Contemporary Dance is not the first thing New Yorkers, either the East Village ones with 40 shades of pink hair, or the 40 shades of green-loving Irish-American community, associate with Ireland. But John Scott's Irish Modern Dance Theatre, the first Irish contemporary dance company to perform in Manhattan, is breaking that mould in the heart of New York's funky, outrageous, and increasingly trendy East Village.
It seems appropriate that in this city which is constantly re-inventing itself, there should be alternate and new images of us available. However, in the absence of kilts and ringlets, Irish Modern Dance Theatre's adventurous enterprise barely got a listing in the Irish American Press, and, surprisingly, little endorsement from the Irish Consulate. Is it because instead of the easily contextualised Irish voices of McDonagh or McPherson on Broadway, Friel at the Lincoln Center, or even a rendition of Danny Boy, anywhere, they are offering something cosmopolitan, contemporary - and therefore unrecognisable?
As part of the prestigious Danspace Project's 25th anniversary, IMDT is offering what is regarded by dance experts here as fresh bodies, which are unburdened by the overlay of modern dance techniques. Their platform is Saint Mark's Church in the Bowery has been a seminal dance venue since the 1920s, when its rector was ineffectually attacked by his bishop for bringing dance into a church. The company of five dancers introduced John Scott's Intimate Gold, and Sean Curran's That Place, Those People to the regular New York dance audience, in this, the last leg of their US tour. Located on Manhattan's oldest site of Christian worship, this Church is under the auspices of Episcopalian Saint John the Divine Cathedral, and is comparable to Washington Square's Judson Church - home of the 40-year-old Judson Arts Movement and Dance Theatre. It is hard to envision the original Dutch Reform Chapel presiding here 200 years ago over what was just another farm to Peter Stuyvesant and the first European settlers (bowery is the Dutch for farm). The Church's spare wooden sanctuary, which burned down and was rebuilt twice, became an unlikely crucible and launching pad for many influential avant-garde artists and thinkers, from Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Ruth Saint Denis, to Kahlil Gibran, Harry Houdini, William Carlos Williams, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
At Danspace Project's Silver Anniversary Gala last week, Lord of the Dance (no reference to Mr Flatley), was read as grace before meals to guest of honour Mikhail Baryishnikov, and a congregation of everybody who is anybody in New York's Contemporary Dance scene. In the midst of the cultural cacophony which envelops it, Saint Mark's Church in the Bowery announces Vespers on Wednesday, Sunday Service, and a powerful tradition of community involvement and activism. This tradition embraces 1960s activist, Richard Foreman's, Ontological Hysteric Theatre, who are busy upstairs preparing their forthcoming production, Celebrating the Short Attention Span. The multi-faceted Arts Centre's activities sometimes spill over to Abe Lebewohl Square outside, (named after an assassinated Ukranian immigrant and Deli owner). Last week Lou Reed quietly attended the Poetry Project's tree-planting ceremony there in memory of Allen Ginsberg.
Melded into this migrant milieu is the New York-based choreographer, Sean Curran, who works out his own hybrid Irish-American identity in IMDT's That Place Those People, which premiered in the SFX last December and toured earlier this month. It sidles up here into a fine tradition of contemporary dance's most iconoclastic movers, including Lucinda Childs, Meredith Monk, Bill T Jones and Arnie Zane. How to follow that? Danspace Projects Executive Director, Laurie Uprichards, who is of Irish extraction, scheduled this Manhattan debut for IMDT as part of their global exchange series.
"In terms of dance, IMDT bring fresh history," says revered dance expert and patron Micki Wesson, of Dance Theatre Workshop. From her perspective their work appears fresh and uncluttered. The reputation of this centre of the avant-garde for presenting pioneering artists at early stages of their careers augurs well for IMDT.
