Muristek
The Dance review – slow-cinema maestro offers a glimpse behind the scenes
Pat Collins turns his gaze on Irish dance and theatre troupe Teac Damsa in this fragmentary but emotional documentary
For fans of the terpsichorean arts, this documentary about the creation, rehearsal and debut of the 2019 work Mám, by Irish dance and theatre troupe Teac Damsa, will be a treat. That’s especially true given the pandemic disrupted Mám’s scheduled tour, so this may be one of the few chances for people to see some of it, although crucially not the whole thing. Instead, slow-cinema maestro Pat Collins (last seen with ethnology documentary Henry Glassie: Field Work) and no doubt longsuffering editor Keith Walsh have excerpted an assortment of moments and passages from the final staged version that they’ve montaged nimbly together, although sometimes the music heard doesn’t correspond to the dancing seen.
Mám lacks any kind of story, and its creation was more about process than product for choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan and his ensemble, and so the film’s fragmentary, sliced-view approach works just fine. Keegan-Dolan, best known for his work in ballet and choreography for the Royal Opera House, explains to his collaborators near the start that he wants to make something that evades the usual hierarchies of dance, opening up a space for the performers to be as instrumental in the creative process as either Keegan-Dolan or his key collaborator Rachel Poirier (she’s also his wife). Meanwhile, just as essential to the process is the input from bravura concertina player Cormac Begley, who pulls together the score in a parallel collaboration with stargaze, a musical combo using traditional instruments to make a heady sound that’s closest to contemporary classical but with bits of jazz and folk thrown in.
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