Ballet Ireland’s Bold Moves 2024: ‘The way dancers come together, it’s all about human connection’

The accessible, lighthearted nature of Ballet Ireland’s Bold Moves programme belies the hard work that makes it happen. What began in 2019 as a way to introduce contemporary ballet to Irish audiences has grown into an event that includes dancers and choreographers from around the world.

Preparations this year have involved everything from delicate artistic negotiations to importing a 2m-high movable wall, and the result is a supercharged atmosphere for experiencing ballet. This year’s line-up features the Irish premiere of Walking Mad, by the Swedish choreographer Johan Inger, and Stepping Over, by Filipe Portugal. Minus 16, a dance by the Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin, was originally scheduled for this year’s Bold Moves. On Wednesday, after opposition to the performance from the Apartheid Free Dance group, Ballet Ireland decided not to present the piece, saying, “We stand by the right to freedom of artistic expression, and despite our belief that art should not be drawn into politics, we feel the time is not right to be performing this work.” The two remaining dances on the programme hit the sweet spot between cutting-edge choreography and ballet’s more classical form.

“It’s always a big investment in this kind of work,” says Ballet Ireland’s artistic director, Anne Maher. “And next year our plan is to commission a new full-length piece in this more neoclassical, contemporary mode. This kind of programme is not always possible to deliver on some of the smaller stages in Ireland, so we’re looking after production values, which have grown and increased over the last number of years, and audience expectations. It’s a balancing act.”

Ballet Ireland has never before performed a work by Inger, whose career began as a dancer with the renowned Nederlands Dans Theater and continued as director of Sweden’s Cullberg Ballet. Inger uses a spare, stripped-back style in Walking Mad, which is peppered with humour and reflective of his decades-long experience in the contemporary-ballet world. Walking Mad’s score comprises Ravel’s Bolero and Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina.

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Bold Moves requires significant financial investment, particularly in terms of licensing ballets. The company’s ability to gain permission to perform works such as Walking Mad shows its evolution. When it began, in 1998, Ballet Ireland primarily featured excerpts of ballet classics and dances by lesser-known names.

When the work of a choreographer such as Inger is licensed, ballet companies must pay fees to the choreographer as well as to rehearsal directors who help with everything from casting to staging the dance. Payments also go to lighting and costume designers affiliated with the production, and stage and technical crews. Before any of these fees change hands, however, ballet companies must be vetted to make sure they are of a standard required to satisfy the choreographer.

“There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes, and we’re very fortunate to be able to perform these,” says Martin Lindinger, Ballet Ireland’s general manager, who helped secure the rights to the dances for this year’s line-up. “The process can take years, and with our funding structure the way it is, that can be challenging.”

In the case of Walking Mad, the rehearsal director Yvan Dubreuil was dispatched to Dublin from the Netherlands to oversee the staging process. During Dubreuil’s two weeks here, he coached two nine-member casts in everything from the nuances of the choreography to safety precautions with the imposing set. A mammoth wall features in Walking Mad, and the set-up behind it includes wheels, pulleys and an entire ecosystem of levers and hinges that audiences don’t see. During Walking Mad dancers change places, open doors and tilt the wall until it becomes a dance floor. In the middle of one rehearsal Dubreuil issued precise instructions on how to interact as four men tossed the dancer Valerie Yeo in the air and then up against the wall. Throughout a few short minutes, the dancers’ energy shifted from intense to playful to nonchalant.

“The wall has a life of its own,” says Lindinger. “Even when they are behind it and not seen, the dancers always have to be very switched on.”

Ballet Ireland has spent several years establishing links with choreographers such as Inger, gaining permission to present a broad array of work. Last year’s Bold Moves included a dance by Aszure Barton, a Canadian choreographer who has landed gigs at Baryshnikov Arts Center, in Manhattan, and New York City Ballet. Previous contributors have included Christopher Bruce, an icon of British ballet, Ireland’s own Marguerite Donlon, who has forged an impressive career in Germany and elsewhere, and Naharin, whose work appeared in previous Bold Moves line-ups.

“This kind of programme really brings that core audience of people between their mid 20s to late 40s and 50s,” says Maher. “They’re a group we’re anxious to get our hands on. We want that younger cohort of people to experience our performances, yet they’re also the most difficult group to get off the couch and into a theatre. People in their 30s and 40s are busy with their careers and with their families.”

[ Choreographer Aszure Barton: ‘I rebelled a lot. Instead of following the rules, I wanted to create my own’ ]

In addition to work by choreographers such as Inger, Bold Moves gives newer voices a podium. Portugal’s Stepping Over, set to music by Philip Glass, offers the most classical of the two dances in this year’s Bold Moves. Portugal’s style leans more towards tradition, and his ballet includes intricate lifts and other vignettes more familiar to ballet audiences. Portugal created Stepping Over for Charlotte Ballet, in the United States, before sharing it with Ballet Ireland. Other new choreographic voices in years past have included Ireland’s Zoë Ashe-Browne, who danced with English National Ballet and Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, in Belgium, before beginning to choreograph. Ashe-Browne’s Us premiered during Bold Moves 2019.

Dublin doesn’t understand there is a company of quality. It shows that the ecosystem of culture and of dance – and of modern dance even more – is extremely, extremely fragile

—  Yvan Dubreuil

Maher says despite Bold Moves’ success at drawing in new audiences, showing them the bigger picture remains a challenge.

“I consistently still get asked, ‘What do the dancers do when they are not dancing on the stage? Like, are they students?” says Maher. “I still hope to get to the level at which artists and creatives are respected in this field and paid on an international playing field. You know, there is a massive, massive education piece that’s required in Ireland around dance after all these years.”

Dubreuil observes similar challenges facing ballet in Ireland.

“It’s vulnerable. There are few resources,” he says. “The city doesn’t understand there is a company of quality. It shows that the ecosystem of culture and of dance – and of modern dance even more – is extremely, extremely fragile.”

Maher would love to see a national ballet school that could feed into a professional company that pays its dancers year round. Although Ballet Ireland dancers come from farther afield than they did during the company’s early days, dancers still are hired for the few weeks they rehearse and perform instead of being employed on full-time contracts. The dancers in this year’s Bold Moves come from, besides Ireland, Japan, Spain, France, Singapore and elsewhere.

“Dance is still a complex reality because it’s the body exposed,” says Dubreuil. “There are so many ways to look at why a society behaves a certain way when it sees dance. Education is one thing. But it depends on cultures; it depends on the celebration of bodies they have in cultures. Some countries still celebrate it more than others. France still does it. Spain does it too.”

“So many things would help in Ireland,” he continues. “Media. Cultural mediation. Communities realising that modern dance is, first of all, an experience of human beings relating to other human beings.”

This year’s Bold Moves showcases Ballet Ireland’s bravest moves yet in terms of programming. Maher and her team hope it leads to more awareness about the company and ballet in general.

“The way dancers come together and the dance brings you in, it’s all about human connection,” says Dubreuil. “Give people a chance to connect not about what they see but about what they feel or the connection that might relate to their life or other things. And then you’re in a very interesting place.”

Ballet Ireland presents Bold Moves at the O’Reilly Theatre, Dublin, from Friday, March 22nd, to Saturday, March 30th