Stage: Dance your life away

Teaċ Daṁsa
How to Be a Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons
by Michael Keegan-Dolan
choreography and performance Michael Keegan-Dolan, Rachel Poirier
directors Rachel Poirier and Adam Silverman
set and costumes Hyemi Shin
lighting Adam Silverman • sound Sandra Ní Mathúna
Sadler's Wells East, Stratford • 17-20.Sep.25 ★★★

Blending his personal experiences into a lively performance art piece, Michael Keegan-Dolan takes the stage with long-time collaborator Rachel Poirer to explore the journey of his life through spoken word, dance and physical theatre. It's a fascinating show, largely because it's impossible to predict what might happen next. But it's also oddly indulgent, expressing ideas and narrating events in ways that keep the audience on the outside looking in. And for a show that explores ambition, identity and ancestry, it never quite cuts loose into something truly soul-baring.

Keegan-Dolan and Poirer immediately get to business unpacking a large wooden crate to place props around the stage for use later. For much of this 80-minute show, Keegan-Dolan recounts stories from his life while Poirer offers little asides, sounds and visual touches. There are also extended dance sequences and larger eye-catching moments involving ladders, lights, breeze-blocks, a disco ball, an egg and microphones on long cables. This show is constantly in motion, with a cheeky sense of humour that reflects in the performers' evident glee, especially in the sillier moments.

The story traces Keegan-Dolan from his childhood in Ireland to studying ballet in London and working as a choreographer across Europe, seen through the prism of his nationality as he stands up to authorities at every step (echoing his recent fallout with Sadler's Wells). Anecdotes chronicle moments of both embarrassment and tenacity, played out on-stage with honest wit and inventively visual flourishes. The choreography is impressively precise, even when things get messy. And Poirer's show-stopping dance numbers include a goofy cross-dressing sequence and a remarkable marathon solo to Bolero.

An eclectic mix of music spans from Ravel and Elgar to Talking Heads, Queen and Men Without Hats. Themes are also wide-ranging, touching repeatedly on art, religion and racism, with some vague nods to sexuality along the way. Most enjoyable is the lively storytelling, recounting youthful aspirations as they clash with reality. These are funny and telling, and offer brief moments of resonance along the way. Most sequences feel rather random, but the general sense of absurdity is lovely. As is the idea that life is short, so while I'm alive I will dance.

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photos by Fiona Morgan • 17.Sep.25

Stage: Let your hair down

Mám
by Michael Keegan-Dolan and Teac Damsa
music by Cormac Begley and Stargaze
with Imogen Alvares, Romain Bly, Lisa de Boos, Tyler Carney, Marlies van Gamgelen, James O'Hara, Aki Iwamoto, Zen Jefferson, Mayah Kadish, Maaike van der Linde, Amit Noy, Keir Patrick, Ellie Poirer-Dolan, Rachiel Poirer, Connor Scott, David Six
Sadler's Wells, London • 5-7.Feb.20

A breathtaking mix of history, art, music and dance, Mám is an exhilarating odyssey through the culture of southwest Ireland. Bold and expressive, it's packed with moments that are funny, surreal, intense and sometimes wrenchingly emotive, performed with passion and energy by a group of musicians and dancers who never take a break over the course of 90 minutes.

The title has a variety of meanings relating to the easiest way to surmount a large geological obstacle, like a wind-filled pass through Ireland's second-highest peak Cnoc Bhréanainn on the Dingle Peninsula. Teac Damsa (which means "house of dance") funnel their expression through this idea, giving the show an elemental quality even as it's packed with recognisable references to culture through the centuries, like a Lynchian take on Riverdance.

It opens with a young girl (Poirer-Dolan) in white, perhaps a first communion dress, being serenaded by the breathy, visceral tones of a concertina played by composer-musician Cormac Begley wearing a massive goat head. A fascinating expression of the nation's complex religious history, this juxtaposition continues as the 12 dancers are also initially revealed with their faces obscured, wearing sober black suits and dresses that become increasingly loose as they throw off their shoes and literally let their hair down. The physical movement shifts from ghostly and lyrical to frenzied and acrobatic, beautifully depicting scenarios that reveal fierce individuality, romance, family and, most powerfully, a sense of community.

As the backdrops fall, revealing further performers, this sense of interaction expands to include musicians playing a range of instruments in ways that speak right to the gut, from the gorgeously purring sounds coming from Begley's concertina to the earthy roar of van der Linde's bass flute. These echo the astonishing physical connectivity between the dancers and the band, evoking the feeling of an evening in a rural Irish pub where a bit of inebriation brings out the instincts of locals who express their feelings through physicality and artistry. It's a thrilling show that challenges the audience to dig deeper into their humanity and love each other with just a bit more ferocity.

Illustration by Dómhnal Ó Bric • Photos by Ros Kavanaugh • 5.Feb.20