A step ahead of the Big Apple

The notion of New York as the capital of dance is being challenged, and Dublin has a part to play in Europe's new dance scene, writes Michael Seaver

The New York dance crowd got a bit hot under the collar a couple of years ago when Gia Kourlas, a freelance dance writer with the New York Times, wrote how New York was no longer the self-appointed capital of dance. Instead, the aesthetic shift had crossed to continental Europe, where more innovative and exciting choreography was being created. Cue outrage.

Laurie Uprichard was this week announced as the new artistic director of International Dance Festival Ireland (IDFI). A veteran programmer in New York, is she evidence of the shift of balance, a dance-drain flowing east to Europe? Not quite. Uprichard has always had a foot in either camp, so to speak. Throughout her 20 years of programming in New York, she has presented that city's downtown choreographers along with European artists such as Boris Charmatz. And coming to Ireland seems the natural journey for someone with Irish roots, and she obtained an Irish passport seven years ago.

"This is perfect for me," she says. "I feel my aesthetic is sympathetic to the European aesthetic, to the Jérôme Bels of this world, but it has also been shaped by Americans like Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown. So I think I have an appreciation for the best within that continuum of European conceptual work and physical American dance." Step-based choreographers may sneer at the conceptualists, and vice versa, but Uprichard believes the two sides can at least converse. And Ireland might be one of the places that can happen.

Uprichard is not taking sides: "I love dance. I think it can really communicate because of its physicality. But also I think that [ Jérôme Bel's] The Show Must Go On is one of the dance masterpieces of our time." Taking part in the debate that followed Kourlas's article, Uprichard weaved through the aesthetic minefield, avoiding prejudice and assumptions about European work, but instead highlighted the disparity in resources for choreographers on either continent. Danspace Project, where she was executive director for 15 years, is based in a converted church ("but we managed to get it looking pretty good") and many of the artists she presented had minimal production budgets, unlike the well-supported Europeans she also programmed. But while IDFI has the support of the Arts Council and other sponsors, Ireland's dance resources will present their own challenges.

"The issue of venues for dance has not been addressed strategically within Ireland," says IDFI chairman Dermot McLaughlin. "I'm not saying this to be provocative, that's a matter of fact." Stage sizes mean there are some dance works that will never be seen in Ireland, and some of the studios in the new DanceHouse in Foley Street are larger than any theatre stage in Ireland.

"IDFI firmly believes in attracting headline acts from around the world, ideally premieres," McLaughlin says. "We would prefer not to downscale our ambitions, but we simply can't get some companies to come to Dublin. That's a national disgrace, considering the city is an affluent, globalised, cultured European capital."

Uprichard isn't blind to these challenges, but she is also aware of the festival's strengths. "I came to the festival in 2004 and it felt like there was a buzz," she says. "Although it might not have a high profile in the US or Canada, locally it feels solid, like a festival should." According to McLaughlin there will be a major re-branding, including a name change, to help raise the international profile. Replacing the current mouthful, the new name will also be more accurate. "It's contemporary dance rather than just dance, and it's in Dublin rather than Ireland," he says. "The Dublin Theatre Festival and Dublin Film Festival have an international reach and their names do a lot of hard work in terms of attracting support and audience and artists."

Behind the branding, the festival should also have a distinctive personality that makes it meaningful to Ireland, and that means continuing to highlight Irish choreography. "We do not want a festival that could happen anywhere - it should have an Irish accent," says McLaughlin. Next year's event will be headlined by the William Forsythe Company, a group that typifies the fluidity between genres and continents. Forsythe is an American who spent 20 years as artistic director of Frankfurt Ballet and now has a company supported by the states of Saxony and Hesse; his choreography has not only deconstructed the classical vocabulary, but has influenced architects and visual artists; and his dances have been performed by companies from the Kirov to the New York City Ballet.

It's within this globalised world that choreography is now transmitted, not just within the neighbourly confines of Greenwich Village or Berlin. Borders between countries are as open as borders between genres, so the quibble over dance's capital may be as redundant as the recurring "but is it dance?" dispute. Either way, Dublin might just be the place where some of that future debate takes place.