Montréal is such a beautiful city, especially in late May/early June when the lilacs bloom throughout. It’s the perfect time for a festival and Festival Transamériques, now an annual event that incorporates both dance and theatre, is perfectly scheduled. Unfortunately, I only had two days there this year but they were jammed with performances, meetings and several informal showings.

In the mid-80’s, Louise Lecavalier was the human dynamo of LaLaLa Human Steps, Édouard Lock’s company. While Édouard laconically played guitar, Louise’s endless barrel turns at mega-speed took your breath away. Over the past few years, she has come back to performing, commissioning works by Benoit Lachambre and Tedd Robinson, among others. At this year’s FTA, she performed Children + a Few Minutes of Lock. She was absolutely stunning. At 52, and having had a hip replacement, she has somehow recovered her 25-year old body. Her performance with Patrick Lamothe in Nigel Charnock’s aerobically challenging Children was amazing and it was fantastic to see her throwing out those barrel turns again – even in the 13’ of Lock’s work that was performed with Elijah Brown. On the main programme, I was also able to see Tammy Forsythe and the Portuguese artist Tania Caravalho, who is part of the Lisbon-based collaborative, Bomba Suicida. Both these artists are very conscious of the visual look of their work, though in quite different ways.

As part of Off-FTA Frédérick Gravel, an intriguing young voice who puts an equal emphasis on the music (live) as on the dance, showed Gravel Works. Dominique Porte showed a very new work in progress, in which she is exploring the physicality of kinetic memory. A beautiful dancer with a long performance history, this piece holds promise. I also saw a showing of Vertiges by Stéphanie Decourteille, a very young artist who incorporates interesting aerial work.

Being in Montréal also provided a great opportunity to catch up with some colleagues. I met with Kathy Casey, Artistic Director of Montréal Danse, and heard about some new directions the company is taking; Bernard Lagacé, General Manager of BJM Danse talked about their broad repertory and touring program; and Laurence Wegscheider of Compagnie Flak provided some news on how José’s new solo is shaping up (watch this space!).

The Québec Government Office in London has been very generous in their support of DDF staff travel to see Québec dance artists over the past year. We will miss Colin Hicks, Director of Cultural Services, who is moving onto independent ventures and wish him all the best.

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Venice is a dream world.  A movie set.  Who can imagine such a city into existence?  Well, certainly the hordes of tourists who rival Grafton Street on the Saturday before Christmas….

Piazza San Marco

With great thanks to the Québec Government Office, London and the invitation of George Skalkogiannis of Daniel Léveillé Danse, I spent a fairly glorious three days in Venice.  Coming just a week after the finale of DDF 2010, it was a welcome respite.  The three works of Daniel Léveillé’s trilogy – Amour, Acide et Noix (seen at DDF 2009), La Pudeur des Icebergs, and La Crépusule des Océans — looked beautiful in Teatro Tese in the Arsenale, a brick-walled former military complex.  Having seen these works over a span of some seven years, it was quite informative to see the three within such a brief time frame.  The Biennale had a Québec focus and I was also happy to see Marie Chouinard’s group work, Le Nombre d’Or, in which there was an intriguing use of masks.  Her solo,  Gloires du Matin,  was stunningly performed by Chouinard herself at 9am in the very intimate setting of a studio in La Fenice.  In addition to these five works by Québec artists, I also saw Crystal Pite’s company, Kidd Pivot (from Vancouver), in Dark Matters.  The first act of this piece had a haunting Pinocchio-like puppet and a crashing set.  José Navas was also at the Biennale, performing Miniatures, one of the highlights of DDF 2009, but I unfortunately couldn’t get there as the timing and geography didn’t work.

An added bonus was meeting Bridget Webster (former CoisCéim manager) for lunch.  She is currently living in Padova outside of Venice with her husband and two children (who look adorable in their photos).  It was really a treat to dine with someone who knows someone who knows the restaurant owner.  Fabulous fish!

George, Daniel and company at dinner.

I’m on the bus from Dublin airport, not fifty yards away from the terminal when it starts. A kaleidoscope of images that are ever familiar, but now animated unsettlingly as signifiers; symbols and evaluations of my home where at the moment, I don’t live. And so the airport roundabout is not a roundabout, but the setting for a sculpture which my uncle designed some years ago. Street corners offer up not a blurry landscape of dear old dirty Dublin, but epic spaces which have hosted a first drink, a missed opportunity, a chance meeting. There is an inherent valuation system at work as I watch this cartoon: has the city changed? Is it better or worse? Does it comply with my now heavily romanticised notion of what Home is? There is ever-present, the capacity for disappointment in this reunion…like a lover whose late arrival and scruffy attire fails to measure up to the heart-fluttering and anticipation of the girl who has waited expectantly for him.

Progress and change it must be said, I view with certain discomfort; it points to a kind of slippage, a sense of time passing – am I not allowed just to preserve it all? Seal it tight in a jar, static and frozen until I come home. Returning this time however for a short sojourn at the Dublin Dance festival, change, shifts, and vibrancy were the order of the day…and all in a good way. The dynamism of the festival was palpable, with the city playing host to an eclectic selection of Irish and international artists, all showcasing varied works, and chatting over Sheridan’s cheese platters.

The festival’s themes were ones which engaged me from the outset. Originally heralding from a largely balletic background, I find myself increasingly drawn to performances like that of Raimund Hoghe’s or Carlotta Sagna’s in which the charisma, texture and depth of the work stems not from flashy dance technique or youthful physical perfection per se, but from the richness of witnessing somebody inhabit a performance space, and infuse it with their presence. For me, Dublin Dance festival didn’t emblazon in lights that there are older/different bodies on stage. In fact it achieved something more subtle, in that I never actually noted the age or physicality of a performer as being particularly remarkable or different within the festival context. It seemed perfectly natural to watch the gentle poise of Madge Bolger performing in Swimming with my Mother, and giggle at the ironic bodily journey of Silvia Gribaudi in A CORPO LIBERO. Likewise works like GIMP by Heidi Latsky redefine the parameters of dance, simply by existing, and doing. To me this is not a case of people overcoming something to perform, or adapting dance to their physicality or age – rather they just expand and innovate the form in new directions, and offer new possibilities.

In addition to the quiet rupture of sometimes prevalent bodily norms in performance, I found the works in the festival provided some thought-provoking material in terms of considering signification in dance, and the inherently evocative nature of the artform. ‘Signification in dance’, according to choreographer Tere O’ Connor ‘is a tower that’s constantly falling down’ (1).  In his quest for abstraction, his choreography seeks out an a-symbolic journey, in which associations are formed, but only fleetingly. Sentiments echoed in codified whispers and suggestions. Personally, I find the potential for evocation which operates on an abstract level, a particularly eloquent capability of dance. In performances where abstraction and blurring are at work, there is a generosity afforded for the viewer to associate and disassociate as they choose. The heady strains of Peggy Lee swirling around a minimalist tableau in Young People, Old Voices communicate an emotion that is piercing due precisely to a sense of remove. Similarly the disjointed and unsettling score of DAY, composed by James Baker, pursued a largely oblique journey save for a few nuggets of faintly recognisable sounds or harmonious passages which all of a sudden tinged the choreography in a momentarily different hue – fresh and arresting due to their scarcity.

Experiencing the festival as I was, with ‘visitor goggles’ on, I was struck by the thought-provoking flavour of the 2010 programming, and testament to this were the good natured arguments and opposing viewpoints which the selection of works inspired. After all, isn’t that dance at its best? Provoking, inciting and seducing, not with didactic or ostentatious display, but through the multiple, intriguing possibilities of the human body.

Mary Kate is a freelance movement practitioner and writer on dance and performance, currently based in London. She holds a lecturing and research post at the Laban conservatoire of Contemporary Dance.

1. O’Connor speaking at the Many Bodies Of Contemporary Dance Symposium.

It really isn’t fair. You can’t just wander around dispensing one-way tickets to crapulency when you know – you know – that some of us lack the self-control to say no. And it’s the height of recklessness to do so after we’d gotten all hyped up by the extraordinary Noche Flamenca. I mean, how’s a person so induced to inebriety not supposed to offer his very own tipsy pastiche of the bracing heel work, severe poses and percussive drama just enjoyed?

To understand exactly what I mean, please watch that youtube clip of Soledad Barrio et al here.

Done? Good. Now imagine all that performed by a distinctly rhythmless Irish person. In a pair of soft-soled shoes. On the quays. And no matter how vivid your imagination, I guarantee the reality was ten times as tragic. Seriously, I had to call the guards on him, it was that bad.

Yes, Ms Williams, by your willful malfeasance you have earned yourself a sorry end. A sorry end indeed.

I only wish we could do it all over again. Oh well. Here’s to next year.

¡Olé!

And no, I’m not talking about the ‘weird’ that was that night in college when friendship blurred into something..uhm…else. Or the ‘weird’ where an amazing date becomes - for no apparent reason whatsoever – the greatest bail-out since 2008.

No, when I say weird, I mean weird. Uncanny. Preternatural. Spooksville. I mean nights like last night, which ended with myself, Deirdre Mulrooney and Una Kavanagh (actor, artist and nominee for the Fishamble New Writing Award for Fringe 09’s Black Bessie) swapping stories of psychic hotlines, seers on South William Street, lupine noms de plume and a monied New Ager’s demented character assassination plot against Marian Finucane. I know. Weird, right?

In our defence, we had just watched Double Track which - with bodies phasing in and out of sight, and sounds not quite arriving aright - tends to conjure with the eerie. As you watch, notions of limbo, suspension, and deferment easily play across your consciousness. The movements, gestures and stances of the performers are large, assured, circling; their sweeping quality even at times hinting at social or Asian dance form. This grounded deftness is comforting, balancing as it does the ethereal nature each vanishing lends the piece. And Louis Andriessen’s composition complements and magnifies the aura of tantalization and disquiet that runs throughout.

A few quibbles: Beckett’s writings can be fiendishly difficult to do justice to in performance; I’m afraid Double Track confirms this. Indeed, I almost feel it’s not a little unfair to ask dance artists to master Beckett alongside whatever choreography there is. And much as I admire Crash Ensemble, having them play Andriessen’s score before the show was a mistake; it stymied the natural flow of the evening and, for me, blunted the aural potency of this work.

But it’s worth seeing, particularly for the technical inventiveness that gives this production the unique quality of being both contemplative and spectacular. Sounds right? Then get your ticket here.

Okay, that’s pretty much it. Last night, people. Let’s make it a…well, perhaps not a weird but an extraordinary one…

And the kicker is, you never see it coming. Take last night. I’d pulled into the Garage Bar to fill the tank before spinning over to Project to catch Ad Vitam. And I’d only just parked myself when I totally got roached. Now, I’d never reproach anyone for a difference of opinion - especially this particular individual. I mean, I respect her approach. Deeply respect, in fact. But, dammit, that’s part of the problem, because apparently we define ‘deep’ completely differently. And as I’m trying to puzzle out how the, er, lingo she advises could get us down this road in a revolutionary manner - whilst ignoring a volunteered scurrilous jest of coppers with feelings - I turn to find I’m adjoined by two men, one of ACTION, the other an enfant terrible with a year-old creed of fifty scantily clad men in blonde wigs, clambering athwart an audience.

And then the house lights went down.

Truth is, of course, whatever curveball life throws our way, most of us are up to it. Sure, we might strike out - but at least we know the rules, and get to play the odds as we wish. But what about those who don’t?

Carlotta Sagna’s Ad Vitam,  probing as it does the borders of normality and pathology, is a work that brings into stark relief the isolation and disjunction suffered by those for whom life is not easy. Those who don’t fit; who will never find the right pitch.

A monologue of heart-rending honesty complements a restricted, repetitive movement language that reflects the compulsiveness, stereotypy and self-directed violence that can afflict those with impaired social interaction and communication skills. If you know, love and care for anyone so afflicted, there are moments of great authenticity here, handled with respect and sensitivity. If you don’t, then I can only commend this work to you in the strongest terms possible. You can still get a ticket here.

Tonight - the penultimate night of the festival – I’m off to see  Double Track. God, it’s hard to believe we’re almost done. Let’s make the most of it…

The Many Bodies of Contemporary Dance symposium kicked my day off a little earlier than usual, as panel members Raimund Hoghe, Tere O’Connor, and Caroline Bowditch, along with John Scott and Cindy Cummings (a last minute stand-in for fellow Aosdana member David Bolger), undertook to stimulate new debate and offer fresh perspectives on the many bodies and people involved in dance.

Enthusiastically stewarded by Deirdre Mulrooney, the afternoon saw a shift from panel-led discussion towards more of a round table format, with contributions from Mary Kate Connolly, Jenny Roche, Tara Brandel, Megan Kennedy, and Jeffrey Gormly. The shared commitment to, and passionate belief in dance and its future was as apparent as it was encouraging. And yet, as the afternoon progressed, I couldn’t help feeling that many of the comments made were in essence tangential to one another. As if the point of a remark was ignored, except insofar as it might serve as a point from which to launch another - at times quite divergent – trajectory of thought.

Sure, all this made for a delightfully convivial atmosphere, where harmony and consensus reigned supreme. But I did wonder what might have transpired had we dared appoint the verbally dextrous and incisive Tere O’Connor to play free-wheeling devil’s advocate. Perhaps it would have been a schismatic calamity. But who knows? Perhaps not. Perhaps the resultant exchange would have been as fresh and immediate as DAY, performed by Jean Butler.

Now, I’m aware my response is strongly coloured by other performances of Butler’s I’ve seen over the last few years. She’s struck me as an individual willing to confront head-on the challenge her celebrated status presented her as an artist. She has not shirked this task; and the resultant work has impressed. But it always seemed that some strange inflection of uncertainty was there; a pernicious doubt within that – almost imperceptibly – would check, query or impede every impulse.

Watching Butler’s performance last night though, I felt none of that. Instead, I found that Tere O’Connor has not only choreographed a work that instantiates the vivid immediacy of the ever living now. He - or rather, his work process - has somehow exorcised a spectre and helped a dancer find her way back to herself.

(Of course, seeing as the programme notes say this work ‘questions how much we can really know someone and if our projections constitute our knowing more than the actual truth’, you really should up and find your own projections. Begin your quest by booking here.)

Finding your way back to yourself could also apply to two other works: Swimming with my Mother and  A CORPO LIBERO (FREE STYLE). Bolger’s work-in-progress (featuring both the choreographer and his mother, Madge) is sweet-natured, seeming almost a hybrid of biography, memoir and social history.

As for Silvia Gribaudi’s A CORPO LIBERO…? Well, what can I write that could possibly do it justice? It’s a manifesto for emancipation. It’s beautifully, minutely-observed. It’s uplifting, charming, intoxicating and elevating. And it unabashedly celebrates humanity. And to be completely honest, I don’t think in the entire festival I’ve seen a more beautiful human being on-stage.

What more’s left to say? Get your tickets here.

Wait..what’s that? Got more left to say? Well then, hit the Many Bodies forum here.

It was the interval of Young People, Old Voices and I had just asked a friend what she thought. Now, at times she can be a little deadpan in her delivery, so I turned to look directly at her, to gauge just how serious she was.

Oh. She was serious. Perfectly serious. Huh.

Okay, I admit – when she said it, I was utterly incredulous. I mean, who on earth likes anything boring? But the more I think about it, the more I feel her response expresses a perennial truth about audiences. And that truth is, almost every single person who has bought a ticket, has bought into ‘it’ – the journey, the concept, the conceit: the why of the work. On some level, and to some extent, whether conscious or no, everyone in that auditorium wants it to succeed. We want to get it. We want the performer – or the choreographer, or playwright, or director, or artist – to  triumph, magnificently. We want the win-win. And as a result, we will surrender ourselves to almost any demand an artist makes of us.

Well, for a time at least. For as we all know, our surrender is only ever conditional.

Sometimes its revocation is abrupt, with people tramping out mid-performance, as happened last night. And disruptive too, like the one lady who offered a mocking curtsy to the performers as she left. (I know…real classy, right?)

Naturally, I’d prefer if a little self-control had been exercised and they’d all slipped away quietly during the interval. But their decision to leave is one I understand and sympathise with, to a certain extent. Because this show was boring.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m well aware of how useful boredom can be. Just like any other intense psychic state – such as desire, confusion, or fear – boredom can be elicited and utilised to make individuals highly suggestible and receptive to direction and communication. That is, if it’s used effectively and knowingly. And I’m not at all sure its elicitation in Young People, Old Voices qualifies in either respect.

In what the programme notes describe as an ‘increasingly poignant’ contrast between Raimund Hoghe and 12 young cast members, an ‘accumulation’ of ‘ritualized movement sequences’,  juxtaposed with the voices of singers like Etta James and Billie Holiday, is punctuated by Hoghe’s interventions. Indeed, were there a ritualized quality to detect, you might even characterize his role as that of psychopomp.

However, though intended to convey the boisterousness and playfulness of youth, the movement tasks entrusted to these young men and women at best seem static and banal, at worst, condescending and tedious. The progression from sequence to sequence is - particularly at the beginning - ponderous to an extreme. Furthermore, impassivity of expression does not suffice – quite simply, the execution of these tasks lacks the precision and presence that might impart to them a truly ritualistic nature.

In contrast to this are the duets Hoghe and Lorenzo De Brabandere share. At those moments, the theatre is filled with an almost tangible force of presence. Between them there exists…well, to call it a love affair is perhaps to go too far. But their locked gaze possesses a quality of fascination and enthrallment that simply captivates. It’s then, in those all too rare instances, that this work comes anywhere close to drawing a ‘poignant contrast’ between youth and age.

Clearly, I was disappointed…all the more so, I suspect, for having enjoyed last year’s screening of Carte Postales as much as I did. But of course, your impression might contrast starkly, so please - feel free to book here.