Moonlight Dream
The Ark, Dublin
★★★★☆
A child turns restlessly in her imagined bed in the centre of the stage. Gentle woodwind music soon lulls her back into a deep sleep. Then a flute sounds a note of mischief-making and two woodland creatures hop on to the stage, gambolling around the unsuspecting young girl, who, awakened, is persuaded to join them on a magical tour of the night sky, a dream by the light of the moon.
Maiden Voyage, the Belfast-based dance organisation, commissioned this delightful production for children aged between three and six, which interweaves dance, music and design, with its partner company Luail. First performed at Belfast Children’s Festival in 2025, it has this year been on a tour that concludes with these Dublin Dance Festival performances,
Ciarán Bagnall’s set and lighting dance as fluently as the ensemble of three performers; the stage is filled with moon globes that the dancers can pick up for a game of throw and catch or transform into pillows and stepping stones. And when the globes suddenly change colour, from white to fluorescent pink and green, it’s a moment for the young audience to gasp in wonder.
The choreographer Georgia Tegou has created airy, deceptively simple dance moves for Sandy Cuthbert, Janie Doherty and Andrea Madore. Barefoot, they skim and slide, full of gaiety, and perform graceful cartwheels, while the girl’s bear and fox friends create stepladders with their bodies so she can see the moon and the glittering stars.
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In a corner of the stage sits a flower-crowned musical magician, the composer Ursula Burns, who has created a perfectly sleepy and otherworldly score on harp, flute and piano, and whose song encourages us to consider travelling by kite instead of train or bus, which seems a perfectly sensible option for dreamland.
Moonlight Dream is at the Ark, as part of Dublin Dance Festival, until Sunday, May 10th
