Irish dance takes confident steps

This year the Dublin Dance Festival has moved part of its showcase from an informal studio setting to the Peacock Theatre, complete with theatrical trimmings. But it is the studio-bound half of Re-Presenting Ireland at DanceHouse that provides richer pickings. In spite of the lower tech surroundings and the fact that some performances are excerpts rather than complete works, all of the dances have a clear artistic vision and strong conceptual ballast.

Enniskillen-based choreographer Dylan Quinn has a considerable back-catalogue, but Fulcrum, which he performed with Jenny Ecke, feels like a new departure. Whereas his previous works might have been carried along by the rhetoric of their subject-matter — like violence or human trafficking — Fulcrum relies on the simplest interactions between the two performers to explore dependency and the ever-shifting power of relationships. Set to Andy Garbi’s excellent score, the two dancers’ bodies balance together like precarious sculptures as they manoeuvre around each other in a constantly evolving duet that was utterly compelling.

Frayed connections were at the heart of Project (Loco)Motion by Magdalena Hylak and Linda Schirmer, who chose the abandoned train-line between Clifden and Galway to highlight the tensions between our inner landscape and outer landscape. A projected film showed dancers as ghostly figures re-inhabiting abandoned train platforms, while the two live dancers tried to engage and re-engage with each other in equally desolate emotional surroundings.

Similarly, Fit/Misfit by Tipperary-based Iseli-Chiodi Dance Company is concerned with individuals fitting together, but in spite of its superficial whimsy it is a sharply-pointed exploration of trust and belonging. Excellently performed by Jazmin Chiodi, Alexandre Iseli and Lucia Kickham, the work is simple in its premise, but resonates thornier issues of identity and acceptance.

Liv O’Donoghue grappled with self-identity in With Raised Arms, inspired, in part, by visual artist Egon Schiele. The fragmented solo dancing, interspersed with mutterings and buffered by a whirling fan, was compelling but also both uncertain and meditative.

Continues at DanceHouse today and tomorrow.