Reviews

International Dance Festival in Dublin; Miriam Fried and John O'Conor at the NCH, Dublin; Ballet Ireland at the NCH, Dublin.

International Dance Festival - Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Temple Bar Studios

John Scott sets his new work, Close Ups - I don't want to die yet, in the three-storey space of Temple Bar Gallery. The piece juggles the audience's attention across various individual and group tableaux, and even juggles the audience through three different floors. You're often left guessing as to what is the dance, and what isn't, particularly as dancers wander, judder, thud and wind themselves in and out of the spectators strewn across the floor, staircase and any available sitting area. You could think it's just your usual bad luck in visiting the gallery on a day when all the nutters turned up. Scott and his fellow dancers, though, insist you recognise that you have walked into his latest choreographic work, as performers intonate "This is the dance".

Dancers gesture and lead the audience further into the three-dimensional labyrinth, as Scott's choreography becomes more ritualistic and primal. Voices reciting and singing in French, Spanish and other less recognisable languages echo through the space, adding to a sensory confusion that makes you feel vulnerable yet intrigued. Looking down from a railing-enclosed circle in the floor three storeys up, you can watch dancers enacting an apposite duet on the ground floor. This unusual bird's-eye perspective on a dance piece presents one of the high points - literally and figuratively - of the performance.

Ushering the audience into a studio, the dancers growl and roar at each other like wild beasts, and no wonder. It feels almost devastating to contain Scott's choreography into this regular rectangular room. In the wake of this decisive atmospheric break - indicating vividly how space and dance affect each other - the piece continues, but never retains the same impact. After the dancers Sellotape each other to the table by their various body parts, the ending comes quite abruptly as a dancer answers the phone in an unknown, presumably African language (for the first time, it doesn't help that this can't be understood). When she closes her conversation with "Bye-Bye" and hangs up, the audience eventually twigs. - Christine Madden

Fried, O'Conor, NCH, Dublin

Beethoven - Sonata in D Op 12 No 1. Sonata in F Op 24 (Spring). Sonata in C minor Op 30 No 2

When Miriam Fried appeared at the National Concert Hall in Dvorak's Violin Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic in 1991, I found myself describing her as "a player with a big tone and a big heart".

The impression at the John Field Room, when she played three of Beethoven's violin sonatas with pianist John O'Conor, was altogether different.

The Field Room is not the best of venues for chamber music. The platform is usually placed so that much of a player's sound can escape to the empty space of the upstairs foyer. The effect on Fried's performances was to present a violin tone altogether more lean and a manner altogether more restrained.

That is not to say that her playing eschewed fieriness of attack. There was plenty to be experienced in the stormy writing of the Sonata in C minor, Op 30 No 2. But the manner was rather drier, the heat felt, as it were, from something of a distance.

John O'Conor played with a tone that was full and round, and at times rather heavy. The way in which the sound of the two players was at all times nicely distinguished from each other meant that they were able to resolve the often tricky balancing act between violin and piano with ease.

There were some moments when Fried's communicative urgings led her to lean rather too heavily on accompanimental patterns, but mostly the duo's give and take was achieved without exaggeration.

Strangely, for a recital that included one of Beethoven's most purely melodious works (the Spring Sonata) as well as one written with his familiar C minor intensity, the two movements which lingered most in the memory were the Scherzos from those two sonatas. Both of these short movements were conceived by Beethoven and delivered by Fried and O'Conor with a winningly deft wit.- Michael Dervan

Ballet Ireland Tchaikovsky Celebration Gala - National Concert Hall, Dublin

Debates rage about whether ballet's future lies in preserving the classics or developing more contemporary styles, and Ballet Ireland looks caught in the middle. Its Tchaikovsky Celebration Gala included excerpts from Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker as well as seven other dances ranging from romantic comedy to modern. The company looked polished and the six live musicians accompanying the first dance were a nice touch, but Stephen Brennan's School for Lovers was the only one that offered anything out of the ordinary.

Brennan coaches the Ballet Ireland dancers and performs with them, and such close involvement pays off. He has worked with companies including Norwegian National Ballet and Scottish Ballet and understands how to use movement to tell a story. Although School for Lovers might have benefited from more time to develop the story, the cast moved well and showed emotion - looking as though they were having fun.

Brennan used a device rarely seen in ballet, placing an easel with big placards downstage to announce the arrival of the next scene. "The Wager," "The Disguise," "The Wedding" and "Untying the Knot" helped move along this tale about falling in love, with a playful Flavia Semper narrating.

Hopefully next time Brennan will have the opportunity to construct a longer dance, prompting the company to remove some of the shorter, less interesting ones from the programme. Including 10 excerpts in one evening feels more like a ballet school recital than a night of professional ballet, and Günther Falusy's Druschba could have used more development, along with Morgann Runacre-Temple's Lullabies.

Still, the dancers looked strong - as if they are rehearsing well as a corps while discovering individual strengths. Peter Jolesch's Serenade showcased a lithe Paula Archangelo and Agnes Chlebowsky was a stoic swan queen. Sören Niewelt partnered well in Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Romeo and Juliet Fantasy and Swan Lake, and his strong technique served as a reminder that in many cases - such as during Von Rothbart's entrance at the end of Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet's death scene - it is time to leave overwrought pantomime in ballet behind. - Christie Taylor