Nobodaddy, choreographed by Michael Keegan-Dolan, is a large-scale dance-theatre ritual inspired by William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence and performed by Teaċ Daṁsa.
Teaċ Daṁsa is an Irish company of nine dancers and six musician which includes folk singer and musician, Sam Amidon, who has collected songs of death, separation and loss.
Nobodaddy premiered in Belfast and then sold out in Dublin before it had even opened.
Blake’s Nobodaddy was the name of a destructive divinity who appears in several of his notebook poems. Teaċ Daṁsa’s Nobodaddy is an ode to the peacemakers and the bringers of good things.
During the Covid year Keegan-Dolan spent time learning Auguries of Innocence by heart, like a prayer. He had been raised as a Catholic and at one point had temporarily considered the priesthood but chose dancing instead.
Blake’s poem presents a series of interconnected ideas about the interconnectedness of the natural and human worlds, the consequences of cruelty and injustice, and the importance of faith and innocence.
Blake wrote: “Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.”
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to Endless Night.
Nobodaddy is ultimately about how transient life is and how quick it can go. The Irish sub-title, Tríd an bpoll gan bun, translates as Through the bottomless pit.
People come together for music, singing and dancing. Sometimes I felt I was in Pina Bausch country. Keegan-Dolan has created better and infinitely more accessible works in the past.
The choreography, physically punishing, has an extraordinary fierce energy The dancers twist and turn, contort their bodies and wave their arms. The chaos is cleverly integrated and co-ordinated.
But, and it’s a big but, I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.
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