John Scott and Merce Cunningham

John Scott’s Irish Modern Dance Theatre

Project Arts Centre

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Renowned Irish choreographer John Scott presented a virtuosic, innovative spectacle in this highly diverse double bill of dance.The first performance is a work by the legendary avant-garde choreographer and pioneer of American contemporary dance, Merce Cunningham. Night Wandering was first created in 1958, and Scott presented a bold recreation of the original performance.

Night Wandering is a moving story of painful vulnerability and passionate, distorted love, set against a cold, snowy backdrop. The sparse Nordic landscape was indicated by a minimal set and fur tunic worn by the female dancer. This story of twisted lovers was beautifully realised through a fragmented and somewhat jarring musical composition by Bo Nilssen.

The duo was superb, emulating a compelling but damaged relationship; a relationship in which both parties have an almost feral dependency on one another for survival. The propensity of the dancers to execute restrained movements whilst maintaining grace and poise was astounding.  The facade of composure combined with such a demanding contortion of bodies intimated to the tender and inversely macabre notes of their dynamic. It was a marvellously unsettling and honest depiction of the subtle difficulties between a couple, and the human tendency to suppress such tensions.

The second performance was a stark contrast to that of the first, both stylistically and in terms of subject matter. John Scott is well known for a heavy use of text throughout his choreographies. The piece succeeded in essentially blurring the lines of dance and theatre, a fusion of the experience provoked by each art form. The opening section bordered on slapstick, beginning with a dancers’ interpretation of human reactions. At first humourous, the performers soon demonstrated their capacity to turn our lighthearted enjoyment on its head: such as when an enactment of laughter transformed into a fit of convulsive choking.

The piece was bizarre, compelling and overwhelming. At one point the performers were weaving in and out of one another, on the verge of colliding. This, interposed with the voice of Florence Welalo’s ritualistic chants and didactic monologues about “following your star” created a sense of chaotic harmony. It felt like a  clashing of comets, at once an epic galactic battle between repelling cosmic forces whilst also an internal battle of the conscious, the struggle to discern one’s desires, hopes and dreams.

This was a beautifully transportative experience and certainly one that made brilliant use of contrasts, not just between the two different pieces but thematically within the choreographies themselves. There was a much clearer message to be taken home from the Merce Cunningham piece, while Scott’s enigmatic creation left the audience with less obvious answers. However ambiguous, it was certainly a cathartic, affecting and enlightening evening of dance theatre.