(Sara Keating’s article appeared in the Irish Times, 10/21.)
Coiscéim’s new dance show is at once reassuringly traditional and startlingly modern. Inspired by Prokofiev’s original composition, which blended music and text, it combines a new score by Conor Lenihan with David Bolger’s choreography to create a different storytelling experience rooted in dance. Premiering at Baboró International Arts Festival for Children, it speaks to Prokofiev’s original version while creating something magical of its own.
Ivonne Kalter makes for a puckish Peter, nimbly navigating an escape from his boredom in a nearby forest, brought vividly to life by Monica Frawley’s glowing green columns and Sinead McKenna’s radiant lighting design. Without human companions to play with, Peter befriends the animals he meets: Emma O’Kane’s petulant pussycat, Jonathan Mitchell’s plucky cockerel, and Wojciech Grudzinski’s dawdling duck. Frawley’s costumes are instrumental in defining the characters but the inventive and accessible choreography, and its embodiment by the dancers, plays just as important a role.
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