Animal Kingdom writer-director David Michod will helm the first episode of Starz's Flesh and Bone ballet drama, the pay cabler announced Wednesday.
From Breaking Bad's Moira Walley-Beckett, Flesh and Bone centers on a young ballet dancer (Sarah Hay) with a distinctly troubled past, as she joins as prestigious company in New York. The series will explore the dysfunction and glamour of the ballet world.
This would mark Michod's second time going behind the camera for a television series, following a stint directing a 2013 episode of HBO's Enlightened.
“I’m entirely enamored of the visual, visceral, artful way David tells story,” said Walley-Beckett. “His style and sensibility is very much in alignment with my vision of my show.”
“David is perhaps the most exciting filmmaker we’ve seen in quite some time. He is the kind of meticulous craftsman who has the eye to bring forth a character and create such a tension with the viewer that it is palpable," said Carmi Zlotnick, managing director of Starz. "That is why we are so very excited he will be helping to establish the tone of Flesh and Bone. Moira is writing such complex characters set against the backdrop of a world of beauty and grace, and David has a superb ability to convey this equally thrilling and poignant story.”
American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Irina Dvorovenko and soloist Sascha Radetsky also star, along with Ballet Arizona company dancer Raychel Diane Weiner and Emily Tyra. Royal New Zealand Ballet artistic director Ethan Stiefel will be the choreographer on the series. Walley-Beckett, Lawrence Bender, Kevin Brown and John Melfi are executive producers.
Production begins in spring 2014 in New York City. Starz will premiere Flesh and Bone in 2015.
Michod is repped by UTA, Australia's Cameron Cresswell and attorney Alan Wetheimer.
