A selection of events from the Dublin Dance Festival reviewed
Dublin Dance Festival:
Standing in Ink/ Happy Hour
Project Cube and Bar
MICHAEL SEAVER
The premiere of Standing in Inksignalled a shift in direction for choreographer Michael Klien. Daghdha Dance Company's artistic director has provided a work of intense intimacy and humanity, something not as limpid in his other choreography. Whether the duet ends up being a landmark dance depends on the next one: if that work is similar, then yes, if not, then it is just a temporary shift in his aesthetics.
Dancers Mark Carberry and Laura Dannequin begin with stuttered movement. Lying on the ground, they twitch and jerk but off-balance torsos and buckling athetoid limbs foil their attempts to rise. The Cube provides Petri-dish-like surroundings, with its pristine white dance floor and backdrop with black walls closing in on either side. Within this setting, co-existence is impossible without some interaction and soon the dancers are nuzzling faces, leaning torso-to-torso or simply staring at each other. Their manner of movement suggests a constant search for understanding. It is tentative and exploratory, suggesting that the individual dancers are grappling with their personal identity through movement, as well as learning about the other person.
Volkmar Klien’s score of bells, bellows and blowing winds helped to underpin the rising and falling arcs of emotion and energy, and the performers regularly paused together before recommencing their dancing, as if gathering their thoughts.
The music was a lot cheesier upstairs in the bar for Wendy Houstoun's solo, but hey, it's Happy Hour. To South Sea Island twangs and croons, she emerges from behind the bar wearing a lei and encourages us to have a bit of a laugh and enjoy ourselves. "It's Happy Hour," she says. "It's not going to last forever."
Constantly good-natured, she small talks to the audience about this and that, reinforcing her points with a kick of her leg or swing of her arm. After she (metaphorically) clears the bar, she starts her own drinking at a club and slowly unravels, revealing a bitterness and nihilism that was hidden behind the cheery barmaid facade.
Houstoun is incredibly engaging in the role as she traces the fall from cheeky confident sober to lonely puking pissed. Her character demands our attention from beginning to end, but Houstoun’s script (with additional material by Tim Etchells) cleverly takes swipes at broader society and the empty superficiality that dictates many lives.
Happy Hourends tonight. Dublin Dance Festival continues until May 23. www.dublindancefestival.ie
