Näher... Closer, Nearer, Sooner review: A lithe interplay of recollection and retrospection

NÄHER... CLOSER, NEARER, SOONER

Goethe-Institut
★ ★ ★ ★
To celebrate the opening of the Goethe-Institut's new building on Merrion Square, the choreographer Liz Roche uses as a starting point WB Yeats's belief that when we die we briefly dream backwards through our lives before going on to the next place. From there she deftly links personal and architectural histories so that as dancers regress via this dream path the audience moves with them through the institute's glorious interior.

Dancers appear out of nowhere, then vanish. Shadows flit behind walls. We are not separate from our surroundings during this fleeting effort to make sense of our existence, and despite the intense emotions and potent memories recalled in front of us, the building provides a welcome structure, and what could feel macabre turns comforting, especially under the library’s graceful dome.

Finola Cronin anchors the exceptional cast, joining Henry Montes, Kévin Coquelard, Anne-Laure Dogot and members of Dublin Youth Dance Company in a lithe interplay of vivid recollections, stream-of-consciousness retrospection and guttural reactions to the inevitability we all face.

Runs until Sunday, September 23rd