Body Duet

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Clinically exposed in the white heat of Eric Wurtz’s lighting design, Philip Connaughton and Michelle Boulé engage in a work of high intensity , grappling with body and mind in John Scott’s magnetic new work Body Duet for Irish Modern Dance Theatre. In the glare of a defined space we watch, dazzled both by the light and the sureness and clarity of these fine dancers.

We become privy to the intimate dynamics of togetherness. There is the reckless abandon in the first phases where Boulé and Connaughton brilliantly mirror, with athletic nerve-tingling energy, an instinctive trust and interdependence; hands, legs, neck, heads seem to merge into one constant moving form. The exuberant confidence, synchronicity and fluidity of movement parallels a relationship that is high on its own visceral intensity.

But that very intensity peaks and an edginess, magnified by the almost subliminal score by Blackfish, turns an embrace into a stranglehold. Taunting and provocative words, mediated by a shared iPad, spatter the movement with witty but wounding intent. Scott’s change of pace reveals how the duet becomes a duel, the holding pattern of their once entwined bodies, now a well-rehearsed retreat. Separately they are each subsumed into a familiar pattern of movement so Boulé reverses into calming body gestures, her arms gently waving above her head as though willing transcendence while Connaughton’s face and body preen in knowing indignation. We sense they have been on this shifting ground before.

The fights are real, and the reconciliations fleeting. Half engaged, they still yearn for contact. “It was only ever physical,” snipes one, in that recognised rationale for ending relationships. But, in the final freeze-frame moves, Boulé and Connaughton diagonally lean on tiptoe on to each other, still sure of support. They are once again physical, but this time with a real tenderness, and regret.

Runs until Mar 3