Riverdance star Colin Dunne LEAPs into Liverpool

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: Merseyside Dance Promoters Network

Merseyside Dance Initiative (MDI) is excited to announce that former Riverdance star and Irish Dance marvel Colin Dunne is to bring his solo production; Out Of Timeto Liverpool’s Contemporary Urban Centre on Wednesday 20 October in celebration of the LEAP 2010 year of dance.

Out Of Timeis a unique work in the canon of original, contemporary Irish choreography. In this all new multi-disciplinary production, Dunne will take the audience on a journey that seamlessly integrates his own virtuoso dance technique, electronic sound manipulation, archival film footage and spoken word, whilst simultaneously plunging the spectator into the interior world of the artist.

Intimate and playful, Out Of Timeis both an unsentimental homage to Irish step dance, and a bold investigation of Dunne’s personal and artistic relationship with a tradition that has shaped his life. Collaborating with sound engineer Fionán de Barra, Dunne’s percussive footwork is digitally processed live then looped, remixed and layered to create a hauntingly evocative sound score. He is joined onstage by projected archival images of dancers from the 1930’s onwards – including himself as a ten year old boy, receiving his Blue Peter Badge. Movement, sound and image come together to create a provocative dialogue between past and present.

Being imbued in the frenetic world of competitive and showbiz “Irish” dance for most of his life, Colin Dunne has taken time out to reflect upon what is generally understood as traditional Irish dance and his own relationship, as an artist, with that genre. The result is a pared-back presentation of traditional Irish step-dance viewed through the filter of the artist’s own internal vision of his art form.

Internationally acclaimed in the world of traditional Irish step dance (he was a nine times world champion, and principal dancer in Riverdance from 1995-1998), Dunne has been forging a new creative path since gaining an MA in Contemporary Dance at the University of Limerick in 2002. In 2007 Dunne was nominated for a UK Critics Circle National Dance Award (best male: modern dance) for performances in Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre’s The Bull, at The Barbican, London.

More recently, Colin was nominated for the 2009 UK Critics Circle National Dance Award (Best Male Dancer) and also received a nomination for the 2010 Laurence Olivier Award (outstanding achievements in dance).

For Out of Time, Colin Dunne has reconsidered Irish dance performance in a post Riverdance era. The production also represents a personal shift away from the large-scale ensemble Irish dance show genre towards a new appreciation of the solo Irish step form. In Out of Time he has created a full-length solo dance-theatre show where his research and experimentation over the last five years can find formal completion: here Irish dance moves beyond its formal restrictions and associations into a truly expressive, emotional and theatrical terrain for the whole family to enjoy.

Colin said; ‘I think people see Out Of Timeas a post Riverdance show. I think many of us in Irish dance spent much of the nineties adding to the form, in terms of its vocabulary, style and production value. It was all about getting bigger.

There was very much a sense in my work in the run up to making this show of wanting to strip all that away and really ask some personal questions about the tradition itself and my relationship with it; particularly as I was approaching the age of 40 and had been involved in it since the age of three. And whilst the production itself is maybe quite complex in terms of sound design and video design, I think and hope it displays a very simple and personal dialogue between myself and the tradition.

I am excited to be performing in Liverpool - I haven't performed there since 1990 at the Liverpool Irish Centre! And am delighted to be working with MDI during this LEAP year of dance, in association with the Liverpool Irish Festival.’

PERFORMANCE DETAILS

Colin Dunne – Out Of Time
Wednesday 20th October 2010, 8pm
Contemporary Urban Centre
41 Greenland Street
Liverpool
L1 0BS
Tickets: £10/£8 concessions
To Book: In person at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Hope St, Liverpool L1. Call 0151 709 3789 or click here.