Adrienne Brown's ballet Colmcille presents an epic theme given a heroic interpretation. It is a demarcation line for modern dance in Ireland. Introduced at the Firkin Crane as part of the theatre's Righting Dance programme, it is the fruit of two or more years of dedicated work.
It tells the story of the pilgrimage to sainthood of a nobleman who prefers the scholastic life to that of temporal leadership; a man whose possessive reverence for a sacred text causes the death of another. For this, his penance is banishment; his place of exile is Iona, off the coast of Scotland, where in legend the sound of his chapel bell ends the enchantment of the children of Lir.
A great story. Adrienne Brown has mined it for all its meanings and all its magic. The dancing is not lyrical, but sinewy and questing. The choreography takes its patterns from interwoven themes of history and Christianity.
The book is the totem around which the dance is constructed; from manuscript to Internet, the Celtic coil winds the narrative into immediacy. The use of perspex for lectern, chairs and table gives Pat Murray's set a transparent quality, the backcloth suggesting a forest pierced by stars.
Set and costumes absorb and send back the lighting by Paul Keogan. This has a reflective density, sometimes a contained radiance, sometimes a mellow candlelight. Kim Brandstrup's contemplative direction relishes these technical perfections; the music of John Taverner, Arvo Part and Ian Wilson imbue the closing sequences with a kind of tragic reverence, both poignant and profound. Marvellous.