Dance

Highlights:

Once again, Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre hit the heights with Michael Keegan Dolan's version of the Romeo and Juliet story as two suburban families locked in conflict over The Flowerbed. Seen at the Project in September, it was equalled in justified popularity a fortnight later by CoisCeim's production of David Bolger's Boxes in the Players Theatre, TCD as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival. Both choreographers excel in visual humour and, though Bolger has a more limited choreographic vocabulary than Keegan-Dolan, they never fail to entertain.

In September and October respectively, two visiting contemporary dance companies, the Swiss Tanz Ensemble Cathy Sharp at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght and the Russian/German Fabrik/Do Theatre (as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival) at the Samuel Beckett, both gave magical performances of their very different repertoires.

The Perm State Ballet of Russia had an indisputable triumph, with flawless and endearing performances by Elena Kulagina and Radiy Miniakhmetov as the truant lovers helped by Don Quixote, in that less-often performed Petipa classic, seen at close quarters in the Olympia in November.

Lowlight:

Although Morleigh Steinberg's film (in Night Thoughts, as part of the Project's Dublin Fringe Festival Event) of a duet between James Hampton and a JCB was a delight, her film of Oguri's grimaces to the music of Ave Maria was unpleasant, pointless and in bad taste.

Carolyn Swift