Death, grief and Irish identity are sewn into the seams of Michael Keegen Dolan’s absorbing new work created for his company Teac Damsa, translated from Irish as the “house of dance”.
Dolan’s starting point for an hour and a half (no interval) of creative outpourings derives from its title, Nobodaddy, based on a poem by William Blake about a jingoistic, shady character penned in response to 1798, the year of the United Irish Men’s non-sectarian rebellion against injustices of British rule in Ireland.
Subtitle Tríd An Bpoll Gan Bun translates from Irish as “through the bottomless pit”, where no amount of jam or head-banging can fill the void of being and nothingness. I’m unsure if this is what it means or if such words deepen the understanding of the piece, but I doubt it’s for comfort of clarity, as tonight often feels like scraping nails down the blackboard.
For some, in its dance abstractions, Nobodaddy appears like a fun, folksy Gymboree where Céilí meets warehouse rave in a playful romp through a series of silly vignettes. For others, there’s a deep sadness and angst presented in a package of songs and dances created as an ensemble of nine dancers and seven musicians.
The show’s live musical contribution, especially the presence of American folk singer and instrumentalist Sam Amidon, who has curated the songs we hear, certainly echoes melancholically in its lyrics of death, separation and loss. “Folk songs tap into the consciousness of people gone by. It’s a haunting thought—to be connected to the dead, but those who left neither name nor face, only these traces of words and sounds that seep into the sap of our present,” says Amidon of the score.
The music dictates the energy and spirit of the dancers and how they move. The cast literally rub up against musicians as they playing the cello, violin or guitar. As they are strumming, the musicians also rock and sway, swinging hair freely moving around the stage with their instruments. Often musicians are tucked away in dance shows, far removed from the action, but here Keegan-Dolan creates a truly shared collaborative stage. Such intimacy means that we are allowed to see how each artist responds directly to the material.
Countless slapstick sketches are rolled out, lending a light of touch atmosphere as a foil to the emotional outpourings. In fact, the piece opens onto an eccentric Beckettian dialogue about back injuries and health insurance. While Blake is the bones of the piece, it’s also clear to see Lecoq at play and sprinklings of Pina Bausch.
Choreographically, the use of space is always engaging as dancers expand and contract like a concertina. Sometimes, the cast crowd and squash close in tableaux like in a large box that has many uses throughout the evening. In other scenes, they scatter, filling all four corners of the stage, flinging, swooping and swaying in hysteria, hair flying, bodies jerking to the beat, as if at a collective, cultish gathering or a rave night. Yet at the same time, the cast are mostly wearing tight red suits and ruffled white shirts, creating a comic contraction between the starchiness of the outfit and such flowing, wild movement.
Food is also a theme throughout the show as dancers stand in line passing pots of red jam, dipping in with fingers, while another dancer munches on a banana and throws the skin into the auditorium. It just misses my head. A dancer strips down to his white pants and rubs a block of butter all over his body. He is then wrapped in a clear plastic sheet and shuffles off behind the large box as if his body is being disposed or dumped in a criminal act.
Then at one point, Rachel Poirier dancer, partner and Keegan’s creative collaborator, nails two of the male dancers to the floor by their necks, stands on them and pours milk over their heads. A routine then follows that wouldn’t look out of place in the film Shaun of the Dead. Dancers twitch their bodies to electronic synthesised music.
In another heart-stopping moment, a dancer walks up to the top of a ladder. There’s stillness, then he tumbles backwards, landing on the mattress beneath. He repeats this action three times. “Beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace,” he pronounces as he falls. Is he an angel? Who knows. But it makes great theatre.
Towards the end of the show, performers sit on a line of chairs at the front of the stage and are whipped by Poirier with a large pair of angel wings. Moving with the appearance of abandon, the cast flow in unison. The dancers are superb. I love the mix of floating arms, swings, dips, squats and intense volume cathartic screaming, which quite frankly most of us feel like doing after a stressful week.
I’m envious of the cast collaborating in Keegan-Dolan’s home down in Dingle, Southwest Eire. Space, strong relationships, solid practice, great food (according to the post-show talk) seeps through into unified expression in Nobodaddy. There’s a therapeutic element in the performance, and, behind the backdrop of lilting folksy harmonies, grief and death are confronted directly through voice and movement. Watching joy and pain played out bald-faced onstage is both moving and weirdly entertaining.
Reviewer: Rachel Nouchi