All tapped out...

Earlier this morning, I got an email from a friend asking for a little help. (Yes, this does happen occasionally.) And, just to show she wasn’t being completely self-centred, she kindly asked if I was - to quote - ‘all danced out yet’. I know! The sheer temerity of the gel; the brazen, bare-faced British cheek of it all...

…but I have to be honest.

When I opened her email, I kind of felt like I was. Terrible thing to admit, I know. But how many more ways can I describe a body moving? Or rather, how many more ways can I describe the response that a moving body (or bodies) can elicit from me? I felt tapped out. And the prospect of tapping out another blog on another piece of dance…well, let’s put it this way: I wasn’t exactly enthused.

That was, until I dragged myself over to DanceHouse for the second Mixed Bill of this year’s Re-Presenting Ireland. I’d caught the first Bill last Friday but, as I’d had to leave early, I’d held back from putting digits to board. I’m glad I did.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of great work over the past week or so. Fantastic work, mostly by choreographers and companies visiting these shores for the festival. And it’s a privilege, truly. But to have a chance to see a selection of work by some of the finest emerging and established choreographers in the Irish scene is one of the best things about this element of the festival programme. For despite the limited time available to them, those chosen do indeed represent much of what is excellent about the art form in Ireland.

Kicking off the first bill, Dylan Quinn’s Fallout initially had me worried. Through the persona of a brash media professional, Quinn strove to direct our attention to the way violence can be objectified, neutralised - even glamourised – depending on how it’s treated by the media machine we rely on. Now, the fear I had was whether he'd be able to both sustain the integrity of his initial choice of persona whilst successfully shifting to a more subtle, complex interrogation effected by movement. Happily, my concern was quickly dispelled. And Bonus Tracks revealed the robust quality of movement that is a unique strength.

As for Getting Lost, Liz Roche’s exploration of what happens when both dancer and spectator are asked to process a large amount of fast-paced physical data…well, to begin with, Chen and O’Malley are two of my favourite performers to watch. As far as I’m concerned, you could just have the two of them skipping rope and they’d find a way to make it interesting. Which, of course, is not at all to denigrate the quality of Roche’s composition. The relentlessness with which the piece was imbued by her never felt stochastic, frenzied or chaotic; instead, possibly thanks to the pattern interrupts of easy to apprehend gestures, it seemed to infuse the viewer with a strangely energised ease, a surrender to the overwhelming flow and interaction of two bodies, one where tension wound would unwind again. to begin again; a step back to move on again.

Junk Ensemble’s Drinking Dust was spectacular. Touching adeptly on the theme of memory, Jessica and Megan Kennedy’s work has strange shadows attending it. Its gothic nature evokes an odd terrain where memory and fantasy have equal purchase, one where light is not guaranteed a place in the scheme of things. The repetitive yet striking images of this piece seem to play with everything from themes of ageing, absence and loss to those of power-reversal, domination and the illicit eroticism of precocious sexuality…but as I happen to know the said choreographers in a social sense, I think it best I leave it there...

Today’s pieces were of similar power – Ingrid Nachstern’s Watch…Es’ treadmill of motion adequately conveyed the pressures under which men (in certain sectors of modern life) find themselves living. The four male performers were driven to their limit in the repetitive, industrial, clockwork calling of the work. Intriguingly though, I couldn’t help noticing how my response to the piece had changed from when I saw it last year, in light of the collapse of the global economy and the thought of how the lives of the men that inspired this must have fallen asunder. An interesting lesson in context for any work.

Jean Butler’s thicker than this was infused with that gentle releasing into a void of freedom I’ve noticed before in other work by her. In an introspective, tentative manner, Butler dissects and attends to all that comes naturally to her – those forms and techniques that have been so fully made a part of how she moves, that she barely notices them anymore. It’s almost as if there’s a suspicion in her mind of her own corporeal impulses, that somehow they’re not quite her own yet. And in her consequent isolation on stage, we get a glimpse of a beautiful, personal unfolding of a dancer into a new space and onto a new path.

Finally, Phrases from a Lost Year, Ríonach Ní Néill’s latest work-in-progress confirms for me Ní Néill’s status as one of the most engaging choreographers currently at work in Ireland. Situating some of the audience within the field of play, the three performers (joined at the very end by Ní Néill herself) play, manipulate, explore with, advance upon and oversee each other with an at once innocent yet sardonic quality. The peculiarly humane, intimate quality of physical movement is thus tempered by a sharper atmosphere, resulting in a work that I can only describe as…well, dammit, sanguine - in the best, most generous sense of that word.

So that’s it for today – I did want to compare and contrast José Navas’ wonderful Miniatures and Ioana Mona Popovici’s entertaining Work in Regress but hey, I have to give you some reason to come back here tomorrow…for the last day of the festival….now shoo.

I'm busy.