Oona Doherty: Leather Jacket review – dancers delight in their hard sweaty work
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- Oona Doherty premiered 'Leather Jacket' at Bold Tendencies, the Peckham multi-storey car park turned theatre, with eight dancers performing in leather jackets under bright fluorescent lights.
- The piece opens with dancers repeatedly slapping one foot to the ground in a heavy, determined rhythm that evolves into thigh slaps, bounces, and Doherty's skewed take on Irish step dance.
- The score transitions from electronic music to Cormac Begley's experimental Irish folk music; dancers shed their jackets partway through and perform in their underwear.
- The 45-minute work foregrounds collective physicality — dancers pant, sweat, swig water, and laugh between sections, with the review calling their exhausted presence 'real' and 'honest.'
- A 'slight sinister undercurrent' emerges when dancers slap the heavy jackets on the floor with thudding violence, but the reviewer notes the piece stops short of developing into something darker.
- The review frames 'Leather Jacket' against Doherty's breakthrough early works 'Hope Hunt' and 'Hard to be Soft,' noting her output since has been 'more variable' and contrasting it with the 'high concept' of her last major piece 'Specky Clark.'
- The reviewer ultimately finds the movement itself 'not hugely interesting' and feels the piece 'not quite enough concept,' despite praising the dancers' commitment.
Why it matters: Doherty's 'Hope Hunt' and 'Hard to be Soft' established her as an urgent, singular voice, and the mixed verdict on 'Leather Jacket' — strong on honesty and presence, thin on concept and choreographic invention — keeps open the question of whether her work can sustain that early promise over a now 45-minute full-length format.
