THIS year promises to be a good year for dance.
Joaquin Cortes brings his Pasion Gitana (Gipsy Passion) to the Point (March 14th only). It caused a sensation in London and Paris, for Corte's is the Spanish Michael Flatley: a charismatic flamenco dancer who combines this Spanish gipsy dance style with the vocabulary of classical and contemporary dance to create a unique choreography.
Moscow City Ballet visits Belfast's Grand Opera House with Nutcracker. Usually a Christmas offering, this time it is "nuts in May" (5th-10th), which bears no resemblance to the disastrous Ukrainian Nutcracker. Moscow City Ballet brought creditable productions of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty to Dublin (Point, November 1993) and now have the added interest of three Irish dancers in their corps de ballet: Karen O'Neill from Wexford, Harriet Parsons from Dublin and Gavin de Paor from Skerries, all of whom completed their training at the Perm Academy, Russia.
Few local companies can confirm all details as they await Arts Council funding decisions, but definitely scheduled is CoisCeim's new piece Hit And Run. This opens the Project's temporary home at the Mint on 20th January, with music by Connor Kelly and a strong cast of eight, David Bolger's satirical eye this time being on gangsters. Another Bolger piece, inspired by the Famine and provisionally titled Ballads 1845, is planned for May, with music by Kenneth Edge.
After the success of Deserts d'Amour, Dance Theatre of Ireland presents another Dominique Bagouet piece, Strange Days, to the music of The Doors. It is teamed with DTI co directors Loretta Yurick and Robert Connor's new piece Like Water Flowing East (Tivoli, March 11th-15th).
Irish Modern Dance Theatre plans two new pieces by John Scott. More Bodies (music by Mel Mercier) is pure movement for seven men (February March), while BigDetail (music by Gavin Friday) has dancers, video artists, fire eaters and acrobats moving between the Arthouse, Temple Bar Music Centre and Meeting House Square (May). Other events are planned between June and December, but the great news is the return of Macalla (October).
Rubato plans, new work in collaboration with the National Gallery (March-April), Dance Fest 97 (May/ June) and Longford Backstage Theatre (September/October), while Mandance premieres the full length, six man Without Hope Or Fear, with music by Eugene Murphy (Project/Mint, June 6th-14th), and tours Beautiful Tomorrow (April), taking Sweat to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (August/September).
Artist to watch:
Dubliner Monica Loughman, who joined the corps de ballet of the Perm State Opera And Ballet Company on completion of her training at the Perm Academy and is being groomed for stardom.
This year's Must Sees:
1. Hit and Miss (Project/Mint): David Bolger's new piece for CoisCeim on a gangster theme. (January 20th-25th).
2. Strange Days (Tivoli): Dance Theatre of Ireland's second piece by Dominique Bagouet, teamed with Loretta Yurick and Robert Connor's Like Water Flowing East. (March 11th-15th).
3. Joaquin Corte's (Point): The Spanish Michael Flatley in Gipsy Passion. (March 14th).
4. Moscow City Ballet (Belfast Grand Opera House): The Russian company returns to Ireland with Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. (May 5th-10th).
5. Tango Pasion, return of the Argentinian company who can say more with a glance and a flick of the limb than a whole page of script. (Olympia, March 4th-15th, Cork Opera House, March 16th-22nd).
6. Macalla (RRA Gallagher Gallery): The most successful and innovative of all John Scott's work for Irish Modern Dance Theatre returns (October).
