnotic sequence of pure colour. Fluid animations and lighting effects, Archival footage from Dante.

• Dance : Choreography embodies conviction, violence, descent & ascent. Costume tbc

Staging & Lighting :  The stage is white and red. Red carpet/ fabric between sections of orchestra, front of the stage. lighting design using shadow, blocks of colour. Mist to be used. The orchestra in silhouette. Rigged Fabric up-lit, which drops during the last moments of this section.

Movement III: Plato’s Atlantis

Duration: 25 mins

“We’re descending to where we came from. The show’s about the future, it’s about the planet ending and it’s about survival of the fittest. What’s left? The strongest species will survive. I used a lot of techno music because it feels like a natural progression towards what comes next.”

-Lee McQueen

This final movement finds the concert full expression and resolution. The rhythm, electronic moments in the orchestral soundscape drives an euphoric final section which opens back into space. This absence is active. Lee’s evocation of the myth of Atlantis evokes corruption and utopia, his expression of this was nature and technology, mediated by the human body. 

Lee’s music at the time focused on the world making, of the possibility of being somewhere new.

Performance Elements:

• Orchestra & Choir & Organ : Musically,  works like Inside by Pig and The Abyss (OST) by Alan Silvestri were part of Lee’s process at the time. The energy of Das Rheingold (Prelude) and music and samples by John Gosling and Pig featured in the show. 

• Screen/ Film cues: Focusing on natural and industrial elements,  close-ups of iconic Atlantis, imagery inc. textiles, accessories. Repetition & sense of emergence is conveyed through images of the dancer on screen presented on a larger than life scale, mirroring the orchestral and vocal layering of tension and release.

• Dance : None, apart from final moments,  Back to the audience. Costume tbc, releases a final red cloth.

• Staging & Lighting :  Stage is white, lighting design using shadow, blocks of colour. The focus is on the film, the audience experiencing the concert visually now.