Watching him watching you

The relationship between dancers and audience is central to John Scott's choreography. He tells Michael Seaver about his outlook

Towards the end of the rehearsals for (Like) Silver, his new work, John Scott, artistic director of Irish Modern Dance Theatre, had no dance material, but he did have a complete running order for the audience. "That bit is all set. We will fill the space with the audience and do something around them. Then we'll separate them into two lines, with a runway in between where some of the dancing happens. But we won't do things to the audience," he adds. "Everyone is perfectly safe. Nobody touches them or moves them or humiliates them."

As he talks he's clear about where the audience sits but vague about what the dancers do. The relationship between audience and performer is the strongest aspect of this work, and Scott harks back to some of his earlier works, such as Macalla, in which he defied the traditional audience-performer relationship by having the audience walk around the RHA Gallagher Gallery. Ignoring what he calls a "jaded feeling in Irish theatre and dance about the same old audience- performer relationship", he has looked to European practitioners such as Thomas Lehmen, who is based in Berlin, for a different methodology.

"In Stationen Lehmen says that there are five constituent parts of the performance: the originator of material, interpreter, mediator, manipulator and spectator. And in It Is Better To [ which Lehmen created for Irish Modern Dance Theatre] he constantly worked on the basis that there would be no secrets between the performer and the audience." Performed at this year's ESB Dublin Fringe Festival, It Is Better To was nominated for best production and sexiest show, so for all of Lehmen's theorising he can still connect with audiences. "And he loves to dance," adds Scott. "Here was Mr Middle Europe Conceptualist, but he was obsessed with dancing."

Performing in It Is Better To not only sharpened Scott's creative sensibilities but also renewed his belief in dancing. He sees the work of Merce Cunningham as the perfect combination of concept and physicality. "I saw Ocean in Belfast in 1997 and have been drawn to his work ever since. I had always heard that his dances were unemotional and cold, but what I see is this ferociously alive, emotional and sexy work that is exploding with all kinds of feeling, particularly when it is danced by his own company."

But (Like) Silver was still born on the page rather than on the body. Starting with the simple premise of parallel lines, he constructed a set of rules for the performers to follow as they move around the audience. "I was obsessed with the idea of parallel lines. They are bound together and there is almost something tragic about them. They are permanently destined to be the same distance and exactly alike, careering along side by side, equidistant and never meeting, for eternity.

"I then started thinking about parallel lines of bodies and seeing other meanings. The piece starts with everyone on the floor, and even that image, of a row of prostrate bodies, has all kinds of resonances."

Working slowly and finalising the dance only before opening night might suit Scott the choreographer, but it can be a headache for John Scott the artistic director. "I've had to force myself to write press releases and information for the theatres, but I don't want to push the piece in a certain direction just because a PR person is looking for information."

Has this happened before? "Yes. I've been forced to write blurbs where I've had to decide the piece is about death or time or something. But I've decided to get away from that. I have found that my pieces function best when they are not about anything and have this extraordinary way of reflecting whatever is happening. I have found that looking at them a week or two after a performance I can suddenly see something emerging."

Serving up a three-course dance on a plate is a trait that he sees in other dancemaking in Ireland. Even the company website claims that "Scott's work is sometimes seen as a battle against the conservatism in Irish theatre and dance". But his own shift to less prescriptive methods is mirrored by more conceptual work elsewhere, with the arrival of Michael Klein at Daghdha Dance Company and the ongoing investigation of Deborah Hay's work by the dancers Ella Clarke and Julie Lockett.

In Hay's works the performers engage daily with a question. At a workshop in Limerick Scott came into contact with her work The Match, which asks what would happen if every cell in your body - "all 78 trillion" - were to invite being seen at the same time. Hay can spend up to 18 months investigating a question, but she isn't looking for an answer. As she said to Scott: "I'm not interested in the answer, only the question."

With a choreographic practice that is European in outlook, his work, unsurprisingly, is consistently well received on the Continent. With more bemusement than bitterness he recalls: "Rough Air was panned here, but we got standing ovations in Estonia and Sweden, and Intimate Gold got lukewarm reviews here in Ireland yet was a finalist in the Bagnolet choreographic prize, in France."

Scott has also had brushes with the Arts Council, receiving a big cut in funding in 2003, ironically after arguably his strongest production, a double bill of Missed Fit, by the New York choreographer John Jasperse, and his own Left And Right.

These days he is considered about the issue of artistic value.

"What does success and what does artistic maturity mean? Does it mean that you graduate to the Abbey or the Olympia? Is it about getting your studio or your marketing manager? Sometimes I do wonder myself if I should be in those places after 14 years' work. But instead I find myself going to Siamsa Tíre and performing with the audience on the stage with the dancers."

Although (Like) Silver might seem part of series of works involving precious substances (past works include Ruby Red, Real Pearls and Intimate Gold) the title came from another of Scott's cultural heroes, Andy Warhol.

"Warhol's superstars, who include the Judson Church dancers [ such as Hay, Steve Paxton and Simone Forti], have always been a huge influence. Apparently, they would all visit the Factory and a load of them would take speed or just be in the middle of their neurotic preoccupation at the time.

"They'd then do monologues or insult each other or some of the dancers would move around. A journalist who witnessed this described that they lived in a silver-like twilight on the verge of self-destruction. I had been looking around for a title and felt this was perfect."

Drug- or neurosis-fuelled movement, European conceptualism, Cunningham's movement lexicon and just a bit of Irish muck-savagery might seem unlikely ingredients in dreaming up a dance. But Scott is certain of his exotic recipe.

"I grew up going to the Abbey, where my father was a lighting designer, and I saw all the plays I ever need to see. I'm full of them, and I think that us choreographers don't need to tell a story. We have different things to say, in more interesting ways."

(Like) Silver is at Project, Dublin, until Saturday and at Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, on December 8th. For more details see www.irishmoderndancetheatre.com