'The Surge' review: Sinéad dance ode thrills, then sags
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- Sonya Tayeh choreographs 'The Surge,' a dance ode to Sinéad O'Connor featuring 10 women on pews whose combined age exceeds 500, many veterans of New York's indie dance scene
- Sinéad O'Connor's grainy voiceover from her memoir and her music — including Tiny Grief Song and Red Football — snake through the show as a 'haunting,' with her quote 'Songs are ghosts' framing the work
- The Surge earns praise for inventive, frequently thrilling movement in unison, but the Guardian review notes the middle section devolves into 'a series of mournful vignettes' that can't sustain the opening intensity
- Standout moments include Karine Plantadit's solo to Tiny Grief Song, Lisa Race's resilient slide down tilted benches, and the ensemble rocking to Red Football, all bathed in Tom Visser's copper and sickly-green lighting
- The show runs at Aviva Studios, Manchester through 27 June, closing with the dancers' 'poignant handclasp' as a community 'grieving but exalted'
Why it matters: Ten veteran dancers translate Sinéad O'Connor's intensely personal songs into physical, communal expression at Manchester's Aviva Studios. Sonya Tayeh's choreography is called thrilling but uneven — a wild wake where the dancers' final handclasp embodies O'Connor's paradox of private pain that resonated so universally.
