“‘IN LiMBO’ is about being in a place in-between. I didn’t know where I sat.”
Choreographer, teacher of dance at Irish World Academy and performer, Kristyn Fontanella is speaking of her love for dance of different traditions and disciplines, as much as about her dance show ‘IN LiMBO’.
Part of What Next dance festival 2020 operated by Dance Limerick, it takes place at Lime Tree Theatre this Saturday February 1 at 8pm, see www.limetreetheatre.ie
She is not one of the six performers or four instrumentalists on stage bringing the spectacular beauty of true Irish traditional dance to the audience, integrated with new and other movements and interpretations. “Each of the dancers has their own personal stories and brings that.”
Look forward to a lean, thought-through production that has an original score.
Kristyn heaps praise on the musicians and her musical director, composer Neil Martin, cellist and uilleann piper, for their response to the suggestions, sounds and vision that she gave them over time in the making of this work.
“‘IN LiMBO’ is finding a new language or voice to use the many traditional dance forms in contemporary work.”
An American who is fourth generation Irish with antecedents from Milton Malbay and Castlebar, she credits her mother and six aunts with instilling a passion for Irish dance.
Learning from the age of six, “I went to Griffith Academy in Connecticut, learning in a competitive dance form that is Irish dance. It was a special school though, because we also had jazz, tap and so on.”
Today, Kristyn is tutor on the BA and MA Dance programmes at UL and a committed choreographer and performer, embracing flamenco, Russian dance and tap in her repertoire. This show goes back a couple of years with her chosen dancers “all traditionally trained but who welcome and are interested in other ways of movement.”
Thus the heavy shoes of Irish dance are thrown to the wings and costumes by Cherie White are as deconstructed as the traditional floor patterns and figures from céilí and set dancing. The musicians are very much part of the scene. “We still use rhythm and it’s mostly rhythm of the body as opposed to the feet.” Again, her preferred term for how the dancers connect and work individually ‘IN LiMBO’ is movement.
A wonderful exercise in imagination, dance, individuality, tradition and new choreography are woven into a coherent story, unfolding within a set by Darach O Ruairc that is moved by the dancers.
