Heads Up

As the Love Dance programme draws to a close, Dance Base opens up their space for a week of mixed bill. Tuesday's opening covers disparate contemporary trends in dance.

After a ground-breaking pilot workshop led by members of Mark Morris Dance Group, Dance Base set up their own "Dance for People with Parkinson’s class" P. Dance. This short piece exemplifies the work of group members, all of whom are affected by Parkinson’s either personally or as a friend/carer.

In Meitheal, Rob Heaslip pays tribute to the past and reworks its methods for a 21st century audience. The ongoing relevance of earlier ethics and practices is revealed through this inventive choreographic work. Rooted in tradition, it makes new discoveries based on established principles.

The third entry is the welcome return of Legitimate Bodies' political satire Hanging in There. Surprisingly for a contact improvisation based on the Irish peace process, Hanging is hilarious and poignant, nailing the pomposity of diplomats who, as The Bodies explain, "see talking as delivering success, even as they use vacuous langauge and empty phrases." From its first appearance at Dance Base in 2008, this Beckettian comedy traps two politicians in a perpetual cycle of weasel words, evolving as the process itself goes onwards and upwards.