‘I’m bringing my dance show MÁM - inspired the gaelic language and Irish landscape - to Birmingham Hippodrome, here’s what audiences can expect

When choreographer and dancer Michael Keegan-Dolan was creating his production MÁM, he turned to the music and landscape of his native Ireland for inspiration.

Now he is bringing that show to Birmingham Hippodrome and ahead of the performances he outlines his inspiration for the dance show and what West Midlands audiences can expect from it.

“I was born in Ireland in 1969. There was a lot going on politically and economically. I think much of the work I make comes from where and how I was formed.

“I perceive the world through that history, our native language, the landscape and our musical tradition - and MÁM is very linked to that. When I made the piece in 2019 it was an expression of my relationship to many of these things - from land to history to folklore to mythology to music to religion, to spirituality.”

Having moved to Irish-speaking West Kerry in the year he created the work, Michael says the spirit of Ireland is inescapable in the land and its people.

“The foundations of the making of the piece were my moving to the West Kerry Gaeltacht,” he recalls. “When I stand in my garden in West Kerry, I can see Skellig Michael, the iconic island, a UNESCO site, kind of floating in the distance in the Atlantic Ocean. And we grow some of our own food here, in that ancient West Kerry soil, so when we eat our carrots, broccoli or cabbage, we are kind of imbibing Kerry! 

“When I go to the supermarket and I talk to the people there, they might speak with a particular rhythm and they might make a joke about something West Kerry. When you speak in the Irish language your brain is functioning in an entirely other way. So it’s a powerful place to reevaluate who you are in an ancient landscape where people have been living for a long time. It has endured conquest and famine and war but people are still here - living, breathing, talking, making music and celebrating life.”

Musicality is an integral part of MÁM which features the music of Irish traditional concertina player Cormac Begley and European music collective s t a r g a z e performing live on stage alongside 11 dancers and a young girl.

“My relationship to the traditional music in MÁM is through the lens of Cormac, through the ancestry and connections that Cormac has,” Michael says. “Then my aspiration was to put around his sound a European classical/contemporary sound. It could be from any time - they play some Telemann, 17th century German music, in the show also, so there’s a European tradition around an Irish tradition in conversation. 

“Through that, we made a piece that feels direct, immediate and visceral, poetic and imaginative.”

Michael was artistic director of Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre between 1997 and 2015 before founding Teaċ Daṁsa in 2016. The company features dancers from across the globe performing works strongly grounded in Ireland’s heritage. The company’s first production, Swan Lake/Loch na hEala in 2016 combined dance, storytelling and live music in a new interpretation of the classic ballet. 

This was followed by MÁM which was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production when it performed to sell-out audiences at London’s Sadlers Wells in 2020. MÁM has toured to venues in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, North and South America and Taiwan and Michael says audiences everywhere respond to it well.

“MÁM creates an experience for the dancers dancing it, connecting, releasing and breathing in these rhythmical ways. And there’s this lovely collective truth about MÁM - it was made collectively and is performed collectively and I think that’s a beautiful thing to behold.” 

The show is coming to Birmingham Hippodrome on 6 and 7 February, part of a tour of nine venues presented by Dance Consortium, a group of 24 large-scale venues aiming to bring the best contemporary dance from across the world to local audiences in the UK and Ireland. And Michael says each audience member will have their own unique response to the production.

“An important aspect about dance is how it can connect you to your being, to reality. It kind of forces you into life. I’ve made work built around stories like Swan Lake and they are exciting but ultimately what we probably need most as a species just now is to switch our brains off a bit more and to allow ourselves to feel a bit more. That’s what I’m working on with the dances I’m making.

“It’s challenging sometimes because audiences’ expectations have been conditioned over time. We go, we sit, we get impressed and we think there is something to ‘get’ and if we haven’t ‘got’ it then it hasn’t been a good experience. 

“But I think we also need to work a little bit more to empower audiences that whatever you take is valid. It’s yours. If what you feel is really strange and nothing like the person next to you that’s really exciting for me - and to own that and to feel empowered by your own imagination and your own perception of reality, I’m all for that.”

MÁM is at Birmingham Hippodrome on Friday 6 & Saturday 7 February at 7.30pm. Tickets: 0844 338 5000 / https://www.birminghamhippodrome.com/calendar/dance-consortium-mam/#performances