Concert @ Tramway

Artworks about art itself, or the creative process, can often feel self-justifying or even lazy. Not so Colin Dunne’s Concert, a complex phantasmic duet (phantasmic in that it is only Dunne who is truly present) where Dunne grapples with the unique music of Irish fiddle player, Tommie Potts (1912-1988).

It’s not that it’s impossible to dance to Potts' music, Dunne muses, it’s just that it’s not a very good idea. An informal start to the show (so informal as to prompt the question ‘did they forget to dim the lights?’), Dunne introduces us to the mechanics of Irish step-dance and its normal, easy relationship to traditional Irish music. But Tommie Potts battled with, pulled apart, and explored the irregular potential of the music, and it is this that Dunne wants to work with as a dancer.

 

Scattered on the stage like pinpoints on a map are an array of speakers, microphones, different floor panels, and a piano. These objects function as a series of pathways or doorways into which Dunne interacts with recordings of Tommie and his music. At first these interactions take the form of mimicry, or call and response with the music. Soon, however, Dunne is ‘speaking’ to Potts, who speaks back through edited clips, prompting a few laughs at Potts' implied judgement of Dunne’s dancing. ‘Not bad’, he replies to a tired Dunne collapsed on a chair. By the end, it is Dunne creating his own soundtrack through microphones taped to the bottom of his shoes — the scrapes, taps and whistles his feet make scoring their own tune.

Dunne is an unassuming figure. He seems almost unaware of the audience as he works through the problem at hand, though his exemplary step-dancing provokes cheers throughout the evening. And so it is wonderful when the practice and patience transform, without you being able to pinpoint the transition, into beauty and art. His steps transcend the rigour of technique and, through surprise, juxtaposition and rhythm become a language infused with emotions we can’t at first consciously identify. The detail with which he approaches the music also allows for the audience to truly listen and appreciate its nuances.

Dunne reaches no definitive solution in the last moments but this is unnecessary: the workings more than suffice.