A review of what is happening in the world of the arts.
Fête de la Danse
Various locations, Cork
With dance and identity as its theme, this year's Fête de la Danse grappled with a fundamental issue in the artform. With the body as conduit for choreographic ideas, the dancer and dance become inseparable, so each dance becomes a commentary on the body and the person who inhabits it. A foil for this live body is found in projected video images, and in Mathilde Monnier's solos, 8mn and 12mn, Karin Zeriahen provides live projections of the choreographer and Rita Cioffi on the white square performing space, so the performers engage in a kind of self-dialogue with their images.
8mn sets out to combine live and projected performer and so the white wigged and clothed Monnier slowly skims on the surface of the floor like an ice-skater, occasionally lunging deeply towards her image. Movement is driven by interior impulses and her response to the images on the floor are physical rather than visual.
For 12mn the small square stage is raised at the back so the audience have a clearer view of the images. Black-haired Cioffi wants no part of the video projections and soon disappears behind the stage. Zeriahen continues to video her and soon issues of reality and perception crop up. Do we believe the live performer or the projected image through a subjective camera?
Cameras also guided our vision throughout the Vidéodanse screenings from the Pompidou Centre. Separated into themes, the daily programmes presented both younger and more established choreographers. Issues of identity surfaced in films such as Au bord des metaphors by Rachid Ouramdane who, like Monnier, chose to superimpose a live performer and projections. On a split screen a performer vigorously rubs his face while a still image gradually has eyes, eyebrows and soon all of its features erased. A case of be careful what you wish for, our relationship with our bodies and how we construct our identity was lucidly portrayed. Other films were more ham-fisted, such as Karine Saporta's dreary La fiancée aux yeux de bois, where the choreographer returns to the traditions of her native Russia and grapples with conflicting cultures construct the self.
Maguy Marin's Umwelt left the issue of identity with the audience. Performers appeared from behind silver screens set quivering by giant fans. Marin wants us to consider how we treat the environment and each other, and a string unwinding from one side of the stage to the other amplifies the urgency of this examination. It is up to us to respond how we wish, but she helps by setting images against each other. So two men might carry giant teddy bears and be followed by others carrying lifeless bodies, questioning how much we value life. It's simple but never simplistic, and the work has been snapped up by major producers including London's Dance Umbrella.
The gamble in presenting Umwelt paid off for ICD, but the festival itself faces questions. With good houses there is clearly a local appetite for the performances, but the nature of the programming worked against anyone travelling distances, as there was just one performance most days, often as short as 40 minutes. In post-Cork 2005 a more intense festival might be more suitable - although that creates its own demands on the building and staff - but maintaining the event, in whatever form, is imperative.
Michael Seaver
IBO/Monica Huggett (violin)
St Peter's Church, Drogheda
Rameau - Cinquième Concert en sextuor. Wassenaer - Concerto Armonico No 5 in F minor. Lully - Le Triomphe de L'Amour Suite. Johann Bernard Bach - Overture No 1. Rameau - Troisième Concert en sextuor. The Irish Baroque Orchestra began its four-venue tour under Monica Huggett at St Peter's Church of Ireland in Drogheda.
This church, built in 1752, was badly damaged in an arson attack in 1999. It was restored in time for its 250th anniversary in 2002, and since last year is now also to be found in regular use for musical events.
It is an attractive venue, and although the pews are rather short for prolonged sitting, it is much more comfortable than many another church pressed into concert use. The acoustic is a little on the dry side, and the effect of this was most noticeable in the two Concerts en sextuor by Rameau. These 18th-century arrangements, an up-scaling of his Pièces de clavecin en concerts of 1741, are thought to be the work of the lawyer Jacques-Joseph-Marie Decroix (1746-1826), an avid collector of Rameau's music.
With the exception of the closing Tambourins from the Troisième Concert, reinforced by Kate Hearne on descant recorder, the string orchestra arrangements didn't quite achieve the sharpness of outline or depth of character that the players managed to bring to the suite from Lully's 1681 ballet, Le Triomphe de L'Amour.
This programme also included the fifth of the Concerti armonici long attributed to Pergolesi, but now known to have been the work of a Dutchman, Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer (1692-1766). This is music of such strong personality that one can only regret its composer left so little. Saturday's performance wove its magic with skill.
Even rarer was the work that opened the programme's second half, an Ouverture by Johann Bernard Bach (1676-1749), a cousin of the great Johann Sebastian. It may be billed as a suite-styled overture, but its character is that of a sometimes dashing and intricate violin concerto. Its most distinctively memorable movement is an Air with pizzicato accompaniment. Monica Huggett and the players of the IBO delivered it with appreciative style.
The IBO play at Kilkenny Castle today at 8pm and at the National Gallery in Dublin on Thursday (with a 6.30pm start)
Michael Dervan
Orchestra of Saint Cecilia/Mallon
St Ann's Church, Dublin
Bach - Cantatas 173, 165, 184, 167
Since 2002, Belfast-born, Canadian-based Kevin Mallon has conducted one concert per annual series in the Orchestra of Saint Cecilia's cycle of Bach's complete church cantatas. His contribution is distinguished by an ability to coax baroque-style playing from the OSC, drawing on his experience as a violinist with leading period ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants and Toronto's Tafelmusik. It was the same here when it seemed clear that Mallon - artistic director of Cork's Opera 2005 - was insisting on a livelier touch from the strings. Strangely, the effect was often lost because of poor ensemble among the violins, numbering just five on this occasion so that discrepancies received a heightened degree of exposure.
In a selection of cantatas featuring little instrumental variety (Cantata No. 167 calls for tromba da tirarsi - an early cross between a trumpet and a trombone - but did without!), Patricia Corcoran's fine obbligato performance on oboe da caccia stood out, emphasising the warmth of God's love and effectively making a trio out of the duet for soprano and alto Gottes Wort, das truget nicht ("God's word deceives not" ).
Elsewhere, the pair of fluttering flutes gave a pastoral glow to the opening of No. 184 Erwünschtes Freudenlicht ("O hoped-for light of joy"). The movement - celebrating the dawning of the new covenant at Pentecost - was one of several accompanied recitatives and showcased the irresistible narrative and expressive qualities of tenor John Elwes. Bass Nigel Williams matched him in his pair of more sombre recitatives in Cantata no. 165 for Trinity Sunday.
Soprano Sylvia O'Brien demonstrated a sure feel for the style, most notably in duets with Elwes and with mezzo Alison Browner whose sensitively shaped lines she responded to in kind, creating an energetic interplay of radiant sound.
Michael Dungan
