Michael Keegan-Dolan on his up close and personal dance show at Teac Damsa in Kerry

Teac Damsa members preparing their newest performance ‘1975’, which utilises music from influential Irish traditional music group The Bothy Band. Pictures: Fiona Morgan
Michael Keegan-Dolan is one of Ireland’s most inventive and acclaimed choreographers, whose work has been showcased in prestigious venues from Paris to London.
However, his latest show 1975: Naoi Déag Seachtó Cúig will have its world premiere far from the bright city lights, in the depths of West Kerry, where Keegan-Dolan has made his home. The piece features five dancers and is soundtracked by the album 1975 from influential traditional music performers The Bothy Band.
Keegan-Dolan founded Teac Damsa (House of Dance) almost a decade ago, when he moved from Longford to the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht on the Dingle peninsula. His dream to create a physical home for the company, which would be a hub and retreat for dancers and artists, has finally come to fruition, enabled by the leasing of a building restored by Údarás na Gaeltachta. While the company’s previous show Nobodaddy was created and rehearsed at the studio, 1975 will be the first production to be staged for an audience there.
Compared to previous larger-scale shows staged by Teac Dasa — such as Loch na hEala and Mám — it is a more pared-back and intimate undertaking, something Keegan-Dolan is relishing: “It’s very up close and personal. We have none of those challenges that you have when you take a show to the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, or to Sadler’s Wells.

“That’s a big bend in the process, because suddenly one and a half thousand people are looking at you and some of them are 70m away. Here we have 75 seats so I’d imagine it’s going to be intense and intimate.”
Like Mám, 1975 has been very much shaped by the place in which it is being created.
“The land, the weather, the rhythm, the people — it all finds its way in,” says Keegan-Dolan. The choice of The Bothy Band album as the musical accompaniment was a departure from usually working with live musicians and was also driven by more prosaic constraints.
“Like all good ideas, it just came out of my mouth one day — we were talking about how difficult it is to turn a profit from work. Even shows that are successful, when push comes to shove, there’s not a whole lot of money left. In one way, making a show to an album was a very practical solution. And then somebody asked what album and I said The Bothy Band. I listened to all of the albums, and then I realised the first album was 50 years old, and it had to be the one.”
Keegan-Dolan is mid-rehearsal when we speak and the show is still coming together. It is a process that was wonderfully captured by filmmaker Pat Collins in The Dance: A documentary about the making of Mám that was screened at the Cork International Film Festival in 2021. However, every show is different, says the choreographer.
“When I walk into the room, I don’t have anything. You work with what you know, but then you’re always looking for the new revelation, the new opening or a deepening of an experience,” he says. “You pay attention, but then you don’t get too serious either, because that’s very suffocating and makes bad work.
“So there’s a shift from very playful and childish to very serious and attentive.”

Keegan-Dolan continues to dance himself, and has a daily regime inspired by yogic and martial arts practice to stay limber: “I’m very hands-on, I wouldn’t be a person who’s sitting in a chair pointing at people. You have to feel the vibe in your own tissue before you can really communicate or talk about it.”
As well as the scheduled performances of 1975, there is a slate of other events including workshops and a live performance by Paddy Keenan, a founding member of The Bothy Band. There is also a special West Kerry Community night for local friends and neighbours. Fostering such links is hugely important for Teaċ Dasa, and combines with Keegan-Dolan himself seeking a sense of belonging.
“If people feel connected to the work, then I feel, yeah, it’s working. Community is an extension of that. I definitely am better at connecting when I’m in a studio or in a theatre. I’m trying to find ways to make what happens in my work happen in my life,” he says. “When you’re an artist, uncertainty is always there and
because of that, you’re probably a little bit outside of things. I’d imagine you could easily be kind of cast as ‘that fella up there doing those weird dance shows’. And that’s kind of cool, but it’s also cool if that fella up there doing those weird dance shows is part of the tribe, where people feel they can come here and enter into that world because the whole thing gets better then.”
He likens what he is trying to achieve with Teac Damsa to the Druid Theatre Company in Galway and how its impact spread far beyond the place where it was born: “The Druid community helped to make those actors feel empowered that they could carry that work elsewhere, that they could become an international phenomenon. That is also possible for this building, that it can’t just be a thing on its own. There are more people coming in and having the conversations.”

Keegan-Dolan says the show feels “uplifting”, something he feels is required now: “I feel like at the moment that we have got to keep going. I see videos that people post from Palestine or Gaza, and you see them dancing the dabke, in defiance.
“Dance is like the antithesis of death or oppression. I know I am very privileged, but my ancestors didn’t have it so easy. Dancing is primal, and revolutionary in some ways.”
Anyone who experienced Loch na hEala, a sublime Irish/Nordic take on Swan Lake which was performed as part of the Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival at Cork Opera House in 2019, will know all about the power of dance to transform and transport.
Keegan-Dolan says he has not ruled out revisiting the piece or doing any more large-scale productions: “I’d love to do Loch na hEala again — I have been trying to revive it for ages. But sometimes you push on the door a bit, and if it doesn’t open, maybe it’s better to leave it closed. There was something about being in a room with loads of people that felt really good. But now maybe there’s something about being in Corca Dhuibhne, on the tip of a peninsula, with 75 people coming in the door, that makes you feel really good.
“I could imagine 1975 expanding to 10 dancers, having a live band and performing it in Cork Opera House, with a thousand people there, and having a mighty experience. I don’t know yet. I want to stick with this a bit longer. I’ve never been a careerist in that sense. I’ve been very good at messing it all up, actually.”
- 1975: Naoi Déag Seachtó Cúig, Teac Dasa, An Ghlaise Bheag, Dingle; August 27 (preview), 28–31, Sept 3–7, 8pm; Sun, Sept 7 at 4pm; €50 general, €25 concession, €75 supporter; teacdamsa.com or via Eventbrite

Unlimited access. Half the price.
Try unlimited access from only €1.25 a week
Already a subscriber? Sign in