Dance on Film | Dublin Dance Festival

Star Rating: 3/5

DANCE ON FILM - IFI DUBLIN - PART OF THE DUBLIN DANCE FESTIVAL

Dance on Film, part of the Dublin Dance Festival, is a collection of shorts showcasing some of the most varied and creative works of the genre from the last 25 years. Shown at the Irish Film Institute on Sunday (May 13), it kicked off with the foot-stompingly good Advance (2009), by Mitchell Rose. This up-tempo vignette follows two dancers as they march through fifty countries, from arid deserts to snow-covered city streets. It's one of the high-points of the 12 films included in this compilation, but there are others.

Le P'tit Bal (1994), a playful French classic, where glances, facial expressions and elaborate finger movements are used to delight and entertain. Codex 1, a 1987 short by French director, Philippe Decouflé, continues the whimsical theme with his group of mob-headed jesters, frantically racing across the screen one moment, while taking up absurd acrobatic poses the next. There's some Irish fare on show here, too. Notably, Deep End Dance (2010), part of RTE's Dance on the Box programme, brings us underwater to watch a man in a suit cheerfully dance with an older lady in a swimsuit.

Motion Sickness (2012), commissioned by Rua Red in Tallaght, is one of the more recent shorts. Here we follow three dancers weaving and dancing playfully in a south Dublin car park. Not all of the efforts were universally welcomed though, with some getting a lukewarm reception at best, while others were just plain confusing. For example, I Walk Alone - You'll Never Walk Alone (2005), was more a representation of motion, featuring a side-scrolling montage of barely visible footballers during a match at Preston North End's Deepdale Stadium.

Similarly, Furniture Poetry (1999), was an exercise in animation and photography, as was One Thousands Steps (2003), while the delightful Topic II (1990), followed a similar, but more effective, path. The collection was rounded out with some notable dance classics, such as Critical Mass (1999), The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1993), Pas de Deux de Deux (2001) and Pointe Blank (1999).

All in all, this was a fun collection, with more highs than lows, that offered enough for the purists and curious alike.

Declan Ferry

Story by EI Team | 09:00 | Monday 14th May 2012 | Theatre

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