Sergei Polunin's Ballet to Hozier's "Take Me to Church."

Chances are, you’ve seen the YouTube video of Sergei Polunin’s ballet to Hozier’s “Take Me To Church.” As I write this, the view counter tallies over ten million views. At least ten are mine.

Right around when this video first became viral, my eleven fellow curators-in-training and I were finalising our exhibition concept. Our assignment was to develop a show that would respond to the Courtauld Gallery’s summer exhibition concerning the evolution of the concept of “unfinished” in the history of art. Of our many ideas, one was something we called “refinished.” Since the gallery focused on works that were never finished, we went to the opposite end of the spectrum, trying to figure out how works could be more than finished.

Though “Refinished” was a conveniently snappy title paired with “Unfinished,” it was a rather complicated concept to define, even to ourselves. We tried to suss out our theme, as well as a few others, over several weeks, carefully trying to define something that was interesting and original. We worked to avoid well-worn art historical themes like traditional artistic collaboration, instead using phrases like “artistic imposition” and referring to the “hand” or “ego” of the artist. (Guess where our title came from.)

As is always the case, you learn something in school and suddenly you see it everywhere. Towards the end of our struggle to define our concept, a friend sent me this video. Well, either a friend sent it to me or I saw it on Buzzfeed, but either way, all of a sudden our concept clicked in my mind and I fully understood what my course mates and I were trying to say. Here was an artist, Sergei Polunin, taking the work of another artist, Hozier, and carefully placing his own artistic interpretation directly on top of the original work. The nature of the two media, music and dance, makes Polunin’s artistic addition a bit more socially acceptable than some of the others we feature in The Second Hand, but the concept remains the same as the core concept of our exhibition.

Hozier’s “Take Me to Church” is a simultaneous celebration and mourning of the religious fervour of love. The tone is somehow both folk and gospel, the former a more intimate sound, the latter more public. Miraculously, “Take Me to Church” somehow evokes a space; the sound reverberates in a massive, empty room, bouncing off walls that are unseen but heard.

Polunin’s ballet, though it considers the artistic voice of Hozier in the song, takes a step further from simply following Hozier’s artistic intention. Polunin’s ballet is full of the raw power of the human body. Rather than make it look easy or hard, Polunin’s every jump and stretch is a push against the limits of the human body. This ballet transforms a fervent and plaintive prayer that echoes in your head and heart into a raw and intensely physical expression of pure love that aches in your bones.