A look at what is happening in the world of the arts.
Mozaik, ESB Beo Festival, National Concert Hall, Dublin
For those of us who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, Andy Irvine's labyrinthine rhythms challenged us to our very core. His is a world where 44/16 and 11/16 timing signatures hold sway, while the rest of the world ambles along oblivious, in 2/4 time.
Mozaik is Andy's baby, and it has blossomed into one precocious toddler in the past two years. It's the multicultural equivalent of Planxty for the noughties: Bronx fiddler and banjo player Bruce Molsky brings the Appalachian tunes, Donal Lunny is the unquestionable percussive powerhouse of the gathering, on bouzouki, guitar and bodhrán, Bulgarian musical polymath Nikola Parov brings all manner of exotic instrumentation to the mix (including gadulka, gaida, kaval, tin whistle, clarinet and guitar), and Rens van der Zalm squares the circle with fiddle, mandolin and guitar - and a quintessential Dutch attention to forensic detail in his melody lines.
The sheer spiritedness of the music is enough to lure the hardiest of fence-sitters into the fold. Andy's affable introductions paint miniatures of the troubadour lives they lead; the road has left its mark on his repertoire in particular: My Heart's Tonight In Ireland, written after a near-death experience Down Under, is a courteous tribute to his adopted homeplace. In anyone else's hands it would sound hackneyed and jaded; in Andy's, the gentility of the lyric sits effortlessly on top of his own, Lunny's and Parov's composite rhythms.
Bruce Molsky's confidence amid such a formidable quintet has grown perceptibly since their last Dublin appearance. His urbane introductions reveal a musician who savours the source of the music, whether it's in West Virginia or South Carolina, and the effortlessness with which he melds fiddle and vocals on the field song, If The Times Don't Get Much Better, reveals an elastine musicality with few peers.
Donal Lunny has never been a musician who savours the limelight, so his decision to assume lead vocals on a lovely Donegal song (with an elusive title) was an unexpected treat.
Nikola Parov's virtuosity is even more compelling than it was in the band's early days. And his bold decision to round off the night's repertoire with a Bulgarian wedding tune, The Last Dance, showcased his remarkable freewheeling style magnificently.
At times the vivaciousness of the music evaporated into thin air, particularly on Andy's foot-stomping Woody Guthrie tribute, Never Tire Of The Road. In a smaller venue, he'd have had the punters whooping and hollering in unison, but somehow Earlsfort Terrace muted his audience's reactions just a tad.
Rens van der Zalm was the quiet man of the gathering, but his intricate accompaniment on fiddle was the perfect counterfoil to Bruce Molsky's gravy-rich southern style. Inventiveness and lateral thinking buoyed by a collective genius. - Siobhán Long
Six Frames - Memories of Two Women, Project Upstairs, Dublin
Six Frames is about loss - tragic and heartfelt loss. When you peel back Robert Lax's bombastic words, Rob Rae's film and Charles Balfour's lighting design, you are left with two performers standing in front of you. They are reacting to something unspeakable as their limbs slowly gnarl, faces contort and bodies crumple. Choreographer Rosemary Butcher's vision is textured with other media, but its essence lies in the bodies of sisters Liz and Jenny Roche.
The concept was born from a photograph of another set of sisters witnessing the Beslan tragedy and, although unmentioned in the programme, its emotional undertow is constantly unsettling. The live bodies, projected images and recorded words only reflect the two sisters' reaction, so Butcher asks us to imagine the unimaginable horror unfolding in front of them. There is no other place to go but inside and remember our own nightmares, real or dreamt.
Words fail to describe moments like Beslan, and similarly the constant bombardment of Robert Lax's over-emoted words fail the performers' embodied pain. This is where the truth lies, but as the silence settles and you lean forward to look closely at the live gnarled bodies the voice returns. You sit back and listen. But the words never find the right thing to say - a metaphor that might make sense, an image that might soothe or a simple distraction. Like a nagging and unhelpful person saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, you want it to just shut up.
It's at moments like this our visceral sense speaks loudest: "I saw those pictures of Beslan and felt sick." Our bodies mightn't explain the horror but they assimilate the pain and store it up for later. And yet it's this sense that Butcher seems unwilling to trust by adding a hazy projection and babble of balm. She asks us to look and listen inside of ourselves more than find those physical memories. Walking away afterwards, it feels like an opportunity lost. - Michael Seaver
