You’re still here? It’s over! Go home…

Yep. You missed it. The last chance saloon has stopped serving.

Relax.

We gave the festival quite a send off. Aretha Franklin featured, James Brown did a turn and we got to experience some of the best soul-rending music I’ve ever heard….even if it was recorded. But what really raised the temperature in Smock Alley were David Zambrano’s Soul Project performers who - inspired by and driven to emulate in their own idiom the powerful example of the vocalists - expressed in movement an extraordinary depth of passion, revealing an almost spiritual intensity. Moving around the space and getting as close as possible to watch each dancer move, it was impossible to avoid sensing both their abandon in performance and the effect of this on one’s fellow spectators.

Mmmaybe it was a little too long…but really, what I felt it needed were a few more audience members. And the last two weeks deserved a show that reminded us a little of how much fun dance is, and how enlivening. Afterwards, Caroline ‘Rummy’ Williams led the march over to Project for the big send-off, the ample flow of liquor given a twist by being served by trained fire-eating monkeys; about midnight, Laurie started cutting her favourite deck and….but hey, you know what? You missed it. Better luck next year.

What now? Well, if you like, you can revisit past glories by just scrolling down the page.

But me? To be honest, so distraught am I at the ruthless cutbacks in dance provision in the Irish Republic, I’m heading to Romania for a theatre festival. So, if you’re in Sibiu over the next two weeks…heh…well, let’s just say, les jeux sont faits…