Powerful Trouble – Dublin Theatre Festival – Review
by Gearoid O’Byrne

JUNK ENSEMBLE – Powerful Trouble

Duration: 90 mins approx., no interval
Dates: 12 – 14 Oct, 5.30pm & 8.30pm, 15 Oct, 4pm & 7pm

Powerful Trouble’ is a highly visual and immersive spectacle, at The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. In this production, Junk Ensemble has worked in collaboration with acclaimed visual artists Jesse Jones, Aideen Barry and Vicky Langan. The work features a collision of artists’ responses, interrogations, and radical celebrations of the witch as a symbol of dissidence.

Junk Ensemble has built a reputation as one of Ireland’s leading voices in dance. Associate Artists at Project Arts Centre and previous Artists-in-Residence at The Tate, their productions have garnered widespread praise across Ireland and internationally.

‘Powerful Trouble’ follows on from ‘Ritual’ which was performed as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival. For Powerful Trouble at the RHA, the immersive performance installation has been reimagined for an expanded cast of 6 international performers, dancers Lucia Kickham, Julie Koenig and Salma Ataya being joined by Robyn Byrne, Yumi Lee and Justine Cooper. The original Ritual team of collaborators, visual artists Jesse Jones and Aideen Barry, music artist Planningtorock, composer Irene Buckley, percussionist Caitriona Frost and designers Sarah Jane Shiels and Katie Davenport, are joined by collaborating artists Vicky Langan and Olwen Fouéré with musician Katie Kim closing the show.

With Halloween/Samhain almost upon us, this is a seasonably appropriate dance experience. When gathered together, the audience is led to the large exhibition room upstairs which is almost in darkness with an ominous bass soundtrack reverberating. Cast members emerge from the audience occasionally lighting matches (adding a whiff of sulphur to the air!) and the audience follows the flickering lights to locate and view each scene. The show is organised into a succession of themed dances, each different in nature, around the vast exhibition space where the dancers perform. From solos to sextets, the performers appear and disappear into the crowd like the witches they represent. Dressed in either white, black or red, sometimes initially covered from head to toe, they are an eerie spectacle, The dancers are superb and the pieces are highly imaginative.

The theme of the piece is the witch as a symbol of dissidence and there were many witch-related folkloric themes scattered throughout such as spinning wheels, threads (of life?), witchdoctors, St Vitus’s dance, shape-changing and casting of spells. One of the most striking pieces was a dance seemingly inspired by the Botafumeiro, the famous thurible at Santiago de Compostela Cathedral. Apples and fruit appear, balls are rolled, wood is whittled, and a highly expressive and original soundtrack pervades throughout. It is the perfect dance piece for the short evenings of this time of year, with the cavernous space of the RHA creating the ideal location for the work.

Cast and Crew:

Conceived and Directed by Jessica Kennedy and Megan Kennedy
Choreography in collaboration with dance artists Salma Ataya, Robyn Byrne, Justine Cooper, Lucia Kickham, Julie Koenig, Yumi Lee
Collaborating Artists Aideen Barry, Olwen Fouéré, Jesse Jones, Vicky Langan, Planningtorock
Scenography and Lighting Design: Sarah Jane Shiels
Music and Sound Design: Irene Buckley
Costume Design: Katie Davenport
Costume Supervisor: James Seaver
Musician and Percussion Composition: Caitríona Frost
Additional Composition: Planningtorock
Band: Katie Kim
Stage Manager Miriam Duffy
Production Management ShowScope
Associate Producer Michelle Cahill
Producer Gwen Van Spÿk