“Costume: €3,000, production design: €4,500...” Oona Doherty’s voice carries over the soundtrack, totting up the costs of putting on a show. Sound, dancers, hotels, choreographer’s fee, childcare, it mounts up to a substantial sum. “And what’s the point?” she asks us, the people who’ve come to see it.
Navy Blue might be the sound of a choreographer having an existential crisis. A choreographer, Doherty, whose first major work, Hard to be Soft, catapulted her to international acclaim, when she captured the energy and attitude of her home town of Belfast with specificity, affection and vitality. Navy Blue is a broader and more nebulous creation. It’s a story about our insignificance amid the enormity of the universe, little dots standing on our blue dot, fighting each other to be “momentary masters of a fraction of a fucking dot”, she says, and it’s true.
