CORK, CLONMEL & GALWAY
JUNE – JULY 2010

Three Irish festivals laudably included choreographers well worth the trip through the country this summer.  At Cork Midsummer Festival, Jérome Bêl’s 2001 work, The Show Must Go On, provoked, irritated and delighted (different) audience members.  Built on a simple conceit of illustrating up to 20 iconic songs from films (Hair and Titanic) and pop songs by artists from the Beatles to Edith Piaf from Roberta Flack to the Police, the 20 performers stand and watch the audience (I’ll Be Watching You), die (Killing Me Softly), go through a trap door in the stage (Yellow Submarine) or exit the stage as the audience is bathed in pink light (La Vie en Rose).  It’s obvious, but it’s also incredibly smart.  Once you catch on, you can relax and take note of what the different performers bring to each song.  Some members of the cast are highly trained ballet dancers, others are not dancers at all, yet each is a joy to watch.  By opening with 8 minutes of an empty stage (Tonight and Let the Sun Shine In), the piece is a bit of a tease in terms of breaking “the lights go down, now we must be silent and respectful” audience-performer relationship.  On opening night, the Cork audience took full advantage of this leeway: they went out to the bar for more drinks, sang along to Imagine and Sounds of Silence, and a number of them left the theatre.  In the post-performance discussion (which I moderated), Jérome spoke of different reactions in various locations, including the audience climbing onstage to join the cast in Paris.  He noted, however, that the Irish audience sang more than any other he’d yet experienced.

While in Cork, I stopped in to the Lewis Glucksman Gallery to see Mel Mercier’s sound installation, From the Sources.   Commemorating the Fleischmann centenary, the John Cage-inspired take on traditional music is on until 24 October.  Don’t miss it if you’re in Cork!

The Clonmel Junction Festival commissioned and premiered a new work by Iseli-Chiodi entitled MYS2 (Me Seeing You Too), an extension of the themes in >Me Seeing You<. that was presented as part of Re-Presenting Ireland at DDF 2010.  Set up in a large open space, with hanging white fabric on which a forest was projected, the piece opened with Iseli dashing through, a kind of hide and seek with the audience.  After these fabric swaths were taken down, interviews with people of diverse backgrounds were projected on screens of various sizes and the audience was invited to come onstage to have various viewpoints on the videos and the dancers who inhabited different parts of the stage.  A pre-show work created with three young performers in a five-day workshop took place in the lobby which also serves as a café and arts centre.  This Festival has a real sense of community inclusion and involvement.

Israeli-born, British-based choreographer Hofesh Shechter brought his most recent work, Political Mother, to the Galway Arts Festival, which was a co-producer of the piece.  Shechter, who was trained in music as well as dance, composed the score for this piece which comprised four guitarists and four drummers on raised stages amidst smoky lighting.  Intricate shuddering movements by a cast of ten belied an underlying tension and implied aggression was interspersed with moments of tenderness.  Shechter has received significant attention and support in the U.K and it was great to see him in Ireland.  Winner of the Critic’s Circle National Dance Award for Best Choreography (modern) in 2008, his work has been touring widely in the U.K., Europe and Asia.

What a pleasure it was to see such excellent dance performances without getting on a plane!