The term ‘fusion’ is a trendy one, which hints at the interaction of ingredients from different backgrounds in many areas of today’s culture. In dance, it often refers to the pairing of different genres, such as modern dance or hip-hop and ballet, or to the coupling of a distinctively western choreographic idiom with an equally distinctive non-western one.
In Rian, the award-winning choreographer and performance-maker Michael Keegan-Dolan has opted for a more intricate game of combinations by weaving together Liam Ó Maonlaí’s splendid music — itself a powerful mix of influences and quotations — with dancing that draws upon a diversity of backgrounds and styles.
The result is an almost two-hour-long concert/dance with no interval in which the traditional divide between musicians and performers is blurred by the participation of one group with the other. Fusion is everywhere, but is most evident in the movements of these international artists who engage in what comes across as a partly set, partly impromptu game of choreographic variations on given or, possibly, improvised themes. Despite such a complex combination, the new creation exudes that distinctive Irishness which Keegan-Dolan refers to, celebrates and desecrates in his works. Irish themes are treated with a dramatic sense of contemporary reality, at the expense of the stereotypes cherished by narrow-minded tourists. True, the set is as green as a leprechaun’s waistcoat, but this is as far as it goes.
Seated on a raised semi-circular deck, the artists step down and up, to play, sing and join the danced action in the most informal ways. Such informality is one of the winning ingredients of the creation, for it captivates members of the audience, who feel free to participate with spontaneous clapping and sounds of all sorts. There is form within the informality, though, as the dancing develops through a well thought-out but unpredictable series of crescendos and diminuendos which encompass echoes of African/Caribbean, South American, Asian and, obviously, Irish dancing — though never of the Riverdance kind. The new creation may be irritating to some but, judging by the final ovation, they were in the minority.
Fusion also informed the combined performances of Nigel Charnock and Edouard Lock at The Place. In Children, Charnock plays with a kaleidoscopic number of ideas, striving to recreate actions, passions and tantrums that children might display when together in a confined space. Yet the childhood theme soon gives way to a more tragic portrait of human behaviour, rendered by an apparently non-orchestrated combination of pedestrianism and extreme physicality. Visually dazzling it may be, but the work comes across as too fragmented. There are times when fewer ideas and more thematic developments would have been better. Still, fragmentation is part of the postmodern/transmodern creed that UK ‘new dance’ is all about and provides a vibrant contrast with A Few Minutes of Lock. Here, high-octane movements derived from two of Lock’s previous creations keep recurring within a structurally more organic choreographic context.
Central to both works was the participation of the Canadian artist Louise Lecavalier, one of Lock’s muses and a pivotal artist in the internationally known company La La La Human Steps. Her dancing with Keir Knight and Patrick Lamothe is still inspirational and turned the whole performance into a fitting tribute to three significant artists, thus adding to the various and successful ‘tributes’ which this year’s Dance Umbrella has paid to many in the profession.
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