A Conversation with Carmel

Barrowland Ballet’s A Conversation with Carmel explores the value of the older person in our lives. Inspired by conversations with her grandmother, Natasha Gilmore creates scenes of family gatherings, interspersed with poignant video vignettes of older people discussing and dancing their histories. A sense of nostalgia is established as the audience enter, but wanes in the face of sentimentality.

The core dancers play a family, your family, my family, shifting choreographically from cute to playful to the vibrancy of a ceilidh. A solo by Matthew Hawkins with several balloons is a haunting image, though otherwise his performance is staid and conservative. The power and play of Vince Virr’s solo is more engaging, though irrelevantly placed.

The meaning of the work itself transforms through its leading lady, Diana Payne-Myers. From a celebration of the older people in our families, her grace and spirit sends it forever upward to become about reverence of matriarch. Under-utilised as an old-lady ‘prop’, when she finally moves, her classic agility and gentle presence are awe-inspiring.

A group of locals swell numbers for party family moments. They create a series of overlong photo-motifs, enabling the audience to remember their own family gatherings. The community that went to see it responded lovingly to Natasha’s inclusion of her young child, to the stories told in the vignettes and movement; more bite and thematic depth would help this piece to develop. [Gareth K Vile]