Mermaid Theatre, Bray
Go along to a dance by choreographer John Scott on consecutive nights and chances are you’ll see different pieces. An admitted revisionist, he’s always fiddling with his multi- sectional choreography, so a duet at the beginning of the show on opening night might be swapped with a solo and shunted to the end by second night. In Actions, there’s not a hope of seeing the same dance on consecutive nights, but not because of Scott’s revising hand. In this new duet he has granted formal responsibility to the two dancers – Antonio Trinidad and Philip Connaughton – who seem to make things up as they go along. Seem to, because although everything is informal, with discussions about which sections to do next and spur-of-the-moment asides to the audience, there is a satisfying completeness to the dance that suggests a loose structure hidden behind the cheerful ramblings.
In spite of the witty camaraderie, there is a more serious exploration of male physicality at play. At times the laddish chat dissolves into floaty duets, where one dancer might softly carry the other. However ambivalent – he could equally be carrying a lover or a fallen comrade – the movement questions how we view the moving male body. Scott also uses music to add emotional colour, so the sudden introduction of Meredith Monk’s soothing canonic vocalisations immediately changes the context for the dance. It’s success is largely down to Trinidad and Connaughton’s humour and irreverence, but within the choreography Scott has managed to blend quick-fire immediacy with slow-burning intellect.
Earlier in the evening Robert Heaslip joined the performers in Event Dance, which featured material from earlier works, Intimate Goldand In This Moment. Here, the physicality between the men was more aggressive, hinting at the underlying emotional blockages that can manifest in the clutching and barging onstage, physical actions you might also find outside a nightclub at 3am. Bowing Dance, which featured Scott in a duet with himself and Steve Woods' dance film Eternal,set in Palestine, complete the evening.
– Tours nationally until February 6
