Dance Consortium presents Teaċ Daṁsa, Michael Keegan-Dolan, MÁM, The Birmingham Hippodrome | 06 & 07 February 2026, then on tour ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by David Gray & Paul Gray
Dance Consortium presents Teaċ Daṁsa, Michael Keegan-Dolan, MÁM
The Birmingham Hippodrome | 06 & 07 February 2026, then on tour
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by David Gray & Paul Gray
“An irresistibly powerful, challenging and many faceted dance piece.”
The opening image of this performance is undeniably powerful; a young girl in a virginal white dress lies prone on a table; a man with the head of a ram looks on. But the threat of the moment is almost immediately subverted. The girl sits up, pulls open a draw in the table, takes out a bag of crisps, rips it open and munches away. I suppose if you’re going to be sacrificed to the Ram God, you need to keep your strength up!
This refusal to be pinned down, to play to expectations is one of the many joys of this powerful, challenging, deeply imaginative piece of dance theatre. The Ram-man carefully removes his head and takes up a very basic-looking concertina. A curtain drops away. A row of seated people in misshapen masks gesticulate rhythmically towards the girl in a manner suggestive of incantation, while creating their own music with claps, stamps click and voices. There is an intimation of ritual. Then the man with the concertina starts to play, and we are in a totally different milieu. And, wow, can that man play the concertina!
An event has taken place. There is some kind of party which is now at its nub end. We see the characters in the drama for what they are; men in ill-fitting tuxes, women in hand-me-down dresses. Elements of the ritualistic opening remain. The girl watches, passively, and perhaps a little aggressively. Chairs, which are the only dressing on the set at this point, are the type you would find in a church; the ones with the troughs in the back for prayer books and hymnals.
But this does not seem to be a piece of theatre primarily about ritual or religion. It seems rather to be about community, family even, and the things that happen when a community gathers, when the filters are dropped, and dormant feelings float to the surface. Where ritual certainly has its place, but it is as something that has embedded itself in community, a building block, not an end in itself.
As the work progresses, it explores the shifting dynamics of what a community does; sometimes it fights, more often it nurtures, and sometimes things get a bit sensual.
The dance language is highly motivic, particularly in the big ensemble moments, and these motifs are often used to wonderful contrapuntal effect. Introverted choreographic figures, where the energy of the body is turned defensively in on itself, contrast with expansive swirls of motion. There is no lifting; the dancers feet stay on the ground. But there are so many moments where the swirls of movement seem about to take flight - or perhaps about to fall.
It is a loose-limbed dance style; fluid, disciplined and focused in moments of ensemble, but one which always allows the dancers to be themselves, to add their own flavour. So, we have a sense of a group of individuals, making their own way through the piece, and this makes all the interactions so much more real and deeply felt.
About halfway through, another curtain drops away. There are more musicians, who play, but also interact with the dancers, just as the dancers add to the soundscape with their own body-music. This is a totally integrated work in terms of the relationship between sound and movement. It is impossible to determine which came first, so one is forced to conclude they evolved together side by side.
All life is here. There is much humour, there is tenderness, there is pathos, and there is melancholy. There is never anything that we expect. It is a piece that constantly challenges and often amazes. Quite remarkable, and most worthy of the instant standing ovation from a very grateful and satisfied audience.
Dancers - Teaċ Daṁsa
Music – Cormac Begley & stargaze
Choreography – Michael Keegan-Dolan