Culture That Made Me: Michael Keegan-Dolan on dance heroes and great music
Michael Keegan-Dolan brings his acclaimed MÁM show to the BGE Theatre in Dublin.
Michael Keegan-Dolan, 54, grew up in Clontarf, Dublin. He trained at London’s Central School of Ballet. In 1997, he founded Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, which created several Olivier Award-nominated productions, including Giselle, and The Rite of Spring.
His new company Teaċ Daṁsa’s production of Swan Lake/Loch na hEala was widely acclaimed, and the Kerry-based ensemble’s subsequent show, MÁM, will be performed at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin on July 13 and 14. See: www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie.
Keegan-Dolan’s two-person show, How to be a Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons, is at Galway International Arts Festival in July, and the Everyman in Cork in September.
When I was 14, I thought David Byrne from Talking Heads was so cool. The music spoke to me. It’s not about knowing or understanding. That video film Stop Making Sense could be the greatest show ever made. It’s just brilliant. You have this brilliant document of a brilliant show. He was working with Funkadelic then as well as Talking Heads. If you only ever watched one music film or listened to one record, it should be Stop Making Sense.
Igor Stravinsky was an enfant terrible. He was a dance music composer. My mother gave me an Igor Stravinsky record of the ballet Petrushka. He wrote The Firebird. He wrote The Rite of Spring in 1913. It was Europe before the First World War; it was seemingly a very interesting place. It was like Sodom and Gomorrah – Paris and Berlin cabaret. Things were kicking off. Stravinsky was at the forefront of that. He remains a really important person in my life musically.
Liam Ó Maonlaí has it all. He’s is a bit older than me, so when I was at that dodgy age of 14 when you don't really know who you are, there are all these signals coming at you, and your dad is working for the Department of Finance, but you feel like Igor Stravinsky, and you're walking around the northside of Dublin, and you see Liam. He’s busking in a tweed suit at the top of Grafton Street. He’s rock'n'roll. He’s a soul singer. He’s an attractive-looking man. He’s on Top of the Pops. He has a Number One. Liam had made it. He had credentials. He had Irish as well. He was a door-opener – maybe you could have a career in the arts. Liam changed the game for my generation.
I read a book about Vaslav Nijinsky when I was quite young. Nijinsky ended his life in a mental hospital in Switzerland. I suspect he developed psychosis. I'm not an expert, but there are many of fine artists who had struggles with psychosis. It could be their capacity to see and imagine and to be extraordinary. Nijinsky became this mythical character. There's only a few photographs of him. There's very little, if any video footage. He had this incredible what they call ‘ballon’ – he could hang in the air. Writers described him as being like an animal, like he was another worldly creature or a mythical creature, or an animal.
Musical theatre was a big thing for me. Gene Kelly in American in Paris: “I got rhythm, I got music/I got my girl/Who could ask for anything more?” He sings it in French as well. He looks like the fella down the road. He made you feel like it was possible, right? He’s a handsome man, but he wasn’t 6ft 4in. He was a regular-looking guy. As a teenager, I was educated to believe that being a professional dancer wasn’t for me. That it was for the Russians or extraordinarily other-worldly people. Also he was an incredible artist. Fred Astaire, for example, always employed choreographers. Gene Kelly choreographed all his dances. He directed movies. He’s fantastic.
I met Cormac Begley more than 10 years ago. That man is all or nothing – the way he goes after things, the music, it's almost like he was hunting this thing down for years. I’ve hung around him a lot. We toured for three years together, on and off. Then, with MÁM, we've been on the road working together a lot again. You can see when he’s playing he goes into this state. He plays music because he likes playing music. It’s never practice. He's playing because he has to. It's not an academic, classical approach. It’s love.
I love Enda Walsh’s plays. Enda is from the north side of Dublin and we’re the same age, but he looks much younger. He takes care of himself. I remember going to see the premiere of Bedbound in 2000. It was amazing. I get a lot of bad reviews. If you’re trying to shake it up a bit, terrible things are written about you. “You should get another job” et cetera. Enda was the first person I met who found bad reviews entertaining. He’d ring me and go, “Did you see the one in the Telegraph?” Like it was a badge of honour. He didn’t give a damn. I needed validation more. Enda would go, “Why on earth would I want validation from the Telegraph? It’s much better if they think I’m a fool.” He taught me to be nonchalant. He’s a master.
I watch things with my kids on the telly. We recently watched The Mandalorian. It’s a Star Wars spin-off series. Some of the episodes are terrible, but some are kind of brilliant. You end up connecting with your children through what they’re watching. It's important to watch stuff with them and talk about it. Watching shows like The Mandalorian, I’m enjoying their excitement and finding out what’s gonna happen next.
I've been interested in William Blake, the English Romantic poet, for years. As I'm getting older, I'm beginning to understand it a bit better. I’m reading Blake’s Complete Writings at the moment. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but it takes a lot of time to read something so it better be good. And William Blake is good.
I remember seeing Jesus Of Montreal in London when I was 19. It was the first film I saw where I couldn't move out of my chair after it ended. When I moved to London in 1988, I went to mass. It was something I associated with Ireland, being at home. I felt dislocated in London. Jesus of Montreal is about a staging of a passion play in Montreal by a bunch of actors. People try to stop them doing the play because it's not in keeping with the narrative that the church likes. There’s a row. A priest ends up admitting the Catholic Church is a business. “Why do you think we’re selling all these statues? They’re plastic.” I hadn’t figured that one out until that moment. A belief system I hung onto – like a comfort blanket – evaporated. The film made me realise how powerful culture is.
