Mamafesta Memorialising review: A superb dance against dementia both sad and uplifting

Choreographer Philip Connaughton fears losing his memory in this marvellous new dance. Photo: Luca Truffarelli 

Project Arts Centre - Space Upstairs, Dublin

★ ★ ★ ★

There’s a scene early in Mamafesta Memorialising - Company Philip Connaughton’s superb new dance - where three dancers rehearse their choreography. “Turn, turn, turn, turn, back step,” they shout, raising and stretching their bodies as if following the orders of a drill sergeant. Dance is serious work, and keeping time is crucial.

It’s not surprising to see Connaughton delve into his own life as an artist. The comedy Whack!! was an explosive duet about his real-life friendship and rivalry with the Parisian dancer Ashley Chen. But it was the bright swirly Assisted Solo that took on struggles closer to home. That’s where we saw Connaughton’s mother Madeleine, who lives with dementia. 

Assisted Solo was an affectionate portrayal of the choreographer becoming his mother’s carer. This new follow-up is focused on Connaughton’s own fear of losing his memory, allowing us not just one Philip but three (Kévin Coquelard and Tatanka Gomboud hold their own against the real thing).

A marvellous trio sees the dancers weave a biography of Philip’s life. They slink into divas and blow kisses. They thrust their pelvises and kneel on all fours. They scratch their asses and give the middle finger. Sometimes they give jazz hands, and sometimes they knock on closed doors. 

These terrific performances find the levity and surliness of such gestures. When Comboud shimmies cheerfully one moment, and clings scared to a cliff-edge the next, Philip’s melancholy seems barely concealed. 

Such anxiety finds artful expression in Emily Ní Bhrion’s outstanding costuming, a fetching plant-pattern couture suit that strips to a spooky science-fictional hospital gown. This is the dance’s nightmarish vision of Philip’s future, the loss of remembrance. Familiar gestures of his life begin to stiffen, against the crooked rhythms of Luca Truffarelli’s sound design. What use is a dancer who can’t keep time?

That lends a poignant sadness, as Philip recounts key memories from his life that might someday be lost. More surprising are the dance’s methods for railing against the erasing effects of dementia, finding unexpected inspirations such as the British game show The Generation Game. 

Recalling the details of his household, and even Philip himself, suddenly becomes an uplifting act of retrieval. The dancer is lucidly clear before us. 

Runs until Feb 22nd.