For starters, here are a few of my favourite dancers at the fringe this year. One who made me smile is Alex O’Neill in Dublin company CoisCéim Dance Theatre’s Dancehall Blues. He’s the highlight of an underpowered piece of dance theatre, a duet set in a (somewhat apocalyptic) society in crisis, about rediscovering the importance of human connection. O’Neill brings the material to life with character and charm, pouncing on the steps, his movement muscular and vernacular, with sensitivity and bite.
Her show has already ended, but Sarah Aviaja Hammeken is absolutely one to watch out for in the future, an award-winning Danish dancer/choreographer whose solo Soil is about her Greenlandic heritage. The work felt like it could be further developed, but every time Hammeken danced I was engrossed in the instinctive expressiveness and gravity of her movement, the feeling of someone working things out, physically and mentally, a fluent conversation between mind and body.
