Dance wizard Colin Dunne brings hit show 'Out of Time' to Town Hall

Colin Dunne, formerly the lead dancer with Riverdance will be on stage in the Town Hall Theatre this Sunday presenting his latest show, Out of Time.

This fascinating dance show is touring Ireland direct from a critically acclaimed run in the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, where the New York Times praised it as as “an Irish dance performance of emotional and intellectual complexity”.

Out of Time is devised and presented by Birmingham born Colin Dunne, a leading figure in the world of traditional Irish dance, who has made the crossover into contemporary dance and theatre.

The work, which is directed by Sinéad Rushe, is a multi-media show where Colin integrates movement, text, film and sound design with the Irish dance tradition for which he is internationally acclaimed, to offer a contemporary perspective of the art form.

Fionán de Barra sound design for the piece allows Colin’ s percussive footwork to be digitally processed live, then looped, remixed and layered to create a hauntingly evocative sound score.

Out of Time also includes projected archival images of dancers from the 1930s onwards – including himself as a ten-year-old boy – in a piece where movement, sound and image come together to create a provocative exploration of past and present.

Colin Dunne, who became multiple world Irish dance champion in his teens, later found time to train as an accountant before taking on the role of lead male dancer in Riverdance from 1995 to 1998, replacing Michael Flatley.

He toured with the production for three years, taking the show to its USA premieres in New York at Radio City Music Hall, to Los Angeles and also to Australia. His performances were recorded for the Riverdance – Live from New York DVD in 1996.

Colin left Riverdance in 1998 to begin work on a new project with dancer Jean Butler, who he had met in the early 199s when both toured with the Chieftains.

Their show, Dancing on Dangerous Ground was based on the Irish myth of Diarmuid agus Gráinne. It received its world premiere at The Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London in December 1999 and went on to perform to full capacity at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in March 2000. Although Dancing on Dangerous Ground received critical acclaim in New York, it failed to capture the imagination of audiences and critics in London where it was dismissed as another Irish dance show. As a result of debts incurred in its Drury Lane run, it closed in June.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.