Trojans – epic yet contemporary themes explored with a choreography that creates an intimate connection with the audience (Luail at Island Arts Centre)

The last time I saw work by Luail, their inaugural show occupied the full width of the Lyric’s main stage. Last week, the experience was much more intimate with Luail’s revival of Philip Connaughton’s Trojans asking the audience to share the stage with the talented ensemble for portions of the 70-minute performance.

A huge cube built from trussing occupied the main hall in Lisburn’s Island Arts Centre. Elevated screens requested (but insist they did not ‘order’) the audience to mill around. The dancers crawled out. Soon, we were encouraged to circulate and inspect the now upright and static performers before they began to move once more.

Inspired by Virgil’s The Aeneid, death is quickly introduced. Followed by themes of isolation, displacement, migration, war, and kowtowing to figures in power. Unspoken questions are raised about why no one intervenes or even offers comfort when someone falls. Fear? Self-preservation? Survival of the fittest?

Once the day-glo orange netting is removed from the row of seats on each side of the square stage, we rested … for a while. The netting hints at dangerous sea journeys and becoming trapped in other people’s fights. More audience movement was invited, as no one should ever get too comfortable or relaxed when they’re not in control of their destiny. Death returned at the end of the performance, and this time the audience had been sufficiently coached to join the cast and become part of the story as the screens asked: “Would you be willing to die for the greater good?”

Veteran (and iconic) dancer Joanna Banks strutted around the stage, embodying a quiet sense of absolute power and authority. Playing Juno – queen of the gods and hater of the Trojans – she was seated at ever-increasing heights above contradiction in structures created by Robyn Byrne, Jou-Hsin Chu, Clara Kerr, Sean Lammer, Tom O’Gorman, Hamza Pirimo, Rosie Stebbing and Meghan Stevens.

Like last May’s Chora, the company’s keen sense of space was once again on display, moving at frantic speed across the enclosed stage without clipping other performers. There was a strong sense of trust with backward falls into unseen arms, and a rather beautiful moment as one dancer climbed a hill of human bodies with theh path ahead not fully clear. Emily Ní Bhroin earth-coloured costumes grounded the performance. Luca Truffarelli’s video work triggered scene changes in the audience’s minds with sea, fire and a vista of destroyed buildings. Oberman Knocks’ electronic soundscape was intense: earplugs are handed out to everyone on entry, just in case.

The self-contained set dominated the otherwise naked volume of the Lisburn theatre hall. The production was big and bold, yet intense and intimate. Trojans once again demonstrates the skill of the full time Luail company members, this time up close and very personal, with the audience asked to look into the performers’ eyes. Virgil’s study of violence and conflict and Aeneas’ difficult migration journey still speaks loudly into today’s world, and Luail’s revival of Trojans demonstrates how dance as an artform can be intimate rather than distant, and engender emotion and reflect world affairs in a 10m x 10m stage and not just create a spectacle at a distance.

Trojans finished its tour (Dublin, Galway and Lisburn) on Thursday 30 April.

Photo credit: Luca Truffarelli

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Previewing the 2025 Belfast International Arts Festival – theatre, dance, music, magic ... and raw chicken (14 October–9 November) #BIAF25

Belfast International Arts Festival starts today and the programme (PDF) looks like a bumper year for theatre in particular.

Ireland’s National Dance Company is back in Belfast with a revival of Emma Martin’s Dancehall. // Wednesday 15 October at The MAC. (sold out)

Jolene O’Hara lends her spine-tingling voice to Richard Clements’ Ottilie, based on the life of Northern Ireland blues singer Ottilie Patterson who grew up in Comber, sang with the best blues artists touring the UK, performed in the US, but then became a recluse. // Wednesday 15–Friday 24 October at Grand Opera House Studio Theatre. (reviewed)

Unreconciled is based on the true story of a young lad cast as Jesus in a Philadelphia school play directed by a parish priest. A survivor’s journey to confront his past, find his voice, and navigate the reparations program set up by the Catholic Church. Powerful, heartbreaking … but also promises to be hilarious. Friday 17–Sunday 19 October at the Lyric Theatre. (reviewed)

If you enjoyed last year’s dance Wild performed on a scaffolding forest, there’s more free aerial theatre to enjoy on the afternoon of Saturday 18 October in CS Lewis Square. Anchored in Air is a fusion of circus, dance, text and live music with flying wheelchairs, and acrobatics from the disabled and non-disabled cast.

One of my all-time favour shows from Richard Wakely’s festival programming was Pending Vote in 2013 where the audience controlled some the narrative – or thought they did! This year, Nathan Ellis beings his theatrical experiment Instructions to Belfast following its 2024 Edinburgh Fringe success. Each night a different unrehearsed actors steps on stage ready to react to real-time prompts as a story unfolds and a life unspools. Tuesday 21 and Wednesday 22 October in Lyric Theatre.

John Morton’s Denouement fast forwards to 2048 where Edel (Anna Healy) and Liam (Patrick O’Kane) are living out their final hours in a remote Irish farmhouse. Bickering in the face of the apocalypse. Holding and sharing secrets. Tragic, absurd and funny. Tuesday 21 October–Saturday 15 November in Lyric Theatre. (reviewed)

When a man ‘Older’ returns to the abandoned house of his use, he meets the memory of his first love. As the home collapses around them, Older relives the electricity and heartbreak of a hidden romance. Ciarán Haggarty’s The Upside Down House is directed by Patrick J O’Reilly and produced by Tinderbox Theatre. Wednesday 22 October–2 Sunday 2 November in The MAC. (reviewed)

Dylan Quinn’s My Grandfather’s House received is an intimate physical performance by a grandfather and a grandson within a reconstructed 1970’s living room that holds just four audience members. Tuesday 28 October–Sunday 2 November in a secret location. (already sold out)

Big Telly Theatre Company are back with a razor-sharp ensemble bringing to life a horror-filled fever dream Faust-ish from the pen of Nicola McCartney. Distraction, desperation and desperate deals under the direction of Zoe Seaton. Wednesday 29 October–Sunday 9 November in Lyric Theatre. (reviewed)

Cahoots NI are presenting the Northern Ireland premiere of The Musicians of Bremen Live! inspired by the Grimm’s fairy tale with live music, storytelling and surprises as Ruffles the lost hen meets Mule, Bobcat and Coyote and chase their dream to be a famous band. Thursday 30 October–Sunday 2 November in Cityside Retail Park. Age 5+. (reviewed)

Magician Caolan McBride is on stage Unlocking Sherlock and exploring the connections between deduction and deception in another Cahoots NI show. Thursday 30 October–Sunday 2 November in Cityside Retail Park. Age 16+. (reviewed)

Off the Rails Dance is showing a work in progress from Eileen McClory. BPM: Barneys, Parties and Melters plunges into the 1990s-2000s rave scene in Northern Ireland with energy, euphoria, and lots of sweat in a blend of contemporary dance, theatre and archive material from that era. Saturday 1 November in the Brian Friel Theatre (next to the QFT).

With instruments crafted from PVC pipes, paint cans, and shampoo bottles, HOOLA is an electrifying collective from Daegu city in Korea that reimagine opera arias and EDM anthems through the pulse of upcycled sound. Tuesday 4 November at The MAC.

Acclaimed author Bernie McGill will be in conversation with High Odling-Smee about her archive and her career. Friday 7 November in The Linen Hall.

And the annual Royal Ulster Academy Exhibition will be open in the Ulster Museum from Sunday 19 October until January 2026.

Another exhibition in the programme caught my eye. Raw Chicken will be performed live by Éabha Campbell and Indigo Azidahaka, a Dada-inflected performance that is participatory rather than passive with puppetry, costume and nonsense narration. Saturday 8 November in Queen Street Studio. (Exhibition runs Thursday 9 October–Thursday 13 November.)

The majority of this year’s theatre/dance programme is showcasing locally-created work rather than bringing international work to Belfast (which is admittedly cost-prohibitive, particularly for anything larger than a solo-performer show). It’s Richard Wakely’s last year at the festival’s helm and it’ll be interesting to see how Chris McCreery puts his stamp on next year’s programme. One of his achievements has been a persistence in showcasing local and international dance, though it’s mostly only the circus/acrobatic acts that have drawn sizeable audiences. A decade and a half ago, the talks events were a particularly vibrant aspect to the programme, bringing colourful, challenging and often high-profile guests to Belfast and packing out good-sized venues. Better defining what makes BIAF ‘international’ and distinct from other large festivals should be a key priority for McCreery to address.

You can browse the full programme on the festival website or the brochure.

Chora - inaugural show from Luail delivers masterclass in trust and movement

Ireland’s National Dance Company, Luail, has made a very confident leap onto the stage with their first production. Chora – ancient Greek for ‘space’ or ‘being’ – is its inaugural work, a triptych that explores memory, patterns and interactions. Performed last night in the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, it had premiered in Dublin last Tuesday before a night in Wexford and will finish at the end of the month in Cork.

Against a live score of relentless harsh strings from the Irish Chamber Orchestra perched up at the back, the company dancers come on stage for Invocation (choreographed by Mututau Yusaf and composed by Julia Wolfe). One dancer is fighting against the oppression and goading of six faceless demons who swirl and snarl.

The black dance floor is rolled back to reveal a gleaming red mat underneath. From experience, rolling up dance mats is not something you want to do with an audience, but a string quartet give the stage reset a feeling of ritual before the (eight) company dancers and three guests perform Liz Roche’s Constellations.

The movement and the spacing and dynamic between dancers of both pieces feed naturally into the post-interval performance of I Contain Multitudes. Now circulating around a white dance floor, eight dancers fall into subtle shared rhythms, almost magnetically attracted to each other before breaking away into a pseudo-random path that will see them nearly collide in the next round. Guy Nader and Maria Campos have created a spectacular work that is both beautiful and breath-taking.

The score is an arrangement by Marijn van Prooijen of Simeon ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato, a piece largely based on quintuplets that is essentially in 10/16 time. The pace and the complexity of the interactions between dancers building up on stage is echoed by the orchestra is working through increasingly intricate layers of repetitions of the score, with rather essential conducting (counting) duties switching between a couple of players throughout the forty-minute performance.

If the music is elegant and mesmerising, the movement on the dance floor is even more so. An initial lack of touching is soon replaced with stylish holds, jumps and lifts. It’s so precise despite looking almost haphazard: a hand grabbed here, a foot twisted there, a tumbling over someone bent over behind. By the performance’s zenith, dancers are being hoisted into the air and falling sideways into the waiting arms of (unseen to them) colleagues in a show of trust that belies the company’s recent formation. Like zooming into a fractal, the patterns on stage are familiar and repeating yet constantly changing and unique.

Overall I Contain Multitudes feels like the kind of overseas work that would wow audiences at Belfast International Arts Festival. Katie Davenport’s flexible set – particularly with how the orchestra are kept in view without ever becoming a distraction – together with her billowy costumes add to the richness of the performance. Also understated but all the more powerful for it is Sinéad McKenna’s lighting design, with strip lighting descending to completely change the shadows cast on the floor for Constellations, and some beautiful shadow work during the final performance.

It bodes well that Luail has so quickly established its technical and performative prowess to tour this triple-bill of work. You can catch the final performance of Chora at Cork Opera House on Wednesday 28 May. Hopefully the company will return to Belfast before too long.

Photo credit: Luca Truffarelli

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Moonlight Dream: A Baby’s Cosmic Odyssey – snuggly, sensory, and slightly soporific dreamy dance (Maiden Voyage Dance at Belfast Children’s Festival) #BCF25

As I sit at the back of the Crescent Arts Centre’s Cube Theatre for an early afternoon performance of Moonlight Dream, there are almost two stories being told in parallel in front of me. On the silvery grey circular dance floor, a child is wriggling around, as if in a cot attempting to get to sleep. Soon she’ll be joined by a couple of woodland creatures (technically a fox and a bear) who will gently help her along the journey to a restful and dream-filled sleep lit by the moon and accented by stars.

But around the circumference of the circular dance floor, there are also unchoreographed interactions between the youngest audience members, with babies alternately gurgling as if in conversation, infants becoming restless, toddlers stretching out, and others completely rapt by the performers’ movement and by the live music coming from Ursula Burns perched on a riser to one side of the stage playing a blinged up harp (whose resplendent LED strip lighting could become a permanent feature.

Almost everyone – children and parents – seems to be drawn into the calming atmosphere. Dressed in pale linen, Andrea Madore cuddles into the glowing orbs dotted around the stage. Later as her character begins to dream, the orbs will be stacked up as snowmen and then become stepping stones, a way for her to reach up to the moon. Her animal friends (Janie Doherty and Sandy Cuthbert) bring some of the show’s props closer to the audience, giving eye contact to every child. The show was choregraphed by Georgia Tegou with set design and lighting by Ciarán Bagnall. Úna Hickey created the costumes.

Gentle noodling on the harp as the show begins soon develops into more recognisable song structures. As we reach the penultimate scene, lyrics are added and Burns is simultaneously playing harp with her right hand, tapping out a riff on piano with her left, and leading us in song as we journey towards the show’s conclusion. With glorious reverb and echo effects, the aural experience really complements the dance.

At the conclusion of the 30-minute performance, parents and wains are invited to ditch their outdoor shoes and move onto the dance floor for some playtime. Hoops and flat stepping stones appear, and soon there’s a hushed joy as the audience enjoy exploring the space a few of them had spent the last 30 minutes straining to invade. The dancers stay in costume and join in the play. Surprisingly, it doesn’t become loud or raucous. The soporific vibe of the dance has lulled everyone – adults included – into a zen-like state of calm. Parents don’t look stressed. Children look content. A Moonlight Dream has been established during daytime.

The final performances on Sunday 9 March have already sold out. But hopefully Maiden Voyage Dance will be rewarded with sweet dreams and international dates to showcase this gorgeous snuggle of a show. And don’t forget to check out the remaining shows for young and old in this year’s Belfast Children’s Festival which runs until 15 March (brochure).

Photo credit: Ciarán Bagnall

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Losing It and In Between – trauma informed dance that makes physical the anguish of conflict (Belfast International Arts Festival at the MAC until Saturday 26 October) #BIAF24

The trauma of our circumstances and situation, not to mention the inherited trauma from previous generations, can affect our bodies, our movement, our minds. Losing It sees Palestinian choreographer and dancer Samaa Wakim move along, around, under and over a long stretch of tape. Her manner veers from being tentative, to being almost giddy with exuberant joy, to being physically fearful.

The soundtrack blends the noise of traffic, emergency sirens, military vehicles and fireworks, all played over a disconcerting bed of pink noise. Intended to be played live by Samar Haddad King, at this evening’s performance the DJ decks and microphone to one side of the stage remained unmanned to remind audiences that it was impossible for Samar to travel to Belfast.

Samaa Wakim’s sense of balance, both at ground level and later in the air – the tape feels like ‘Chekhov’s tightrope’ right from the start – is impressive. Losing It was devised long before the 7 October attacks last year and the subsequent conflict. Some of the sounds were recorded a decade ago, but Samar has continued to remix more contemporary noises into the soundtrack. The symbolism of the movement, and the poignancy of the physical tape representing borders, balance/equilibrium and barriers is heightened by the recent events.

Esam Sultan from the Palestinian Circus School opened the evening with another performance – In Between – that uses a tape. This time it was thicker, tied onto his ankle and secured to a fixed point off stage, limiting the performers locus of free movement. While his freedom was frustrated and curtailed, there was still room for creative expression, cartwheels and headstands. A cry for help and an audience member’s intervention changed the dynamic, yet the very presence of the tape still created a sense of struggle and legacy.

Dance offers a universal language – albeit it one subject to much interpretation and even misunderstanding and head-scratching by reviewers! – that can transcend place, and people and time. Your mind can freewheel as you draw together the visual and auditory elements to construct the story. (Though the post-show chat with the performers – including Samar who joined remotely – reminded the audience that conflict can also crush the urge to create and play.)

There’s another chance to enjoy Losing It and In Between in the MAC on Saturday 26 October as part of Belfast International Arts Festival which continues until 26 November.

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2024 Belfast International Arts Festival – some theatre, dance, circus and literature treats from the 39 day programme #biaf24

The Belfast International Arts Festival is upon us, with a bumper 39 days of events, artistic experiences and exhibitions. Here are just a few of the theatre, dance and literature events from the full festival programme

The Tragedy of Richard III // Wed 16 Oct–Sun 10 Nov // Lyric Theatre // The very hotly anticipated tragic adaption of Shakespeare’s history play opens the festival. Adapted by talented duo Oisín Kearney (who also directs) and Michael Patrick (who stars as Richard III in some shows), it explores the hunger for power of the disabled brother of the King even in the face of certain death. With a lead actor who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease last year playing the lead role and manoeuvring around the stage in a series of ever more elaborate wheelchairs, and Deaf actor Paula Clarke playing the chief villain Tyrell communicating with Richard through sign language and gesture, it’s an ambitious production that takes an old story and promises to give it purpose for modern times with a vivid staging. You can catch an interview with Oisín and Michael on last Friday’s The Ticket (starts 29’16) that will whet your appetite. [reviewed]

Yerma // Thu 17 Oct–Sun 3 Nov // Lyric Theatre // A few feet away from Richard III you can find Tinderbox Theatre Company’s adaptation of Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca’s Yerma in the Lyric’s studio space. The story about a childless woman living in rural Spain has been shifted to rural Ireland. The set is novel, the characterisaton is tight, This imaginative reset of the story is rich and intriguing. However, the runtime exceeds some audience members’ bladders, triggering disruptive coming and going in the stalls. (Maybe not an artistic priority, but still a practical one that is worth considering.) The set with its crazy entrances and exits is novel, the reset story is compelling, and the casting – particularly Caoimhe Farren in the titular role – is excellent. [reviewed]

The Piece with the Drums // Fri 18–Sat 19 Oct // The MAC // One of the festival’s annual gifts to the city is bringing over artists and concepts that wouldn’t normally have a following or a ready audience. This production from David Bolger and CoisCéim Dance Theatre treats us to a visual and aural conversation between a dancer and percussion. Toes tapping, limbs flapping, and drums beating.

David Park // Wed 23 Oct // The Linen Hall // Novelist David Park in conversation with Hugh Odling-Smee.

Aurora: A Modern Myth // Thu 24 Oct–Sat 2 Nov // The MAC // Another highly anticipated theatre production from Prime Cut with Dominic Montague’s tale opf environmental concern and activism merging gaming technology, animation and live theatre to create a magical experience. Directed by Emma Jordan and starring Meghan Tyler, Maria Connolly, Conor O Donnell, Thomas Finnegan … and a tree. [reviewed]

North Star // Thu 24–Fri 25 Oct // The Telegraph Building // An immersive night of live music inspired by a speech given by abolitionist Frederick Douglassin Belfast in 1845. Features performances by Kaidi Tatham, Nandi Jola, Leo Miyagee, Winnie Ama, Hannah Peel, Colin Salmon, and nearly 100 pupils from four Belfast schools. Part of Belfast 2024.

Losing It & In Between // Fri 25–Sat 26 Oct // The MAC // In this double bill, Losing It explores the lingering trauma of war through movement and sound with Palestinian dancer and choreographer Samaa Wakim. How does growing up in a war zone and inheriting the pain of previous generations manifest itself in your body and your movement. And to open the show, in In Between circus performer Esam Sultan “depicts an innocent Palestinian born into a life of struggle”, dreaming of a better life, but battling against alienation and loneliness. [reviewed]

WILD // Sat 26 Oct at 13:00 and 15:15 // CS Lewis Square // Free // In recent years, the festival has brought circus into the fold and Motionhouse’s latest production places its performers on a forest made of tall scaffolding poles and platforms high up in the canopy. Described as “gravity-defying dance-circus”, head over to east Belfast to get a glimpse of the acclaimed acrobatic outdoor show.

The Vanishing Elephant // Thu 31 Oct–Sat 2 Nov // Grand Opera House // Cahoots is a theatre company with an incredible still in telling stories suitable for young and old that captivate through their sense of closeness or intimacy, fine gestures, elaborate puppets and magic. The shows are curated in a theatre environment which has an incredible control of sound and light. This latest tale from long-time collaborate Charles Way follows the paths of a boy born in Bengal who befriends an Asian elephant. Years later as an old man he hears that Houdini will vanish an elephant live on stage in New York. Expect gasps, magic and maybe even tears. [reviewed]

Granny’s Jackson’s Dead // Thu 31 Oct–Sun 2 Nov // 47 Malone Road // Big Telly Theatre Company’s favourite grandmother is getting another wake. Step into her home and pay your respects alongside her family as they remember this larger-than-life character who lives on the hearts of so many. Immersive, subversive and thought-provoking. The show premiered earlier this year in NI Science Festival and alongside the overtly theatrical elements, it gently explores our attitudes, tolerances and reaction to death, grief tech, and the ethics of loss.

Austin Duffy & Phil Harrison // Tue 5 Nov // No Alibis Bookshop // two Irish authors in discussion about their latest works, the turning points of the Troubles, and the legacy of masculinity.

Michael Longley // Wed 6 Nov // Seamus Heaney Centre // Recording and live-streaming events, I witness all kinds of performers, lecturers and events hunched behind a sound mixer and a preview screen of video feeds. One of the most memorable this year was doing sound for an academic conference in a subdued Ulster Museum art gallery as poet Michael Longley read from a selection of his work and threw in wry comments on their context. It was captivating … and I say that as someone who rarely ‘gets’ or looks forward to poetry. Longley is back, this time in conversation about his new selected poems collection Ash Keys with poet and novelist Nick Laird.

Impasse // Wed 6 Nov // The MAC // Two performers confront the biased narratives etched onto Black bodies throughout history. Considering cultural imperialism, racial projections, autonomy and self-determination. The first presentation of work in Northern Ireland by Luail, Ireland’s (new) National Dance Company.

Chicken // Wed 6–Sun 10 Nov // Lyric Theatre // A Kerry Cock shares his feathery story of getting a big break in the world of acting, winning awards, and sliding into ketamine addiction. A one woman show like no other. Expect chicken suits and clucking in this biographical tale and absurdist satire.

Lots more treats in the online festival programme.

ROOTS – connecting people, place and plants (until Sunday 18 August)

I’m late. Though I still think I’m early. The GPS has plotted a route that unexpectedly takes me up to the top of the Whiterock Road. The road narrows to a lane. The gradient forces my lightweight car into first gear and it complains as it clamber to the top, round the tight corner and then faces back down towards the city. The track has now become the Ballygomartin Road and it widens. The GPS is certain that I have arrived at my destination, an isolated field which is even bereft of mobile phone signal to try a different app. I head on, further down, and the Belfast 2024 branding hints that I have arrived at the Black Mountain Shared Space.

The audience for ROOTS, perhaps appropriately given some of the piece’s overall narrative, have been split into three groups, tribes if you like, each wearing a different colour and hearing different voices in our heads through the wireless headphones that deliver the Isaac Gibson’s soundscape and poet Maria McManus’ word pictures.

“And in the beginning was the mountain … sleeping under her duvet of ice.”

Following the opening segment that grounds the piece in its location, each tribe heads off in a different direction. For me, there was a period of meditation, thinking about the abundance of the natural world and deepening our connection with the land and the shrubs in a community garden that has been planted and will survive beyond these performances. There was a period of collaboration, planting and realising that once there are two people, there can be a cure, with laughs and mutual support. Finally, in my version of the performance, there was a period with conflict, a couple falling out of harmony, shifting from pulling together to pushing apart, one carrying the other who seemed limp and injured, stumbling through their hurts before one lifts the other to new heights.

The three tribes and the five dancers reconvene for the final sequence. It’s been a time of communal experience and expression. The performers demonstrate a sense of togetherness, leading each other, leaping up, setting down, trusting and belonging in concert.

Over the hour, the audience aren’t left as mere spectators. We have become involved in the planting, encouraged to look and feel and smell what’s growing in the beds. Moving through the space, we have walked under wooden arches, doors to new places, portals to new ways of living. To one side, children are playing in the street, throwing balls and zooming around on scooters. Our headphones may have blocked out the noise, but their presence grounds the site in its locale, connecting the communities of the Springfield Road and the Ballygomartin Road.

The bark mulch is soft to stand on. Una Hickey’s gorgeous slate/green/beige costumes tone in with the hues of the landscape and the garden. Clara Kerr, Ed Mitchell, Rosie Mullin, Harry Wilson and Sarah Flavelle bring each section of the work to life with their flowing moves, wordlessly guiding their wandering audience around each space and through the emerging story.

Artistic director and choreographer Eileen McClory (OTR/Off The Rails dance theatre company) has created a thoughtful, site-specific, outdoor performance that blends dance, poetry, storytelling, and active participation. It’s a triumph and well worth finding.

ROOTS asks what roots us to the places we live and work and encounter each other. It asks what we feed on to sustain us. It asks what we are planting as a ‘love notes’ or gifts for the future. The new Black Mountain Shared Space building will be home to sport, meetings, community projects, performances, and a garden. Like ROOTS, it hopes to connect people, place, and plants.

While this is a site-specific piece, positioned high up overlooking part of Belfast, many of the themes can be elevated to a universal level. ROOTS has been in the planning for many months. Yet it’s portrait of people living side by side but not always in harmony is not only a metaphor for the situation in this part of Belfast, but also speaks into the fractured wellbeing of the city as it responds to anti-immigration marches, expressions of racism, violent attacks, and vigorous shows of strength to counter these challenges to the city’s rich diversity and sense of welcome.

ROOTS is part of Belfast City Council’s Belfast 2024 programme. Performances continue at 3pm and 7pm until Sunday 18 August (with no shows on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13). Tickets are available from Belfast International Arts Festival. Dress appropriately as the show will go ahead no matter the weather!

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GUTTER – a nuanced dissection of populist news, celebrity culture, and reducing everything to the level of gossip (Off The Rails Dance at The MAC until Sunday 29 October) #biaf23

Some of the strongest work featured at Belfast International Arts Festival has been that (like Rhino) which embraced the imagination and creative power of an ensemble to produce something that was greater than the sum of the already talented individuals involved.

Off The Rails’ GUTTER follows this trend with its takedown of modern journalistic excess and audience bias towards news and commentary that fits their own agenda. It looks at the collision point between populist journalism and the celebrity status endowed upon and enjoyed by some presenters. What happens when you’re surfing along the wave of likes and the crest collapses and you tumble into the deep waters of cancellation? Are the viewers and readers and social platform users as complicit in this madness as the producers of the news who kowtow to the desire to gain shock-jock approval ratings? Have we created a world of gossip-mongers?

GUTTER does this very accessibly through the medium of dance. In a series of scenes that eventually come round full circle, Kevin Coquelard takes on the role of presenter, taking instructions from an unseen director to learn how to stand out, work an audience, and have presence on screen. At first diffident, he embraces the need to be a showman.

Soon he turns into a stage manager and we realise that even the adjustment of the studio furniture can be a non-neutral act of performance. Cameras are positioned and Conan McIvor’s live and recorded video mastery adds another dimension.

Recognisable classical themes are appropriated and pleasingly subverted with social media sound effects by Garth McConaghie. Sound from above the heads and behind the audience keeps our skin in the dangerous game being acted out in front of us. One incredibly powerful scene sees a robust debate (real audio from recognisable voices) being conducted as if the speakers (represented by pairs of shoes using Sarah Jane Sheils’ precision spotlighting to animate their voices) were instruments in an orchestra.

Artistic director and choreographer Eileen McClory introduces nuance through repetition which exposes how what plausibly starts out as good technique can quickly get twisted and hyped out of hand, leading to instability and catastrophe. Raising the tempo of a repeating routine is another device that underlines how easily the intelligibility of the message can be lost as something spins out of control. News is breaking in more than one way.

GUTTER suggests that some journalism and some audiences no longer value facts and integrity over performance and approval. Coquelard’s intimate dance with a camera hints at narcissism and the neediness of some Instagram/TikTok reels. As an audience, we’re never allowed to stray far from our own involvement in the vicious circle though both unwilling and quite knowing manipulation.

There’s a coherence to the multi-disciplinary storytelling of GUTTER that uses just 50 minutes to make its pitch. Hats off to dramaturg Hanna Slättne who’s helped keep the performance sharp and to the point. Coquelard’s relentless movement and lipsyncing is a delight to watch. But his on-stage antics are significantly enhanced by the quality of the beautiful sound, light and video work with which he interacts.

Just two performances of GUTTER remain at The MAC on Sunday 29 October (14:30 and 19:45) as part of Belfast International Arts Festival. It’s another example of international quality work that has been made in Northern Ireland but is not constrained to speaking to local audiences. The physicality, the video clips of news output, and the lure of gossip over impartiality is universal. 

Belfast International Arts Festival continues until 5 November.

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Fiq! – what happens when circus meets gymnastics and tumbles into a DJ set: it’s magnificent or rather magni-Fiq! (Grand Opera House until Saturday 21 October as part of Belfast International Arts Festival) #biaf23

Take 15 acrobatic bodies that bounce and flip and spin, one DJ who provides a constant live soundtrack, a circling motorbike, 48 or more red Coca Cola crates, and a dance floor and billowing backdrop that rips apart, than add gymnastic talent, circus skills, passion and energy and you have something magnificent … magnifique … or just Fiq!

That’s the name of the energetic, tumbling and breath-taking show by Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger from north Africa (though troupe member Jemma joins via Scotland!) who are performing for two nights in the Grand Opera House as part of Belfast International Arts Festival. ‘Fiq’ translates as ‘wake up’.

I can close my eyes and imagine being able to do a cartwheel. However, during Fiq! I see performers effortlessly cartwheel on the spot, spinning themselves around in almost a blur. My imagination has nothing on their reality.

What begins like a dreaded school gym beep test, quickly becomes a playful dance exploration of how running back and forward in a straight line can be distorted and made a lot more fun. But the sight of the fifteen performers, dressed in blank, darting back and forth across the stage is only the start of the strenuous activity. Soon the long drapes are being pulled down, the dance floor is being ripped up, the costumes are becoming more colourful, performers are being flung in the air with a human trampoline, and we’re hearing about and watching expressions of freedom, strength in numbers, a fair distribution of wealth, and what happens when you give people autonomy over their bodies.

This is the kind of show that puts a grin on your face that lasts for the whole hour and a half of the performance. Magical Apple AirPlay allows us to see a performer eye view of being tossed around in the air. Even DJ Dino is taken for a spin and elevated out of the way like a magic carpet on the rise when the dancers take back control.

Fiq! is multi-disciplinary, multi-talented, and multi-lingual (with English surtitles conveniently projected above the performers for those moments when you want to check that you’re picking up the right message from the movement). It’s a very accessible expression of dance. Children and adults spontaneously applaud and cheer encouragement. Circus is a great gateway to dance. It emphasises the strength of performers and the remarkable repeatability of their movements.

Due to due to the conflict and the closing of borders, Palestinian circus performer Esam Sultan wasn’t able to travel to Belfast to open the show with his In Between. Festival hope that he can be part of next year’s programme. In his place, local circus supremos, Tumble Circus, have stepped in to perform before Fiq! takes to the stage.

At the end of a long day, Fiq! was a treat. You can catch the final show tomorrow, Saturday 21 October at 7.30pm in the Grand Opera House. Belfast International Arts Festival continues until 5 November.

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Belfast International Arts Festival – some theatre, circus, dance, music, film and conversation highlights (12 October–5 November 2023) #BIAF23

Some highlights to look out for in the Belfast International Arts Festival, which runs for the 61st time from 12 October–5 November 2023.

THEATRE

Gary Mitchell’s new black comedy Burnt Out [reviewed] about a couple who move into a new home opposite a bonfire. That situation never ends well in any local plays! // Lyric Theatre // Wednesday 11 October–Saturday 4 November

Tinderbox Theatre’s Patrick J O’Reilly’s adaptation Rhino [reviewed]– which I last saw in a bi-lingual performance at Belfast Festival a decade ago – uses physical theatre and multimedia design in a performance that promises to add a Black Mirror vibe to Eugène Ionesco’s classic and problematic absurdist comedy. // Lyric Theatre // Wednesday 18–Sunday 29 October at 20:00

Welcome to the gig economy. The audience at work.txt [reviewed] will clock in, get short breaks, work in a team under their own initiative, and learn about financial instability in the absence of a performer. // The MAC // Tuesday 24–Wednesday 25 October at 19:45

Celebrated playwright, director and producer Jo Egan used community theatre to bring authentic voices and marginalised stories onto stages across Ireland. Along with Fionnuala Kennedy, Jo founded MACHA Productions, to ‘democratise cultural expression’. As part of a two-day Lay Up Your Ends at 40 celebrating the anniversary of Charabanc Theatre Company, The Linen Hall will be paying tribute to Jo Egan who died last Christmas with an evening of performances and reflections. // The Linen Hall // Thursday 26 October at 18:00

Pat Kinevane and Fishamble are regular collaborators at the festival. King explores prejudice, privilege and resistance through the eyes of an agoraphobic Elvis impersonator who lives in Cork and was named after the civil rights leader. // The MAC // Friday 27–Saturday 28 October at 19:45

Find out what happens to the minor characters at the end of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window in Big Telly’s online performance. Based on digital and physical assets, music and scripts developed through public engagement workshops. Big Telly were world leaders discovering how theatre could stretch and adapt performances to best exploit online platforms like Zoom during the pandemic. Rear Windows [reviewed] builds on that and takes it further. // Saturday 4–Sunday 5 November

CIRCUS & DANCE

Expect a mix of parkour and circus comedy in Taroo & the Cabinet of Curatrocities as Said Mouhssine fuses acrobatics, pole work and urban street moves. // CS Lewis Square // Saturday 14 October 13:30 and 15:30 // Free

Group Acrobatique de Tanger are cart-wheeling onto the stage with Fiq! [reviewed], their colourful and magical acrobatic routines, breakdancing and freestyle football, all to the beats of DJ Dino. Also featuring Palestinian circus performer Esam Sultan. // Grand Opera House // Friday 20–Saturday 21 October

Craving gossip and fed by tabloid journalism where free speech, false news and integrity collide. GUTTER [reviewed] is a new dance piece created and choreographed by Eileen McCrory and brought to life by Kevin Coquelard exploring the reader’s role in the war for attention and ratings. Sound design by Garth McConaghie and dramaturgy by Hanna Slattne. // The MAC // Saturday 28–Sunday 29 October

Drop into Queen Street Studios and catch Maiden Voyage Dance’s new performance installation Good Times Never Seemed by Vasiliki Stasinaki and Sarah Gordon. Skate boarding. Jumping into puddles. Getting trapped inside bubble wrap. Experiments in collaboration. // Thursday 2 November (15:00–2000), Friday 3 and Saturday 4 (12:00–17:00)

MUSIC

An Evening with the Belfast Ensemble and Marc Almond begins with a concert version of Abomination: A DUP Opera, a verbatim work based on the words of politicians. After the interval, and ten years after his last performance of the work, Marc Almond reprises the intense song cycle Ten Plagues. // Grand Opera House // Tuesday 17 October at 19:30

Friend of the festival and this year’s featured artist Nicholas McCarthy is appearing at Glitter of Waves, playing two stunning piano works for left hand only (Britten’s Diversions and Ravel’s Concerto) along with the Ulster Orchestra. // Ulster Hall // Friday 20 October at 19:45

And Nicholas McCarthy is back a week later for a free performance with the Ulster Orchestra and Acoustronic on Friday 27 October and is in conversation about cultural leadership at Ulster University on Thursday 19 October.

During the festival there are also performances of Canadian country music (Saturday 14 October), Cara Dillon (Wednesday 18 October), Ex-Isles (Thursday 19 October), Squid (Tuesday 24 October) and The Waterboys (Saturday 28 October).

FILM

Films from the creative partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger will be showcased in the Cinema Unbound strand at Queen’s Film Theatre: Black Narcissus (Monday 16 October at 18:15), A Matter of Life and Death (Wednesday 18 and Thursday 19, Sunday 22), I Know Where I’m Going (Friday 20–Thursday 26), Suspiria (Saturday 21 at 20:15), A Canterbury Tale (Friday 27 and Sunday 29 October, Wednesday 1 November), and The Tales of Hoffmann (Saturday 28 at 15:00).

Irish film music and its role telling stories over the last 100 years will be celebrated at From the Quiet Man to the Quiet Girl, an evening of conversation and performance. // Strand Arts Centre // Thursday 16 October at 19:30

A screening of the classic 1922 (silent) film Häxan – a documentary about witches and more – will be accompanied by a commissioned score composed and performed live by Nick Carlisle. // Queen’s Film Theatre // Thursday 2 November at 18:45

TALKS

Journalist and broadcaster Gary Younge will be talking about his new book Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter, a collection of his journalism covering four decades of reporting from Britain, the US, and South Africa. // Ulster University // Tuesday 17 October at 19:00

Mick Herron is author of the Slough House series of spy novels about a washed up team of spies. They have been adapted for by Apple TV+ as Slow Horses. // Crescent Arts Centre // Friday 20 October at 18:00

Technologist Dr Eleanor Dare, artist Dr Dylan Yamada-Rice, and Big Telly Theatre’s artistic director Zoe Seaton explore AI & Creativity. An illusion of novel thinking, or able to exhibit creative behaviour. // Ulster University // Saturday 28 October at 15:00

Lots more in the full festival programme.

Navy Blue – speaking and dancing to the personal, sectoral and societal challenges of modern life (The MAC until 26 October as part of Belfast International Arts Festival) #BIAF22

Oona Doherty has a history of producing pieces of dance theatre that are full on, high energy, provocative, and body-stretching. Navy Blue builds on this legacy with an exciting new production that rages against modern life, the state of the arts, and the mental health of artists.

Out of the darkness emerges a line of twelve dancers. This is no Riverdance. Dressed in blue shirts and trousers, they make frenzied, shaking movements, yet also glide slowly across the stage. At first, they seem to be incredibly in sync with each other, creating perfect lines, waves, then breaking out into circles, scrums and back. Yet there’s individuality among the troupe. Look carefully, and each dancer brings a different personality to the swarm of movement.

The easiest to spot is a balding dancer whose brow is furrowed and eyeline wanders, unlike the regimented stare of the others. He conveys a sense of malaise with his world, questioning the motion or the motives behind the motion. As the twelve sprint around the stage in circles, he falls behind. Others have more subtle mannerisms. But as the piece progresses, it’s clear that these are not minor acts of choreographical error, but deliberate flaws and expressions of humanity bolted into the piece.

A second scene punctuates Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with gunshots. Each time, a dancer will fall to the ground, while the rest carry on, threading their motion through the mounting body count cluttering the stage, and acting more nervously. The felled dancers are ultimately swallowed up by a blue sea that fills the stage, opening up the way for an extended piece of performance poetry. Are we watching the death by a thousand cuts of the arts? Is it a metaphor for the creative sector soldiering on while comrades and companies lose funding and stop producing? Or maybe we’re also watching how poor ideas and bad attitudes can pervade the whole world?

A quick aside. On Valentine’s Day on 1990, as the Voyager 1 space craft sped past the boundary of the Solar System, it turned so its camera could snap a portrait. The Earth – some six billion kilometres away – appears as a bright blue pixel in the image. Cosmologist Carl Sagan coined the phrase “the pale blue dot”, having requested that NASA spin the spacecraft around to take the photograph, sensing that it would give humanity a perspective on home. The film The Farthest is well worth watching to catch more the story. (Warning: expect to cry!)

Doherty picks up on the imagery, placing her pale blue dots (dancers) on a pale blue dot (the Earth). Her narration (written with Bush Moukarzel) questions human purpose, the role of dance, the cost of expression, the (in)significance of life. Copies of the script are made available to the audience.

Having established that we’re all the same yet individual in the opening scenes – which turn out to be mere appetisers for Navy Blue’s main course – Doherty contemplates how “every saint and sinner in the history of our species” (and even “corrupt politicians”) has grown from a baby-sized “small pink dot”, even if do some go on to turn “this pale blue dot into a pale red dot”. And then she turns to herself, contemplating “the poison of privilege”, the essential blue-collar worker “labouring to keep this inessential story going”, and concludes that insignificance, unimportance and nothingness are significant, important and not nothing after all.

It’s a cry from the heart, dogged by the pandemic blues and the increasingly uphill challenge of producing work. Unusually, the production budget for Navy Blue is woven into the monologue.

While the words on their own wouldn’t feel out of place at a poetry slam, the movement on stage is even more sublime. Doherty’s own energy always impressed in her earlier solo shows. She has now built a whole troupe of dancers who can engage with and expand her trademark moves and discipline. Their individual and collective spatial awareness and timing is extraordinary. William Smith and Jamie xx’s scores pump out a nearly continuous beat.

As the sea of blue shrinks, the twelve disciples once again find their space to perform squeezed, darting across the remaining lit section of the stage that is now occupied by a single dancer, throwing themselves into the spotlight, some even opening their shirts as if to suggest that a hint of bare flesh might be what’s needed to find an audience in desperate straitened times. We’re back to the metaphor for conditions creative sector.

“You’ve come a long way, a really long way. Four and a half billion years. That’s a long way to come to see a show. But I appreciate it. It means the world to me.”

Whether speaking to the personal, sectoral or world-wide societal, Oona Doherty has much to say in this production that enthrals, and ensures her enduring significance as an artist, creator, performer and producer.

You can catch Navy Blue’s final local performance tonight at 7.45pm followed by a post show Q&A, in The MAC as part of Belfast International Arts Festival. Check out the preview post from a few weeks ago to find out what other treats Belfast International Arts Festival is serving up between now and 6 November.

Photo credit: Ghislain Mirat

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Another Lover’s Discourse – an abstract multi-media interrogation of love (until Sunday 23 October at The MAC as part of Belfast International Arts Festival) #BIAF22

Another Lover’s Discourse is a truly multi-media solo performance by Palestinian artist Riham Isaac, combining crafts, film, song, dance, interviews, fashion, objects, live camera work, and some personal diary reflections. It’s rare to see quite this breadth of elements contributing to a single show. The piece was commissioned by Belfast International Arts Festival, and delayed by the pandemic, has finally made it to these shores for a couple of performances this weekend.

Riffing off the black and white Egyptian romantic comedies of her childhood, Isaac visually introduces the audience to her internal conundrum about the nature of love in relation to shmaltzy romanticism, the desirability of marriage.

There’s never just one thing dominating the stage, a film playing will be augmented – or perhaps, distracted – by watching Isaac thread paper hearts onto a string. Video bounces between an old TV set, the theatre’s main projector screen, and a vertical monitor mounted to one side of the stage.

A video triptych of Isaac dancing is visually arresting. Singing a new accompaniment over the top of silent footage from a black and white film fires synapses and kicks of thoughts as you try and piece the actions and emotion together. The recording of her discussing love with her mother offers intimate reflections on a parent’s hopes for their child. A white skirt that could be from a wedding dress physically consumes the artist, leaving her crawling across the floor like a giant veiled turtle.

If the live performance aspects had been prerecorded and were projected the full size of the back wall of one of The MAC’s gallery spaces, Another Lover’s Discourse would allow visitors to sit or stand between the screens, peering at some of the larger objects while being consumed by the sounds and atmosphere. It wouldn’t look out of place on a Turner Prize shortlist.

Yet as a piece of commissioned live theatre, Another Lover’s Discourse leaves its interpretation, and much of the sense of narrative, very firmly in the hands of the audience. Isaac conveys a sense of passion and longing during the untranslated sections – not everything is surtitled – but ambiguity is the order of the day. Closer to dance than theatre in terms of its abstract storytelling.

I was somewhat disorientated, unsure of the real distinction between the artist’s mindset at the start and the end of the process. Had the romantic comedies really coloured the culture around her so much as a child that those ideals lived on with her as an adult? Had her journey to interrogate love come to any sure conclusions that were life-changing during the making of the piece?

In the post-show Q&A on opening night, Isaac referred to the final sequence of the 70-minute performance which is less costumed, less ornate in its telling, as she delivers her personal manifesto on love to the audience. Maybe I was distracted by the quantity of stereotypical pastel-coloured hearts that kept reappearing on the set throughout the performance: they might represent the true love that would always have to be sought out. But it felt out of character with the conclusion that one should be committed to the search for who you really are, and be more concerned about how to love rather than being worried about defining what love is.

Plenty of food for thought, and certainly a feast for the eyes and ears: it’s a joy to see international work being performed in Belfast after the pandemic disruption. You can catch the final performance of Another Lover’s Discourse this afternoon at 3pm in The MAC before the show transfers to the PalArt Festival in London (29–31 October).

Check out the preview post from a few weeks ago to find out what other treats Belfast International Arts Festival is serving up between now and 6 November.

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Exploring the language of dance through two French performances at Belfast International Arts Festival #BIAF22

I can rarely claim to fully understand what’s being said, or feel secure that I know what I’ve heard, at contemporary dance performances. The grammar is often illusive. The meaning is hidden behind gestures and movements that may have symbolism that carries through from some of the traditional repertoire, but I see so little of it that not enough has permeated into my subconscious to be a useful decoder.

Tonight’s double bill of performances in The MAC as part of Belfast International Arts Festival featured French works choreographed by Noé Soulier that speak about the storytelling of dance.

In The Kingdom of Shades – Signe Blanc, Vincent Chaillet purposefully deconstructs both ballet steps and, later, the mimed hand gestures that dancers so frequently use. Thirty-six spotlights beam down around the circumference of the totally bare stage … a sure sign that deconstruction is afoot. The former Principal Dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet works through a glossary of ballet steps; then pieces them together in a routine; then leaves out all but the linking steps, an altogether flatter performance; then just the artistic steps, a shorter but more vigorous sequence. Without the linking movements, the main steps have less space to breath, less time to tell their story. The performance is silent, accompanied only by the dancer’s panting and the sound of his ballet shoes sliding across the rubber floor.

Chaillet then plays with form by running together excepts from 19th century ballets – crossing between masculine, feminine and fairy characters – and despite us knowing to look out for what we expect should be recognisable elements from ‘The Swiss Milkmaid’ or The Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake, the moves merge into one contiguous piece with no obvious boundaries or changes of style. We’ve been foxed.

His final routine shifts the focus to hand and arm gestures. We’re first taught a dictionary of French terms, in alphabetical order (they appear in English as surtitles behind the dancer). But then he transgresses, saying one word but performing the action of another. In time, the audience catch on to this deliberate misbehaviour. The contradiction begins to tell a different, confused and dissonant story, abstract yet not with full meaning.

The stage is quickly reset – a grand piano slides out from the wings and a glittery-coated pianist/singer sits behind it – and it’s the turn of Portrait of Frédéric Tavernini. The eponymous dancer is also playing with story, but with a more personal focus.

“Fred has eight tattoos” chants the pianist while he stabs out chords. They document a family breakup, his love for his daughter, how he copes, his feeling that nothing will be the same. The music makes it a lighter work to follow, though the narration (in English this time) nearly overpowers and overrides the more abstract storytelling of Fred’s movements. We chuckle when the pianist pipes up again to reveal “Since we made this piece Fred has another nine tattoos!” 

Later his fingers do their own dancing in a pool of water – the front row feel more than a few splashes – before he jumps in with his whole body.

When a dictionary and its grammar are agreed, storytelling can be universal. Without agreement, then signs, gestures and movements can end up telling different stories to different pairs of eyes. Something that the former Chancellor and former Prime Minister of the UK may be reflecting on – given their problematic economic announcements that spooked the markets they were meant to encourage with a message about future growth – as they sit on the green subs bench for the next period in Parliament. And something that the young dancers in tonight’s audience may also reflect upon as they work towards their next public performance and practise the choreography intended to convey a particular meaning to their audience.

Check out the preview post from a few weeks ago to find out what other treats Belfast International Arts Festival is serving up between now and 6 November.

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