Getting back in the box

CoisCéim’s David Bolger has taken his old show ‘Boxes’ out of the attic and repackaged it for a new audience. But his props are proving an apt metaphor for these fragile times

GIVE A CHILD a sophisticated toy and they inevitably end up playing with the box. Something similar seems to have happened to choreographer David Bolger. After last year's highly technical Dodgemswith its cast of 17, he is now remounting Boxes, a work for just two dancers and, well, boxes.

There are loads of them piled up around Coiscéim’s small studio off O’Connell Street, normally the model of the clutter-free working environment. And most of them are pretty battered-looking, having endured the rigours of intensive rehearsals. Somewhere in the middle, Bolger is demonstrating moves to dancers Jason E Bernard and Lee Clayden, and, rather than being in the way, the boxes are part of the action. They are easily lifted and shoved and piled as equal characters in the dance, changing the dancers’ performing area from spacious to claustrophobic. And soon they’ll be in the back of a van on a nationwide tour until May.

It's a far cry from the huge production of Dodgems, one of the hits in last year's Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival. The huge set – with its fully functional dodgem track – was constructed at the venue and rehearsals moved away from the company's home base to facilitate the large cast.

" Dodgemswasn't easy to set up. It was like an installation and there was a constant stream of issues," says Bolger. "I'd be rehearsing and getting phone calls saying, 'Health and Safety won't pass this or that'. It seemed like every morning there was an hour or so of crisis meetings."

Rehearsals for Boxesare a lot more relaxed. Although the piece was not deliberately programmed to give the company respite after Dodgems, Bolger is enjoying the familiarity. "Last year I had to learn a lot about the [dodgem] track and electricity," he says. "Going back to Boxes, even after nine years, feels very familiar. And now there might only be a crisis if we run out of Sellotape!"

So why did he revisit the work, in which he danced with Sean Jeremy Palmer at the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2000?

“I always wanted to tour the show, because [in 2000] we only played Dublin for three weeks,” he says. “I always thought, ‘It’s just boxes and two dancers, how hard is it to tour that?’”

Not all plain sailing, he admits now that it’s becoming a reality, but a lot easier than most pieces. It also has a further reach, fitting into more venues and appealing to a multigenerational audience, unlike some of his darker and adult-themed dances.

A lot has changed in the nine years since its premiere. For one thing, almost a third of the venues in the upcoming tour hadn’t been built, but also the boom came and went, something that Bolger had to grapple with in revisiting the dance.

‘IRELAND AND THE world is a very different place from the pre-9/11 Celtic Tiger time of the premiere. Even the boxes themselves have taken on new significance.” Boxes are always a handy metaphor, but Bolger’s individual use of them now goes beyond the precious package of dreams or worries. In these times there is also the suggestion of a packed-up office or house, and the simple cardboard lends an undeniable blue-collar aesthetic to the dance.

This is magnified by the dancers whose camaraderie demonstrates both competitiveness and caring, something more typically found on the factory floor than the trading floor. Bolger and his dancers witnessed this solidarity first hand as the sounds of the protest march by over 100,000 workers filtered into the studio one Saturday afternoon.

“We went out to watch it,” he says. “It was quite moving, seeing this huge and diverse group of people coming together from all over Ireland to make a collective statement.” He feels that this sense of collectiveness and personal interaction is one of the worst victims of economic success, as individuals accumulated “must-have” possessions. In this new version of Boxes, that tension between the stock-piling of “things” and the personal contact between the two dancers has added significance.

Bolger is happy to let these new slants emerge and hasn't set out to merely dust off an old work and present it as an historic curiosity. The dancers' individual movement styles are also changing the piece and Bolger is happy to let this happen. Both appeared in Dodgemsbut have very different backgrounds: Lee Claydon has experience with leading contemporary dance British choreographers, while tap dancer Jason E Bernard has appeared on Broadway and in a Spike Lee movie. Although Bolger's first-hand demonstrations are the only way of teaching the material, he is anxious that their individuality comes through.

“I really wanted the two dancers to take ownership of the piece and not just copy what I did last time,” he says. “I’ll be honest and say that that wasn’t always easy. We’d sometimes work through improvised sections in rehearsals and I’d have to hold myself back when they did something different. But ultimately I realised that I really needed to let go and allow them to do things for themselves. I want them to find their own questions and stories within the piece.”

SOME ANIMATED sequences have also been added, created from safety cards on safe lifting and drawings of stick men that were made when creating the original production in 2000. The performers dance with the animation at one point ("a bit like Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh") and change its size and perspective by moving the boxes. All of these have changed the nature of the piece. Bolger admits it might have been a funnier piece back in 2000, although it is still in essence light-hearted.

“I’d like every audience member to have their own personal relationship with the piece. Maybe that’s prompted by an image or a more metaphoric question of, ‘What’s in the box?’ I’m not trying not to press another drama on the piece. It’s a layered piece, but also simple and that’s what I like about it. It’s just two guys and a load of boxes.”

Boxespreviews tomorrow and plays at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght on Fri and Sat, then tours until May 2 to Tralee, Portlaoise, Bray, Galway, Dún Laoghaire, Longford, Thurles, Sligo, Waterford and Drogheda. www.coisceim.com