Dance me a river
April 28, 2008
It was no crying game for director Neil Jordan and actor Stephen Rea at Jean Butler’s intimate show does she take sugar?, in the jam-packed Project Space Upstairs on Sunday evening.
Along with singer Sinéad O’Connor (who Neil directed so brilliantly as the BVM in The Butcher Boy – remember?), that esteemed trinity really enjoyed Jean’s take on her journey as a dancer – including her own twist on the Bumper to Bumper silent disco phenomenon, when, in one section she danced to music only she could hear on her iPod.
Among hundreds of others availing of the opportunity to see Butler’s legendary dancing up close were the extraordinary actress Olwen Fouéré; dancer, choreographer, and member of Aosdána, Cindy Cummings; theatre director Tom Creed (still on his season ticket), and dancer Breándán de Gallaí.
Jean’s mother was delighted to see the show again after flying in from New York that day. Speaking of New York, it was great to see footage of New York, where Jean and her husband Cuan Hanley are based now, projected behind her. She describes this soul-bearing solo, as a “postcard” of where she is at right now – a good as well as terribly interesting place indeed.
I was looking out for Jerry Hall, who attended the swish reception for the Dance Festival at US Ambassador Thomas C Foley’s Residence in the Phoenix Park earlier that day, thinking that she might have popped in on her way to her own performance, Love Letters, at the Tivoli Theatre. She could have been there, but I didn’t see her.
In the same space the previous night, the broad-ranging audience at Colin Dunne’s outstanding solo Out of Time lept to their feet in the first standing ovation of the festival.
Yang to Jean’s Yin, perhaps, Dunne’s autobiographically-inspired show began with the playful opening gambit: “Wanna see my hornpipe?”
“Yes!” came one fan’s enthusiastic reply, out of the packed auditorium.
He also let us in to some trade secrets. Ever wonder what is really going through the heads of Irish dancers as they hop and pound it out on the stage? Rashers and sausages. That’s the mantra that keeps them in perfect 6/8 time. Try it at home – you’ll see!
In this ground-breaking piece, with the help of director Sinéad Rushe, and sound designer Fionán de Barra, Dunne took his percussive genius to new places. Placing microphones in his shoes, he played with the reverb, letting swooshing, and sometimes other-worldly sounds emerge from his hard-shoe taps.
Rich, multi-layered, and meticulously worked-through, Out of Time is the fruit of a long journey, from a youngster being feted as world-record breaker on Blue Peter at the age of ten (footage that is part of the show); to taking on the lead role in Riverdance, to his more reflective self today. But it’s not without that crucial ingredient – humour.
As well as the fans, people who have played a part in his journey were present. Colin’s sisters, Geraldine and Caroline, who were sent to Irish dancing class with their younger brother as small children, had flown in from Birmingham, as did his longtime manager Ian Allen, with his wife Sarah. They were floored by Colin’s show.
Jean Butler, Colin’s former dancing partner and collaborator, and her husband designer Cuan Hanly, were both moved by Colin’s powerful solo.
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre’s Michael Keegan-Dolan, who directed Dunne sending himself up as a tacky Irish dancing star in The Bull, (for which Dunne was nominated for a UK Critic’s Circle National Dance Award), dropped in to see Colin delving way deeper into that role, on Sunday night.
Dunne partly tried to make sense of it all by simply dancing in time with wonderful black and white archive footage - getting into the 1935 groove of sprightly dancing spadesmiths Willie, Jack, Peter, and Jim Hayes; of Áine ni Thuathaigh’s 1955 svelte slip-jig, and of the wonderful Paddy Bán O’Broin, enjoying a jig in 1972.
Earlier in the afternoon I got to bring my ine year-old niece Sophie to The Ark, Cultural Centre for Children, to see David Middendorp’s quirky Dreamsketch/Dustbuster/Bread-Peace. She thought it was brilliant.
At the end of the Roger Rabbit-style show, the children were shown how to do their own special effects in front of a blue or green-screen (“just paint a sheet!”), and how to control their parents by remote-control when they got home.
Jessica Kennedy, of Junk Ensemble, was sitting beside us in the cute little auditorium, and is set to give workshops for kids there next week with her identical twin sister Megan.
Actor Louis Lovett – better known to many as Dieter Langer in TV series Killnaskully – was also enjoying the renowned Dutch company. Louis is a regular performer at The Ark, for his own Theatre Lovett, children’s theatre company.
Louis’ wife Muireann Ahern, Creative Arts programmer at the Ark, who co-programmed Dublin Dance Festival’s children’s season was busy running workshops upstairs.
I then legged it down to Project Cube to catch Rebecca Walter’s off-beat and somewhat anarchistic take on the Dame Street/George’s Street intersection in her film Walk Don’t Run, co-directed by Mark Linnane, for Catapult Dance.
After this original interventionist take on ‘dancing at the crossroads’ - with four red, orange, and green-clad dancers dashing out to the middle of the road and dancing in the fifteen-second intervals when the lights were red, that busy thoroughfare will never look the same to me again.
In true candid camera/cinema vérité style, two gardaí hilariously interrupted Wolfgang Hoffman, director of Dublin Fringe Festival as he rolled across Dame Street on his side, requesting that he stand up and move off. Wisely, he obeyed.
The brave dancers may not have got a second glance from many of their self-involved fellow-pedestrians, but Project Cube was packed with chuckling and bemused admirers, including Ingrid Nachstern of Night Star Dance Company and Joanna Banks, who were sitting beside me. Like many present, they had just legged it down from the Mixed Bill at DanceHouse to catch Walter’s refreshing film.