Compagnie Schmid-Pernette from France gave the first of two performances at Cork's Firkin Crane on Thursday night. Le Savon is not really a dance about soap, as announced in publicity. Though the four dancers had four real baths containing real water into which they really immersed their naked and blue painted bodies, the soaping was both brief and mimed.
Most of the 55-minute piece consisted of the dancers gyrating repetitively to a sound track (by Frank Gervais) of water bubbling and gurgling, wind and waves pounding on the shore, bells jangling and bird song. Choreographers Natalie Pernette and Andreas Schmid danced the piece themselves, joined by Isabelle Celer and Severine Rieme, and some of the movement had interesting possibilities.
It was, however, executed somewhat perfunctorily and with such self-absorption as to exclude the audience from participation in the event. When sweaters, which inexplicably rained down from the grid, were pulled on, they proved to be a most unflattering length, though the see-through tops donned after bathing were more effective.
The four overhead screens on to which the action in the baths was projected added little to the rather pretentious piece, which proceeded without interval to its mesmeric fade out.
Given the gross under-fun ding of dance in Ireland and the innovative work recently created by Irish companies on shoe-string budgets, surely we should aim to import international dance of a higher calibre than this?