The first International Dance Festival Ireland left an indelible mark,writes Michael Seaver, and has set new challenges for itself andthe wider dance community
'The repercussions will be unimaginable for Irish cultural life," predicted Festival director Catherine Nunes at the announcement of the Arts Council's support for International Dance Festival Ireland. A bold promise indeed, but even while we're still catching our breath after the two-and-a-half weeks of dance, questions are already being asked about the festival's impact on our dance society.
In spite of popular misconceptions, International Dance Festival Ireland did not come from nowhere, but is the result of careful treading through forums in 1995 and 1997, a feasibility study in 1998 and careful negotiations with the Arts Council ever since. It was assiduously planned and had a broad range of dance, but in many ways is only now beginning to face the real challenge. How does it sustain itself and the momentum it has generated between now and the next festival in 2004? During the festival, Nunes announced some small scale activity in the years between the biennial festivals, and this can only be dictated by what was learned in this initial year.
The festival set out to broaden the palette of dance and in that respect has been a resounding success. The diverse programming meant that there were no obvious thematic links within the festival, but some common threads did emerge. Merce Cunningham showed how dance, music and design can happily co-exist without reference to one another, but others challenged and investigated correspondences between art forms. Subtle relationships between music and dance were particularly evident in Akram Khan and Andy Cowton's collaboration in Rush, which went beyond merely providing sonic wallpaper for the dance.
Film also made its mark, through Cunningham's Beach Birds for Camera and the film forum in the Irish Film Centre. In the setting of a loft dance studio, the flock of dancers widen the neutral Cunningham arm position to spread like wings, accented with their costume's black strip across the shoulders. But viewing the film after a live performance only reinforces Cunningham's ingenious use of space, the two dimensions of the screen with close focus destroying our sense of perspective.
Focus, perspective and editing were some of the issues that emerged during the Motion Pictures film forum at the IFC, where David Hinton revealed the subtleties of dance film. A veteran director of films with the popular DV8 and Adventures in Motion Pictures companies, he merged common sense ("dance is good at showing different things happening at the same time, film needs to show one thing after another") with vast experience and brutal honesty ("most dance films aren't very good"). He argued that dance has a natural affinity to film and that the earliest silent movies were de facto dance films.
The screening of international dance films gave a context for Hit and Run, a new film by David Bolger and John Comiskey. Desolate deserted industrial spaces feature in many dance films with their metaphors of post-industrial isolation and societal breakdown. In the case of Hit and Run, the deserted warehouse provides a good foil to the slick and nattily dressed dancers who chose it as a venue for their night of fun. Cinematically it looks stunning and the film allows the characters to be more defined than in the stage version, although the energy of the live dancers gets somewhat lost. Just like film versus book, the question of whether the film is as good as the staged dance is one that has no easy answer.
In spite of branching out into other art forms, the festival did underline the primacy of the choreographer. Although Jerome Bel's work may superficially appear like performance art, it is the sensibility of the choreographer and his work's placement within the theatre environment that ensure its success. Similarly, Rosemary Butcher's film Undercurrent, where two bodies dive underwater, is not dissimilar to works by many visual artists. But her film shows concerns of weight and movement that only come from her intimate knowledge of the moving body.
Butcher was a mentor for Irish choreographer Liz Roche's choreographic residency during the festival and the result of this engagement was shown informally at Project Arts Centre last Saturday. Presented more as an étude than a work-in-progress, Roche's solo was a deliberate push into issues of performer/audience engagement. Although she claims that the aim was not to "break her spirit", there was clear evidence that she had addressed issues and personal artistic challenges head-on with honesty and vigour.
The issue of audiences arose later in the day during the forum focussing on the Beyond Words publication. This broadsheet was published during the last week of the festival and contained personal responses by individuals to events they had seen. Some participants, like Marcella Reardon and Fergus Burke, provided graphic representations through drawings, while the others - drawn from dance, visual arts, film and theatre - used words. Theatre director Chris O'Rourke admitted "not getting" what Merce Cunningham was doing and discussion arose about how we look at dance. A theatre perspective in search of meaning is different from that of the visual arts, which can allow more sensory reaction. The question of description versus evaluation was raised by festival chairperson Fiach MacConghail, leading to the broader issue of criticism and who it serves.
The forum and Beyond Words publication certainly engaged the general audience, some dance novices claiming that the publication gave a springboard for discussion among audience members after performances. The absence of choreographers and the attendance of only two critics meant more specific issues couldn't really get tackled: the discussion ran out of steam and finished early. This was a real shame, since many of these issues remain undebated after last year's Acts of Criticism weekend, as part of the Arts Council's Critical Voices programme.
The non-engagement by many in the Irish dance community throughout the festival was puzzling. There had been a feeling of exclusion among dancers when the festival was announced, but actively engaging in aspects of criticism or dance films would surely be to their own benefit. From the perspective of Irish practitioners, the decision to programme works by two choreographers who are on the festival's board, as well as work by an associated company, raised certain eyebrows. All of the Irish work had its place within the festival, certainly, and the dance world is small, but transparency is needed to preempt any accusations of cronyism.
My own little wish list would include having more informative programmes with background information and company profiles; giving away or selling cheaply any empty seats that remain 10 minutes before headline events, like Merce Cunningham, to students or dancers; and avoiding programming clashes (there was only one, but I really wanted to go to the Miniscule of Sound).
The real winner in the two-and-a-half weeks was the audience, who got to see some great dance performances. The shibboleth that there is no audience for dance was dispelled with good houses and interest in the post-performance talks. The range of audience members was encouraging, from youth and retired punk rockers mingling at the Michael Clarke performances, to the artistic intelligentsia coming out in force for Merce Cunningham. The festival also confirmed a certain maturity and open-mindedness: Jerome Bel's performers have been shouted at, threatened and had the stage stormed in performances in France, whereas two performances in Dublin generated just three polite walkouts and one phone call to Joe Duffy.
Expecting unimaginable repercussions might seem a bit ambitious, but the festival has left an indelible mark and set challenges for itself and the wider dance community.
