Re-Visioning the Rite: An Exploration of the Expressive Possibilities of Irish Dance: Sacre Celebrations: Revisiting, Reflecting, Revisioning

This paper addresses the creation of an Irish dance interpretation of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”. The work represents a major requirement of an Arts Practice PhD
that the practitioner/researcher is undertaking. His company’s work (Ériu Dance Company) is a reaction to the commercial show and competition culture genres and draws on the more exploratory model of contemporary dance and physical theatre. The choreographic process is multi-layered and includes but is not limited to the following tiers: the generation of novel movement approaches and vocabulary through a personal improvisational method which draws from the choreographer’s habitus; developing a company signature; authoring motifs as well as move exhaustive sequences; and transmission. The transmission, workshop and performance stages provide rich insights, and it is in this area that the research flourishes. Nurturing a positive, collective engagement with the ensemble is key. Company work begins as the interior depths of the Irish dance performer are probed, questioning where the impulse of the movement is located and allowing for alternative channels to open, seeing how the expression breathes in other areas and in other ways. Deep emotional structures are encouraged to surface in evocative movement patterns. There is an emphasis on a more visceral, brutish aesthetic, harnessing the individual gestural signatures of the dancers and encouraging higher level emotions to surface. Themes which appear in the work include: mob mentality; alpha-; beta-; vulnerability; victimism; homoeroticism; and persecution. The opportunities and challenges presented by the making of Irish dance work that challenges the boundaries of the traditional aesthetic are discussed with reference to how the physicality of the dance manifests itself, the reaction of the dancers and its acceptance in the wider Irish/General dance community.