Michael Keegan-Dolan: ‘West Kerry is like Paris’ | MÁM Interview

“The mountains of West Kerry are like the cathedrals of Paris.”

It is a statement of intent; a geographical philosophy that tells you everything you need to know about where Michael Keegan-Dolan is standing these days. As the artistic director of Teaċ Daṁsa (House of Dance) prepares to bring the national tour of his Olivier Award-nominated MÁM to the Scottish Highlands and North East next month, he appears uninterested in the patronising distinction between the metropolitan centre and the so-called periphery.

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West Kerry to Scotland: Dismantling the Myth of the Remote

“I don’t like the word ‘remote,’ if it implies a negative,” Keegan-Dolan asserts, discussing the company’s upcoming dates at Eden Court in Inverness and His Majesty’s in Aberdeen. “You can be a long way from a city and still be entirely connected to everything important and everything you need to be a fully functioning, expansive, realised individual… There is no hierarchy that can be usefully applied to a city and a rural village.”

This conviction is the bedrock of MÁM. Created entirely within the West Kerry Gaeltacht—the most westerly tip of Europe—the production represents, for its creator, a rejection of the idea that high art requires an urban postcode. Keegan-Dolan views the transfer of this work from the wild Atlantic coast to the granite solidity of Aberdeen not as a journey into the hinterlands, but as a conversation between kindred spirits.

“There is an ancient connection between the Scottish and the Irish,” he says. “Through landscape, weather, language, music, politics, football and work. There is a natural affinity between us. If you say Scotland or Scottish, I will smile and step in.”

Fierce Landscapes, Gentle Art: The Evolution of Teaċ Daṁsa

Those familiar with Keegan-Dolan’s earlier tenure at Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre might expect a certain aggressive provocation; his previous work was often characterised by sharp edges and a confrontational energy. Yet, the creation of Teaċ Daṁsa and the relocation to Kerry in 2016 marked a perceptible shift.

However, Keegan-Dolan is quick to note that this softening wasn’t purely a result of geography. The evolution began six years prior to the move, sparked not by the environment but by fatherhood. “Looking back, I think the shift was initiated by the birth of our son, Milo and then by the birth of our daughter Ellie,” he reflects. “Becoming a father changed something for me. It was a slow process and is ongoing.”

He contrasts his previous base in Longford—”no mountains, no waterfalls, no crashing waves… and very few sheep”—with his current home on the Atlantic edge. “West Kerry, on the other hand, is all movement, action and drama. The storms, the waves, the angles, it’s all go here.”

It is a paradox he clearly values: “It’s interesting that as the work shifted in one direction, we relocated to a place that in some ways entirely contradicted that shift, as the work became more gentle the landscape we lived in became more fierce.” This ferocity, he suggests, is the only way to kill the ego. “West Kerry does have this particular power to remind you that what you think, and I mean think in that egoistic, selfish, controlling way, is really of little importance or significance in the bigger picture of it all.”

MÁM: A Ritual of Concertina and Contradiction

MÁM itself sits in the tension between meanings. Keegan-Dolan cites the four definitions found in the Irish-English dictionary: “Mountain Pass, Obligation, Handful and Yoke.” While ‘yoke’ might suggest heaviness, he sees a different energy in the third definition. “I think the idea of a handful, the shape and generosity implied by the meaning is strongly present,” he says. “There is real exchange happening there. There is real generosity and giving.”

The production brings together the virtuoso traditional concertina playing of Cormac Begley and the contemporary classical collective s t a r g a z e. On paper, it reads like a collision of genres, but Keegan-Dolan insists “I try not to use force in a creative process.”

He describes Begley, a native of the Corca Dhuibhne peninsula (“The Stronghold”), as having the music in his DNA. “The music is a language of its own,” Keegan-Dolan says. “The music can transcend, meaning or understanding. It can take you into deep feeling and memory but can also propel you into the unknown, the unseen, the future. The music can allow you to time travel.”

The result, he explains, is a soundscape where the concertina leads the journey, supported by the “European Classical / Contemporary” textures of French Horn, Cor Anglais, and electric guitar. Yet for all the talk of time travel, there are moments of unadulterated delight rooted in the past. Keegan-Dolan points to the “Frenzy Polka,” a tune written by Cormac’s father, Breanndán Begley. “When the dancers get moving to this tune it feels for me, very joyful,” he says.

Keegan-Dolan is dismissive of the anxiety that often plagues creators of “local” work—the fear that the magic won’t survive the flight case. “That kind of insurance is not available to any artist,” he says. “You don’t know. You can’t know… If you know you are probably not an artist, more likely an academic.”

Instead, he relies on universality. “I made a piece, like making a meal, that would be big enough to feed 2000 people, if necessary,” he says. “All people laugh, all people cry. All people live and all people die. In Hong Kong, Dublin and in Plymouth.”

The Still Point: Universality and the Politics of Choice

Central to this storm is a figure of profound stillness: a young girl. Keegan-Dolan refuses to intellectualise her role, rejecting the demand for a neat narrative explanation. “I didn’t know why the girl was in the piece when we were making MÁM,” he admits. “I didn’t mind not knowing.”

He links her presence to the intergenerational mixing of his own youth, where children watched their elders “living their lives out, being happy, sad, strong and vulnerable.” She represents a “feminine archetype… the Goddess, but also the power and beauty of the innocence of a child.”

This refusal to dictate meaning extends to the audience’s experience. Working with lighting designer Adam Silverman, Keegan-Dolan operates what he calls a “politics of choice.” There are no spotlights telling you where to look. “For some this can be challenging,” he notes. “But for me I like the politics of choice. I like suggesting, rather than directing or imposing.”

It is a philosophy that prioritises the visceral over the cerebral. “Understanding is over-rated,” he declares. “Experiencing is where it is at.”

A Good Unsettling: The Audience Experience

As the tour bus winds its way north towards Inverness, Keegan-Dolan suspects the journey will be spent in “blissful silence” rather than soundtracked by West Kerry polkas. But come showtime, he hopes for a distinct connection. “The experience that I like to have in a theatre can only happen when there is complicity between audience and performers,” he observes. “This makes for a special sort of atmosphere… a feeling of closeness and mystery.”

It is this mystery that he hopes will linger. “I have no interest in unsettling anyone other than that small part of their consciousness that is preventing them from seeing the world as fully as they might,” Keegan-Dolan concludes. “That part of us, all of us, can do with a good unsettling, as required to allow us to see the goodness as well as the bad, to feel the peace as well as the turmoil and to perhaps feel more willing and able to be more kind to our fellow humans where possible.”

Featured Image: Dance Consortium – Michael Keegan-Dolan’s MÁM, photo – Ros Kavanagh

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Dance Consortium’s UK tour of MÁM opens at Lowry, Salford on 3 February. For tickets for this and other stops on the show’s national tour, click here.

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