Ballet Átha Cliath is a collaboration between an assortment of Dublin-based creative artists: filmmaker Howard Jones, professional ballerina Zoë Ashe-Brown, and local space-rock three-piece Cloud Castle Lake. The project, currently pursuing crowdfunding, is a short film of original ballet to be shot around Dublin, designed as a “visual love letter to Dublin City.” Howard first met Zoë while shooting a performance of an Arts Council-funded piece of narrative ballet she had created. Over the course of this process, Zoë showed Howard numerous dance films from other companies.
“The ones that really got my attention,” says Howard, “like Jerome Robbins’ Opus Jazz or some of La La Human Steps’ stuff were performed outside of a theatre space, including great cinematography. Every video was London, New York, or Germany… Nothing Irish.” The inspiration for Ballet Átha Cliath was born: “The idea sort of grew arms and legs from there, I just couldn’t get it out of my head that Irish ballet deserved a little bit of the spotlight and Dublin City could provide just as interesting and cinematic a backdrop as anywhere in the world.”
Filming will take place in a range of outdoor spaces in Dublin, including recently developed areas like the Grand Canal Dock, classic landmarks like the Poolbeg chimneys, and less picturesque spots of urban decay, to give a complex portrayal of the landscape of the city today. Aiming to “situate dance in a city of financial flux,” Howard wants to include “as many creative, Dublin twentysomethings in this project as possible, with a view to telling a story about a city that has bridged boom and bust times and those who have grown up during this timeline.”
Another inspiration for this project is Dublin’s rich history of ballet. If the only name that jumps into your head when you think of Ireland and dance is Michael Flatley, it might be surprising to hear that ballet also has roots in Dublin. Howard adamantly affirmed that Ireland had a dance heritage beyond Riverdance: “I think people, including myself, have or had a tendency to underestimate how strong a link and rich a history Ireland and Dublin have in relation to ballet. Dame Ninette de Valois, while having a very un-Irish name, was actually born in Blessington, and is our most incredible export in the world of dance. She was founder and artistic director of The Royal Ballet in London, arguably the most famous ballet company in the world.”
Another striking creative choice they’ve made is the inclusion of Cloud Castle Lake as the composers of an original score to accompany the performance. The Dublin-based three-piece have soundtracked Simone Rocha’s shows at in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern for London Fashion Week, and appeared on Other Voices after the success of last year’s debut EP Dandelion and the recent single Glacier, but they aren’t what most would expect to hear alongside classical dance. Howard says that this was exactly the reason he and Zoë chose them. “One of the things I’m really excited about in this project is contradicting that notion that classical dance or ballet and contemporary music are mutually exclusive. There is no reason why the two things should have to exist independent of one another. For as long as I’ve known Dan, Brendan and Rory [of Cloud Castle Lake] I’ve always been so impressed with their sound. Apart from the depth of talent myself and Zoë have at our disposal through our dancers and Zoë as a choreographer, Cloud Castle Lake are going to really set the film apart.”
You can help to fund Ballet Átha Cliath and find out more about it at their Fund It page, here: http://fundit.ie/project/ballet-tha-cliath
Words: Eoin Moore
