Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus

The young choreographer Oona Doherty has suprised audiences and professionals alike with her performances in festivals all around Europe, including the Edinburgh Fringe, where she won the Total Theatre Award in the dance category. Through magnificent inventiveness with space, sound and dress, Doherty evokes a stereotypical young man from the rough neighbourhoods of Northern Ireland, where she herself is from. The gold chains, oversized white tracksuit, hyper-masculine attitude and dramatic voice are superimposed with Allegri's 'Miserere Mei, Deus'. Doherty's beautiful choreography stylizes the brutish gestures of the macho man, and elevates the archetype brilliantly. The smicks and the knackers (Irish gypsies), with their hoodies and their cars, become birds of paradise. This social manifesto via dance and theatre sheds light on the image we have of a stigmatized class, and attempts to find beauty and hope in an oft-ignored group on the periphery. 

Choreography and performance: Oona Doherty.