View from the Green Room: Ay ye dancing?
Dance Scratch Night at Garter Lane.
There was a time when every Saturday night began with the immortal phrase ‘ay ye dancin’?
Garter Lane’s Dance-artist-in-Residence Rachel Ní Bhraonáin is convenor for an intriguing Saturday night dance experience where artists invite audience reaction on works in progress. It’s supplied notepads and biros at the ready for the audience with screen prompts to generate opinions and feedback.
Contemporary dance isn’t easy to talk about because it avoids generalisations while masking specifics. Much of the work is a journey towards the self.
Jvoti Soni’s ‘Dystopia’ is inspired by generational memory carried by women in body and voice and silence. Jerky, awkward movements in a dimly lit spot with self-face slaps reveal the oppression that the dancer carries in her being and her continuous finger-pointing towards the searing light reveals the defiance of a woman that’s not going to tolerate this any longer.
The journey across the Garter Lane floor to the light is a journey of defining a woman’s identity in the face of misogyny.
Awenwoven’s ‘Body in Motion’ – performed by Josué Reis, Ikaro Cavalcanti and Ana Talita Lima – is also exploring memory and transformation. It’s an intriguing piece as one dancer charts all the movements the others follow as if transformation originates in movement. As the piece moves on, we become aware of the transformation of man and woman through the ages until we arrive at urban dance language with hip/hop and funk/passinho.
Aoibhinn O’Dea’s ‘The Foot of the Lungs’ explores the relationship between sound and movement. Without sound, there is no movement and life is reduced to no more than an awkward fumble as depicted in a hard solo spot on the apron of the stage. As sound develops – through Aoibhinn’s clever use of a harmonica – movement defines her life’s experience and a frenzy of breath pushes the point.
Anna Rowe and Carla Cerezuela’s ‘Void Full of Absence’ is a powerhouse of imagination. The piece explores the void left behind when a loved one dies or a lover departs. The clever duet of partners separated by death as they fail to embrace is very moving and the final pas de deux of separated lovers where each is in step but never embrace is magnificent. Even absence has its own trigger and there’s no telling where it will lead us.
If it’s Saturday night, it must be dancing!
