The Dance

The Dance is an observational feature documentary by the director Pat Collins that follows the staging of MÁM from the first day of rehearsal to the opening night performance at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2019.

Michael Keegan-Dolan is one of the most exciting choreographers working in dance and theatre today. In September 2019 he presented his new show MÁM at the Dublin Theatre Festival.

The show was performed by twelve international dancers, seven musicians from the European, classical contemporary collective s t a r g a z e and the Irish traditional concertina player Cormac Begley. MÁM was the result of eight weeks of intensive work and improvisation, a unique confluence between soloist and ensemble, classical and traditional, the local and the universal.

Screenings

On-Demand

Irish Film Institute: Dublin, Ireland

10 February 2022 – 24 February 2022

Light House Cinema: Dublin, Ireland

11 February 2022 – 24 February 2022

Pálás Cinema: Galway, Ireland

11 February 2022 – 24 February 2022

The Gate Cinema: Cork, Ireland

24 February 2022 – 24 February 2022

Available on demand from 25 February 2022. Order here.

Grierson Award (Nominated)

London Film Festival, October 2021

THE GEORGE MORRISON FEATURE DOCUMENTARY AWARD (Nominated)

IFTA 2022

International May Festival:

Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden,

Hesse, Germany

15 May 2022

BFI London Film Festival

October 2021

Credits

Director: Pat Collins

Producers: Philip King, Tina O’Reilly, Sharon Whooley

Financiers: Screen Ireland, RTÉ, Teac Damsa

Director of Photography: Colm Hogan

Editor: Keith Walsh

Sound: John Brennan

A South Wind Blows and Harvest Films production, produced with the support and investment of Fis Éireann/Screen Ireland & Teaċ Daṁsa in association with Raidió Teilifís Éireann.

Pat Collins

Pat Collins is a film maker from West Cork in Ireland who has made 30 films over the last 25 years.  In 2012, the Irish Film Institute curated a mid-career retrospective of his work to date.  His latest feature documentary Henry Glassie Fieldwork – premiered at TIFF in 2019 and was released in New Wave films in the UK.  He has directed the feature films Song of Granite and Silence and made films on the writer John McGahern, the poets Michael Hartnett and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, the Connemara based writer and cartographer Tim Robinson, the Iranian film maker Abbas Kiarostami (co-directed with Fergus Daly), and two political feature essay films ‘What We Leave in Our Wake’ (2009) and ‘Living in a Coded Land’ (2014).  He also makes short experimental films including ‘Pilgrim’, ‘What Remains’, ‘Twilight’ and the forthcoming ‘All There is, is light’. 

Michael Keegan Dolan

Michael Keegan Dolan is one of the most exciting choreographers working in dance and theatre today. His ground-breaking productions have won numerous international awards.   He rose to acclaim as the artistic director of Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre (1997-2015), creating three Olivier Award-nominated productions: Giselle (2003), The Bull (2005) and The Rite of Spring (2009).  The Bull received a UK Critic’s Circle Award in 2008 and his show Rian, won a Bessie Award (New York Dance and Performance Award) in 2013 for Best Production.  His last production with his new company Teac Damsa, Swan Lake / Loch na hEala, won the UK Critics’ Circle National Dance Award for Best Production 2018.  Premiered at the 2016 Dublin Theatre Festival, Swan Lake toured the world including to Sadler’s Wells London, Stuttgart, Wellington, Sydney, Seoul, Toronto and Moscow.