Irish Times writers review John O'Connor at the NCH, Dublin and Diversions' Triple Bill tour at the Mermaid Arts Theatre

John O'Conor, NCH, Dublin

Beethoven - Sonatas Op 31. Sonata in C Op 53 (Waldstein)

When we look back now at what Beethoven was writing in the opening years of the 19th century we have the wisdom of hindsight on our side. We remember that he wrote in a letter about composing "in a new way" and we also know that the great landmark of the Eroica Symphony is in the offing.

It is tempting to see the three piano sonatas written in 1801 and 1802 which constitute the composer's Op. 31 as harbingers of the new. And although they are the last he bracketed together, old-style, as a set under a single opus number - all the piano sonatas he wrote subsequently would stand on their own - and the third of them (the one in E flat) includes a wistfully backward- looking Minuet, they deliver novelty and special effects aplenty.

The opening movement of the first, the Sonata in G, playfully indulges in chordal writing which leaves pianists sounding as if their left and right hands have not the slightest notion of how to attack the keyboard together. The slow movement is all ornate artifice and carries the strange marking, Adagio grazioso. The constant juxtaposition of a rising, questioning motif and a stormy rebuff in the Sonata in D minor, the one nicknamed the Tempest, has caused the redoubtable Joseph Kerman to suggest that the work anticipates Charles Ives's The Unanswered Question by over a century.

John O'Conor's ongoing chronological Beethoven sonata cycle at the National Concert Hall presented these three forward-looking and in the best sense experimental sonatas as an unbroken set on Monday, placing the single other sonata on the programme, the Waldstein of 1803-4, on its own after the interval.

Yet it was the style of the Waldstein's opening movement, dramatic and urgent in O'Conor's delivery, that seemed to inform the playing of the evening as a whole.

This was by no means wholly inappropriate, especially in the stormier parts of the D minor Sonata. Yet it also tended to make the wit that lies behind the G major Sonata seem a shade gruff, and tempered the good humour of the Sonata in E flat. It's a perfectly viable way to play these works, but it tends to homogenise rather than individualise their character.

Michael Dervan

Diversions

Mermaid Arts Centre

With responsibility as "The Dance Company of Wales" Diversions' touring programmes lean toward entertainment and accessibility for as wide an audience as possible. The formula has its critics, but long-serving directors Roy Campbell-Moore and Ann Sholem are resolute in maintaining crowd-pleasing repertory at the core of their vision.

Belgian choreographer Stijn Celis has made the quintessential Diversions work in Practice Paradise: funny and unpredictable but clearly structured with quirky movement. Moustaches, skull caps and black macs sweep aside gender as strange, hunched figures cavort around a stage dominated by three large logs. Gestures and knowing looks toward the audience draw us into this world where no grimace is pained enough or no smile too broad. To Chopin's grandiose music from Les Sylphides, dull macs are soon replaced by red gowns and feather headdresses as issues of conformity and fulfilment are gently suggested.

David Dorfman's Oakfield Ridge was created for the company in 1989 and while the New York choreographer's movement language and artistic ideals have since evolved, this early work's clear narrative and literal conception reflect his direct no-nonsense approach to choreography. The love duet relies on robust physicality that was absent from the dancing of Leanne Lappin and Chris Tandy. Depictions of trust - where falling bodies are caught at the last minute - were played safe and there was no edginess as their relationship unravelled.

These days Dorfman's choreography mixes improvisation with clear structures, a blend that Roy Campbell-Moore is drawn to recently. In Between, the orange glow on the back wall of the stage draws dancers evoking a gently rousing world, full of languid limbs and twisted torsos. The succession of dances that follow the folk tunes by John Hymas soon lose focus, in spite of a deliberately restricted range of movements. The performers do communicate warmth and empathy, but their slim choreographic pickings are overstated and when they return to the orange-tinted wall you wondered if a more direct route could have been taken through the dance.

Diversions' Triple Bill tour continues at The Helix tomorrow

Michael Seaver