Articles and Reviews
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THE IRISH TIMES review of The Bystander, Dublin Theatre Festival 2018

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THE REVIEWS HUB review of The Bystander, Dublin Theatre Festival 2018

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THE ARTS REVIEW review of The Bystander, Dublin Theatre Festival 2018

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IRISH TIMES review of Man At The Door (Number 54), Cork Midsummer Festival 2018

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IRISH TIMES review of Dolores, Dublin Dance Festival 2018

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IRISH INDEPENDENT review of Dolores, Dublin Dance Festival 2018

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EXEUNT MAGAZINE review of Dolores, Dublin Dance Festival 2018

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THE ARTS REVIEW review of Dolores, Dublin Dance Festival 2018

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THE BIG LIST NI review of Soldier Still, Dublin Fringe Festival 2017

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THE IRISH TIMES review of Soldier Still, Dublin Fringe Festival 2017

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THE ARTS REVIEW review of Soldier Still, Dublin Fringe Festival 2017

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EXEUNT MAGAZINE review of Soldier Still, Dublin Fringe Festival 2017

THE REVIEWS HUB review of Soldier Still, Dublin Fringe Festival 2017

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THE SCOTSMAN review of It Folds, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016

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THE STAGE review of It Folds, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016

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THE HERALD review of It Folds, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016

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EXAMINER.COM review of Walking Pale, 2016

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THE IRISH TIMES review of Dusk Ahead, 2015

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THE IRISH TIMES review of It Folds, 2015

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THE STATE OF THE ARTS review of It Folds, 2015

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BROADWAY WORLD review of It Folds, 2015

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LE COOL review of It Folds, 2015

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THE NEW YORK TIMES review of Dusk Ahead, 2015

TANZ MAGAZIN review of The Falling Song, 2014

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EXEUNT MAZAZINE review of The Falling Song, 2014

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THE PUBLIC REVIEWS review of The Falling Song, 2014

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THE STAGE review of The Falling Song, 2014

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THE IRISH TIMES review of Dusk Ahead, 2013

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THE SUNDAY TIMES review of Dusk Ahead, 2013

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EXAMINER.COM review of Dusk Ahead, 2013

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IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE review of Dusk Ahead, 2013

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IRISH INDEPENDENT review of Dusk Ahead, 2013

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THE IRISH TIMES feature on junk ensemble and Dusk Ahead, 2013

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IRISH EXAMINER review of Dusk Ahead, 2013

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THE IRISH TIMES review of The Falling Song, 2012

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IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE review of The Falling Song, 2012

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RACHEL DONNELLY review of The Falling Song, 2012

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TOTALLY DUBLIN review of Bird with boy, 2012

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THE SUNDAY TIMES review of Bird with boy, 2011

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IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE review of Bird with boy, 2011

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THE IRISH TIMES review of Bird with boy, 2011

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THE VIEW on RTE TELEVISION review of Five Ways to Drown, 2010

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THE IRISH TIMES review of Five Ways to Drown, 2010

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IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE review of Five Ways to Drown, 2010

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THE IRISH INDEPENDENT review of Five Ways to Drown, 2010

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IRISH HERALD review of Five Ways to Drown, 2010

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DANCE EUROPE review of Drinking Dust, 2009

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THE IRISH TIMES review of Drinking Dust, 2008

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THE METRO review of Drinking Dust, 2008

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IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE review of Drinking Dust, 2008

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THE IRISH TIMES review of The Rain Party, 2007

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THE IRISH INDEPENDENT review of The Rain Party, 2007

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THE METRO review of The Rain Party, 2007

IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE
01 October 2013

Dusk Ahead at Dublin Theatre Festival
by Seona MacReamoinn
Star rating: ****

Our eyes follow the three blindfolded figures tentatively moving onto the stage, seduced, as they are, into the foggy half-lit world of the approaching night which junk ensemble dance company create in this new work. It is a meditative journey into the blurred terrain between the familiar and the strange, dream and reality, power and vulnerability, but deftly guided with clarity and a lightness of touch which makes it compelling.

Small handbells, carried by the other two dancers, ring out to orient the dancers before they remove the blindfolds and enter fully into this mysterious kingdom where both human and animal shapes shift and morph into one another. Framed with Sabine Dargent's design of tautened and burnished strings of wire, like glittering strands of Rapunzel's hair, in Sarah Jane Shiels' dreamy crepuscular light, the dancers summon a series of images and episodic sequences.

Like characters from fable and fairytale, they accustom to this strange light and its possibilities. One dancer, as if suddenly waking from a dream, seems astonished that that she is holding another dancer horizontally to her body, like a package she might have been handed in the foggy evening, and lets him fall. Dancers clamber onto one another's necks and backs peering and peeking like woodland animals or determined to remain entwined, Justine Cooper and Ramona Nazgabcynski braid their plaits together as they dance. In one wondrous sequence a couple secure togetherness with a magical kiss, their bodies, arms and legs in graceful and mesmeric motion rotate and shape around this fulcrum of sealed lips. In another image, we see a dancer become an elegant strutting ostrich, all fussy plumage, plunging its head in the sand, as unseeing as a blindfolded human.

This shadowy time, between the dog and the wolf - entre chien et loup as the French say - is not unfamiliar ground for the imagination of choreographers Megan and Jessica Kennedy who find rich material in those fallible places where the domestic and the wild, memory and fact collide. Innocence is often tinged with the scent of danger and so it is here. The sweetness and eeriness of Denis Clohessy's evocative score adds to the atmosphere and is played primarily by cellist Zoe Reardon but also betimes by the dancers, now a band of strolling minstrels, singing softly and plucking a range of stringed instruments as if they had strayed from a Shakespearean idyll. But then anything seemed possible in this skilfully wrought work of illusion and disenchantment from an ever imaginative company.

IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE review of Dusk Ahead, 2013