Flesh and Bone quickly dashes any hopes (or assuages any fears) you might have that it will be a serious drama about the world of ballet. As the opening credits roll, Karen O sings a droning cover of the 1980s hit Obsession (“Who do you want me to be/ To make you sleep with me”) over a grainy montage featuring dancers and a lot of flying red chalk. It already feels as if we were back in the soft core heyday of Zalman King, with David Duchovny about to walk on screen to narrate an episode of Red Shoe Diaries.
As the eight-episode series progresses, that feeling is largely confirmed, though the truer comparison is to Showgirls, crossed with a little Black Swan. The story of an ingenue from Pittsburgh (invoking another ‘80s-’90s bellwether, Flashdance) who takes New York by storm, Flesh and Bone is a solemn gigglefest, too wintry in its look and deliberate in its pacing to ascend to true camp status, but still ripe for group viewing and drinking games.
Familiar figures from ballet have been brought in, including dancers Irina Dvorovenko and Sascha Radetsky, who play members of the fictitious American Ballet Company, a scrappy outfit that wants to compete with New York’s finest. Ethan Stiefel, the former American Ballet Theatre star, is the show’s choreographer. A laundry list of ballet themes is checked off: injury, drugs, weight, the sexual exploitation of dancers.
These efforts to lend some authenticity are overshadowed, though, by the ripe pulpiness of the story and by the skin on display. Nearly all of the young women playing central characters are seen naked by the end of the first episode, having sex, strolling across the company’s locker room, examining themselves in mirrors and, crucially, plying their second jobs at a clandestine strip club.
Created by Moira Walley-Beckett, who won a writing Emmy for an episode of Breaking Bad, Flesh and Bone works the dancer-stripper-prostitute parallel hard, though only occasionally with the demented glee that Showgirls brought to the same trope. But when those moments come, they’re worth waiting for.
Sitting on the floor, studying her nailless big toe, Claire (Sarah Hay, who appeared as a dancer in Black Swan), the newcomer, dabs some blood on her finger, smears it on her lips and then leans over to kiss her reflection in the rehearsal studio mirror. Later, she’s so turned on by watching her stalker brother be beaten up by the strip club security guards that she’s finally ready to give herself to the nice customer who’s been paying just to talk to her. And so on.
The most ridiculous tasks are reserved for Ben Daniels (House of Cards, Law & Order: UK), who’s fine in his quieter moments as the company’s imperious artistic director but frequently has to bark out the show’s more risible dialogue, and navigate scenes like the one in which he spreads a young rent boy across his desk and has at him while muttering: “I am a man of vision. I am undeniable.”
What’s undeniable is that Flesh and Bone is impossible to take seriously, which might be the point, though it presents its steamy soap opera absurdities with an awfully straight face — there’s no indication that there’s a joke we’re supposed to be in on. You may find yourself throwing things at the screen when the irritatingly tremulous Claire goes to bed and covers herself, head to toe, with books — the only way she can get to sleep. Or you may find yourself saying “Awwww,” in which case you might as well stick around for the next seven episodes.
— Flesh and Bone debuts on Starz Play on November 10 in the UAE.
