A review of Teaċ Daṁsa’s 1975/Naoi Déag Seachtó Cúig, based on the Bothy Band’s debut album. First published on journalofmusic.com.
I was one when the Bothy Band released their debut album in 1975, and 19 when I explored its invention. Musically, the album pulls away from Ó Riada and Planxty, combining the new aesthetic of rock and pop with traditional music. It was also only the second album released on the embryonic folk/pop label Mulligan, so it was a statement in many ways. Dónal Lunny and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill produced it, but the album code is LUN002 – his imprint is all over it.
Michael Keegan-Dolan and his dance company Teaċ Daṁsa, creators of the hit Mám and Nobodaddy, have now created a one-hour show, 1975/Naoi Déag Seachtó Cúig, based entirely on the album. It ran for three nights at Cork Midsummer Festival (18–20 June) and I attended the last performance.
Keegan-Dolan has said he always had an interest in developing a show based on one album, but why this one? It’s the music and rhythms, of course, but there must be more: he was a child in the 1970s. Does the album capture something of that time, or provide us with an insight that we have forgotten? I’m sure it does, but what might it be?
Seven dancers appear on stage, each dressed in a suit of a different colour with a black Cordobés hat and long chin straps. As with Mám, they begin seated, all in a row. They snap their fingers one by one, pour each other a drink, and then the famous G drone from the opening of the album begins. The group synchronises a jump from their chairs.
The album is faithfully played from beginning to end, but instead of silence between each track, there is electronic sampling by Jelle Roozenburg. The opening set of tunes, which includes ‘The Kesh’ and ‘Give Us a Drink of Water’ (and now we realise the significance of the drink at the beginning), is one of the best known, but here it is a prelude, with the dancers walking across the stage and taking their places, their flowing movements following the undulations of the opening jigs and Matt Molloy’s ‘The Flower of the Flock’ reel. But as Tommy Peoples’ robust fiddle enters on ‘Famous Ballymote’, the dancers’ movements immediately become more pointed and jagged, their elbows out and shoulders square. It’s indicative of the close listening the troupe has given the album.
For ‘The Green Groves of Erin’, they represent the arpeggiated nature of the first part with arched movements, and then sharp jerking and jolting for the interval leaps of ‘The Flowers of Red Hill’. What is remarkable in this show, more so than in Mám which used a contemporary music ensemble as well as Cormac Begley’s concertina, is that only once or twice does the dancing make any reference to traditional dance. Teaċ Daṁsa finds entirely fresh ways of expressing this music. It shows just how far the contemporary expression of traditional Irish music has come. Where the troupe does draw on aspects of traditional dance – two-hand dances, the luascadh or battering – it is when the Bothy Band tunes themselves are more orthodox, for example, ‘The Navvy on the Line’ and ‘The Rainy Day’.
Climbing and gathering
In the reel ‘Julia Delaney’s’, Purple (Aki Iwamoto) makes climbing and gathering movements and moves towards Green (Holly Vallis) who is seated in the corner. As Molloy’s flute joins Peoples’ fiddle, the two move their heads in sync, in a movement reminiscent of Mám. When the powerful chords from Ó Domhnaill sound, Vallis captures it by propelling herself across the floor with each strum, creating one of the highlights of the show.
The song ‘Do You Love an Apple?’ becomes an opportunity for Yellow (Rachel Poirier) and Pink (Daniel Myers) to engage in physical contortions that move from spanking to loving embraces. Gradually, the other five dancers become involved, and with each bar they reach for a different part of another’s body, symbolising connection and sexual exploration. ‘Pretty Peg’, too, is reimagined as a sensual solo dance by Light Blue (Jimmy Southward), who is then joined by the other six for sensuous writhing during ‘Craig’s Pipes’. Similarly, the bending notes of Paddy Keenan’s solo piping on ‘Patsy Geary’s’ sees Southward engage in pelvic thrusts, which appear to draw slight disapproval from Yellow. This is where a deeper theme in the work starts to emerge.
Yellow (Poirier) is, at times, an unsure, reluctant or mildly disapproving participant, and yet eventually finds her way into the group. The idea surfaces that this album encapsulates the emerging sexual, emotional and cultural freedom of the 1970s. The troupe articulates this with great finesse, although as a message it fits in a little too neatly with Ireland’s contemporary myths (we were repressed, but now we are free!). 1975 is about more than that.
For ‘Martin Wynne’s’, the show takes an unexpected turn: Southward, like a bored janitor with a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth, pushes a giant fan out and leans on it in the middle of the stage. One by one, the dancers languish, preen and refresh themselves in front of the fan as the whirring chords from Ó Domhnaill and Lunny resonate with the whirring of the fan. The show starts to leave behind the more obvious liberation themes and sets a course for pure joy.
For ‘The Humours of Lissadell’, Poirier stands on a chair while the other dancers take turns dancing towards her, almost as if they are seeking her approval. With each dance, their expression becomes freer, less about judgement and more about enjoyment. At the end of 1975, when the walking melody of the ‘Banshee’ reel begins, the entire troupe march around the auditorium of the Cork Opera House and the audience spontaneously starts clapping along. For ‘The Sailor’s Bonnet’, all seven dancers now take turns dancing towards us, to the front of the stage, each expressing themselves in a way that is beyond categorisation, from the wide swinging movements of Blue (James O’Hara) to the feline hopping of Green (Vallis) to the vigour of Orange (Amit Noy).
In the end, Teaċ Daṁsa and 1975 manage to express what the album must have said to that brave new generation of the 1970s, and it is a message for today too: yes, these are challenging times, but break the rules! There are better days to come.
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Toner Quinn 