Rehearsing for 'The Fall' in a derelict docklands

Set on a space station and applying principles of choreography linked to computer programmes, this show dances far beyond the comfort zone of the cast, writes UNA MULLALLY

THE CAST OF The Fall are rehearsing in Liffey Trust Dance Studios near the O2 theatre in Dublin’s Docklands, surrounded by derelict retail and office units, and Jedward graffiti.

Ella Clarke, the choreographer, director and one of the performers, sits at a table in a studio upstairs eating strawberries and starts to talk about the piece.

The dance production is set on a space station, and the ideas – and there are lots of them – that the piece is based around, centre primarily on Julie Lockett and Conor Madden who take the role of the perfect couple, a representative of the ambassadors for Earth engraved on the Pioneer 10 plaque that was shot into space 40 years ago, and now knocks around beyond our solar system should any extra terrestrial beings ever come in contact with it.

Clarke began formulating the piece by looking at self-evolving computer programs, examining avatars that learn and perform complex tasks.

“What’s beautiful about them is that they perform in a unique way so the same two avatars won’t do the same two things. They will react precisely to the same external impetus, but creating a different result from it. I was fascinated by it because the economy of the movement was something that I think human beings can strive to achieve but probably won’t ever.”

Along with the trend for motion-capture movement in the 1990s, inspiration from the film Despicable Me, the BBC’s The Secret Life of Chaos, and current events, Clarke formulated the piece. “There’s an American baseball team that basically run a programme for the athletes and say ‘there’s a programme for perfect movement. Do it.’ That’s the optimum, which I think is very fascinating. At the same time, [I was] listening on the radio to a lot of stuff about the ‘economic downturn’, as it’s politely phrased, hearing our society crash and crumble, and with it hearing the weight of ignorance being pushed down on top of us, if that makes any sense. So ‘yes, yes, we know this has happened, but chin up and get on with it’. There’s an immense amount of anger but a huge amount of pressure on normal people.”

Lockett has worked with Clarke for nine years, directing projects together and also adapting the work of Deborah Hay. She describes the tricky method of performance, which aims to allow the audience to create their own interpretation about what’s going on. “It’s my job to keep continually detaching. So say, for example, I might be doing something with Conor and we’ll be in a physical position that suggests certain emotions to me, but I’m continually just trying to notice and detach, notice it, let it go, notice it, let it go. Not go into it. That’s the continual practice, that’s part of the performance all the way through the piece . . . There’s a lot more space then for the viewer.”

For Grace Dyas, the director and writer and one third of THEATREclub, it’s a leap outside her comfort zone as it is the first dance piece she has produced. The challenge for her is to communicate the piece.

“It’s not going to be something that you won’t be able to connect to. I suppose it’s more like communicating my sense of what it is and why it’s a worthwhile experience and a worthwhile way to spend your evening. With concepts such as this, and without the crutches of narrative, or ‘this is the issue’. So those are the challenges for me, I suppose . . . And also the more we talk about the piece, I begin to think that it’s about men and women, it’s about those relationships, and that’s something everyone can find a way in to.”

There’s an odd synchronicity between the ideas of optimised movement that Clarke speaks about and Madden’s own health. Last March, when Madden was playing Hamlet in Second Age’s production, a fight scene saw him rushed to hospital with a facial injury that prompted a brain injury. It was feared Madden’s promising career would be cut short, but after rehabilitation he returned to acting, albeit with ataxia and double vision. During their yoga training for The Fall each morning with teacher Deirdre Murphy, Madden jokes about how he occasionally crashes to the floor due to his issues with balance. His bravery and determination are lauded by Dyas.

Madden is also emphatic about how The Fall creates “something that you can hold on to and take forward” for the audience. “Something that I’ve always known is that the audience’s entire imagination is much better and much more powerful than any idea I have, than any of the three of us in a room has,” he begins. “That’s why I love to go to see dance shows, because you can go and think, ‘I don’t really know what’s happening here. I like it, I don’t really know what it is’ . . . It’s a very strong feeling, I have to ‘perform’. I have a very strong thing to ‘act’, but no, it’s actually better to let the audience do the work, not do the work for me, but it’s a more rewarding experience. If you go to see a play where you’re told exactly who’s the bad guy, or I’ve seen plays where the first 10 minutes, you know exactly how the play is going to end,” he says, getting increasingly exercised, “you just know. That’s not interesting at all. There’s nothing interesting in that. Why would you pay €25 to see a play where you know what’s going to happen 10 minutes in?

“The idea of letting the audience do the work is actually more of a respect thing, you’re giving them the respect saying ‘you have a brain, you have as much right to be part of this as I have’.”

Surely that philosophy would come into conflict with further, more regular, acting roles? “Of course it will. Invariably, as a jobbing actor, your job is to go in and do the job you’re hired for. But of course I’ll do it! I’m not going to turn down eight weeks’ work for ‘artistic reasons’. No! I have to eat and pay rent.”

“But this will come with you,” Dyas says, concluding his intriguing barrage.

The Fall is at Project Arts Centre, Dublin until Saturday