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Ronach N Nill also wanted intimacy between punter and dancer in her work-in-progess Phrases from a Lost Year , at the second Re-Presenting Dance programme in association with Dance Ireland. Seating the audience on cushions in the middle of the studio floor and using a mirror on one wall, she played with perspective, moving the dancers around and eventually performed on both sides of the seated audience. Jean Butlers improvisation thicker than this was a further step away from her step-dance past into her contemporary dance future. She began by simply bouncing up and down on her toes, her arms and torso gradually loosening until they were flailing like a rag-doll. Like a loosening of her stiff-upper-bodyself, she showed remarkable discipline in evolving fragments into a coherent thread. Ingrid Nachsterns Watch . . .Es has developed more of a sense of itself since its premiere last year. An exploration on male identity, it parallels incarceration with societal restrictions that imprison contemporary men. Armed with briefcases and furrowed brows, the men Gary Carolan, Michael Cooney, Carl Harrison and Ezekiel Oliveira map out the relentlessness and drudgery of a nine-to-five existence through square-bashing and repetitive hand gestures. Artistic director Laurie Uprichard was appointed in 2007, but she hasnt to date tinkered with the festivals formula: based at Project with headliners at the Abbey, a childrens programme with The Ark, screenings and workshops. Although arriving from the hotbed of New York, she also hasnt shifted the festivals aesthetics, which remain firmly rooted in European contemporary dance. This years contributions from Quebec-based artists, like Danielle Levielle, Helene Blackburn and Jose Navas, slipstreamed into this programme. As funding opportunities decrease, support from international cultural agencies is more important than ever, but, so far, Uprichard has availed of that support without diluting her vision. Judging by audience figures, Dublin Dance Festivals transition from bi-annual to annual was smooth. Nothing feeds a festival like sold-out shows and the clever marketing of a well-balanced programme ultimately paid off. The
challenge for Uprichard is in maintaining the current standard as funds decrease. But ending the fortnight with sold-out houses (in a recession) certainly gives hope for the future. This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times