Sweat pools, hands rise in the air, buttocks twerk like there’s no tomorrow. It’s late at night and people are dancing, each lost in a world of their own. Emma Martin’s Night Dances, first seen in Dublin in 2021, is about the ecstasy of moving on a dancefloor that time forgot.
A huge circular light hangs above the stage and Stephen Dodd’s lighting stains the powdery air in deep tones of scarlet and maraschino. Three musicians (led by Daniel Fox of Gilla Band) stand at the back, metallic, electric and deafening: ushers hand out earplugs. It feels subterranean, nocturnal, all a bit David Lynch, where time loses its meaning and the uncanny is unleashed.
