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‘This is an Irish dance’ — this is beautiful. The piece is a work of intricacy, intimacy, and interconnectedness. Together, Jean Butler, of Riverdance fame, and acclaimed cellist and composer Neil Martin, of the West Ocean String Quartet, create a dialogue exploring the interdependent relationship between live music and movement, bringing to the forefront of the work the often invisible interplay that exists between dancer and musician in live performance. Both Martin’s modernist composition for the work and Butler’s choreography draw on contemporary styles, but are shaped within a distinctly traditional idiom of both Irish music and dance.
This is an Irish dance, and yet simultaneously it is not. Butler’s style of dancing marks a distinct and obvious departure from the rigid formalities that accompany the Irish dance tradition – she uses her arms, she moves her pelvis, she flexes her spine. Perhaps Butler seeks to make a point as to the evolution of Irish dance and the way in which it has become something of a contradiction; a social, folk art form that has gradually become as formal and competitive a style of dance as ballroom. Her movements are mesmerising, at times fluid and languid, at others, more frantic and staccato-like. Every action is carefully considered, despite the casual, ad-hoc presentation, as could also be said of Martin’s accompanying music. Where Butler consumes space, Martin reinterprets silence.
Although it may be a dance with but a lone dancer, this work is very much a duet. The programme notes that the music and movement of the piece were created in congruence with one another through improvisation, allowing the two disciplines to take shape and come together organically. Butler writes of music as being the ‘very essence’ of Irish dance, for the steps would not – could not – exist without it. The connection between musician and dancer is central to the piece, and there is an intensity to sustained throughout. It takes form at various stages as a confrontation, sometimes a game, occasionally a seduction. There are moments of silence, and moments of still, the dialogue between Butler and Martin manifesting itself through an understated crescendo when the tables turn, through the simple act of Butler taking Martin’s cello from him and proceeding to tap the strings to produce a muted, gentle pizzicato, whilst he paces elsewhere. Then, order is restored, his cello is returned so that he might play again, and she starts again her dance.
The work is simple and yet complex. It is an oxymoron; an Irish dance that is not an Irish dance. This is an Irish dance, but it is also a very effective exploration of the interconnection between music and movement, movement and sound, sound and space, body and instrument, and ultimately, man and woman.
