Apocryphal...Now

Okay. I admit it. I’ve been a little tardy when it comes to this year’s festival.

To begin with…I missed the beginning: the festival’s opening night celebration and the perfect opportunity to hang out with Laurie, Ellie, Caroline and the rest of the DDF army and get a feel for what lies ahead.

Okay. My loss. No big deal.

But then…I totally blew it with Bumper 2 Bumper, the festival’s disco with a difference. Possibly the one time I could bust a move without getting arrested by the dance police…and I missed it. And while I’m sure the event was all the better for my absence, I was starting to worry that I’d stumbled into an…uhm…unhelpful pattern of behaviour. I swore I’d try to break it.

Last night, as I found myself racing down O’Connell St to make the inaugural festival performance, it occurred to me that I wasn’t trying hard enough. (This time, I swore harder. Believe me.)

Still, I made it. And what a show. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Apocrifu is a remarkable challenge to the supremacy of the dead letter over the living spirit. The title of the work refers to the apocryphal, that is, something of doubtful authenticity, most often used with reference to those regarded as beyond canonical scripture. Of course, that raises then the question of deciding what is canonical, and what apocryphal…and once decided, what happens next? The extraordinary physicality of the three performers, and the resonating polyphonic singing of Corsican group A Filetta together gave striking testimony to how the moving body and the singing voice both suffer under, yet retain the power to break, the tyranny of text and the burden of the fixed dogma.

Sure, there were a few criticisms after the show (one being a suspicion that it was perhaps a little longer than necessary) but on the whole, those I spoke to were effusive in their praise for the work. Particularly two luminaries of the Irish ballet scene who spoke with delectation of what they felt was as fine an example of a male torso as has ever graced the Abbey’s stage.

One final thought. I suppose the challenge to sacred scripture offered by Apocrifu is as good a place to start as any. But I couldn’t help feeling it a little too obvious. I mean, in the West, we’ve largely broken the back of religious dogmatism – but we can no more stop falling for our own illusions than we can stop breathing. Or do we imagine we don’t have our dogmas? That democracy isn’t a faith? That the scientific method is truth?

So. Get a ticket, if you can. See Apocrifu, if you can. And when you’re done, have a drink, have a think and ask yourself…what are the apocrypha you take as scripture these days?

If you can.