MIXED and muscular are adjectives that apply to Limerick newest festival, the contemporary What Next Dance Festival set to run February 5 to 10, culminating in a weekend of performances.
For us the public, look forward to a choice of three programmes over Friday February 9, Saturday 10, embracing family events, international danceworks and a swell closing party. The village hop at John’s Square will be reinvented with vintage hits issued through drum machines, sequencers and synthesisers by VJ (DJ working with projected imagery and sound) Padraic E Moore.
With €20,000 underpinning What Next, albeit much going on flights and accommodation, Dance Limerick is going all out to signal that dance offers excitement, stimulus and a place for everyone.
Our headline’s allusion to Alien Express is one of two brilliant Aerowaves gigs. Created by artists Gasper Kunsek and Zigan Krajncan, expect “a gripping duet travelling from duality to unity”, an “astral train… on a journey of transformation”. These dancers are touring Europe with this in-demand show, backed by Aerowaves network of which Dance Limerick is member and on the selection panel. ‘Alien Express’ is good fun.
Dance Limerick director Jenny Traynor takes us through inclusive elements of this February festival. “We have a new pilot scheme with [designer and poet] Jo Slade for people who want to talk about dance but who feel they do not know a lot about it. Dance is a non-narrative form, as with looking at an abstract painting. We don’t know what every brush stroke means.
“So we meet with Jo Slade, then go to one or two programmes and again, meet with Jo the following Wednesday in Nelly’s Café across from King John’s Castle. People will talk about what they have seen.. and there will be no dance professionals present.
“It’s about enabling people to respond to what they have seen. It’s not a million miles from what a book club is.”
Traynor draws attention to the sequential programmes of various works, opening with Prog 1 on Friday 9 at 7.30pm. She’s especially gone on ‘Folds of the Crane’ by Justine Cooper “who has worked with lots of companies, Cois Chéim, Liz Roche and so on. It is a stunning piece that uses lights very strongly”. Cooper moves limbs, hands, body parts in and out of strobe lights.
Alongside that we have ‘Koduku’, another Aerowaves special, with dancer Daniele Ninarello dancing with brio equal to the stunning sax sounds by Dan Kinzelman.
Programme 2 on Saturday 10, 3pm is family-funny and platforms the joyful ‘Abacus’ bucket dance with nine performers and 18 buckets. ‘Begin’ and ‘Ruby’ complete the gig. Programme 3 begins at 6pm with the afore mentioned ‘Alien Express’ and Mary Wycherly’s ‘Sinter’, using the performing body, space, sound, video to create micro-narratives.
Then it’s wrap party time at Dance Limerick for participants and ticket holders.
