Review: ROOTS

There are a few adjectives attached to a performance that can lower the critic’s spirits. ‘Immersive’, ‘interactive’ and ‘unseated’ might be three. Yet ROOTS, the innovative new outdoors dance piece from Eileen McClory succeeded in allaying these fears, and was inspiring. Set in the Black Mountain Shared Space on Ballygomartin Road, within sight of the ancient hill, it tackled our separation from nature with gusto.

A line from Joni Mitchell’s song Woodstock hovered over McClory’s show, the one about “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden”. There was, after all, a message about healing the planet and ourselves. In fact, we were introduced to three garden spaces designed by Andy McCormac, in groups, with headphones spieling an explanatory, sometimes soothing voiceover. There was a New Age sub text. And on a perfect, Edenic summer’s evening, we trod along mulch paths, examined and touched flowers, dahlias and foxgloves, later prepared lavender for addition to skin cream (applied to our wrists by one of the dancers), and at one point joined hands and danced in a ring. The whole evening reminded me of a meditative walk I did one Christmas in Ormeau Park.

The dancers wove in and out of our groups, suggesting a social history as well as the growth of the oaks which underpinned the beginnings of the city of Belfast. The pas de deux between Clara Kerr and Ed Mitchell next to oak saplings ranged from embrace to fighting and conflict. They also emulated the oaks reaching to the sky. Outside our art experience, a gull lazily flew by and a boy played football. The sense of focussing on the moment, and nature, made you notice things.

Maria McManus’ script was poetic, talking about thirst meeting desire in the glacier age that produced the mountain, going on to invite us to “have a moment”, breathe deeply, later talking of the “ordained optimism” of the way wild flowers colonise neglected spaces. Maybe the last section, humorous, with “Do you wat jam with it?” the motif wasn’t on the same level, but raised a smile.

Themes ranged from kindness and generosity to looking after our global home. The dancers led us into the green world with lively Rosie Mullin taking a smidgeon of herbs and plants to help with health and well being. The other Mitchell line 'We are star stuff', ie linked to the planet, was underlined by the fact we and the plants need water and the oxygen they provide. At the end, there was a five strong dance sequence, with the desire for unity joining the excellent dancers after they split apart and performed active throws and thought out steps. McClory certainly knows how to make shapes with her raw material, the human body.

ROOTS made us connect a little, a good thing in a divided world.

Jane Hardy