DANCER, musician and choreographer Maria Nilsson Waller lends her name to the collective title ‘Maria Maria Maria’ for a trilogy of dance performances by three creatives at Dance Limerick.
Taking place on Tuesday November 29 at 8pm, the Swede – gifted on banjo, piano and fiddle – presents her unit ‘Prime’ in the larger production overseen by Firkin Crane’s Rionach O’Neill. The other dance works are Emma Fitzgerald’s ‘Rest’ and Oona Doherty’s ‘Lazarus and the Birds of Paradise’, all at Dance Limerick, John’s Square.
Nilsson Waller is experienced in designing her own performances, reaching into her background as a musician of folk and classical music as much as formal training at the Royal Swedish Ballet School that began at a mature 16 years.
With ‘Prime’ put together over the last six months in Dance Ireland, Dublin, she first drew her inspiration from seeing film of Tina Turner sing back in the 1960s. “The clips were in black and white and this talent, the incredible force of nature she was” blew her away.
Having known Turner only through her ’90s success with ‘Private Dancer’ album, “I was not aware of this incredible back story of Ike and Tina, of the abuse and beatings that went on for 15 years”.
Although everyone around the charismatic rock star knew she was on stage performing after the next savage beating, the physical and financial exploitation continued.
Then with Turner blossoming internationally in her prime of life, the dancer was awed by “the incredible thing [Turner] did in starting a solo career as an artist at that age, in her 40s”.
So domestic abuse and trauma recovery are core to ‘Prime’, using some of Turner’s music and an original score created electronically by Nilsson Waller.
There’s no video backdrop, but you will find a researched performance that accents Turner’s recovery and indeed, renaissance as a formidable, loved and independent star.
