LONDON— Scottish conceptual artist Martin Creed, who has no previous experience working with classically trained dancers, has choreographed a ballet. His Work No. 1020 will be shown as part of this year’s Frieze fair. The piece will be presented by Frieze Music, Sadler's Wells theater, and shown as part of this year's season of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Work No. 1020 starts and ends with ballet’s five basic positions, dancers can move forwards, backwards or sideways, but not diagonally.

The piece reflects interests that the artist pursued in previous projects, namely Work No. 850 (1998), which set 850 runners sprinting through the Tate weaving in and out of crowds of visitors, and his Turner Prize winning piece The lights going on and off (2001). The artist pointed out that Work No. 850 prompted him to think about movement and The lights going on and off uses the gallery as it is, "So to me, trying to use the human body is one step further in trying to make work that doesn't add things to the world. It's not adding extra stuff, it's people."

Creed was also drawn to the project because of Diaghilev’s previous commissions, which included pieces from Picasso and Matisse. "I always thought that looked brilliant," he says. "When I first started learning about art, I thought that was part of what artists did, getting involved in ballet and stuff like that."

Read more in the Independent.