The Monthly discusses a life as a dancer with Michael McEvoy – Part 3 –  Life after Graduation

What happens after Laban?

Many people who leave Laban end up in the world of contemporary dance but really working, at least I think they are working, in the area of fine art. They work in gallery spaces; they are probably closer to performance art. While accepting that the education of being pushed to be as abstract as possible, to be as far away from any specific moves which are already in existence, is great, but once you get out into the world, I think the people who do well are the people who realise that you can actually just dance. You can bring in well known dance moves if you want to; you can have a relationship with music.

You also need to be aware that you do have to provide audiences with something that they too can recognise. It can’t all be work at the highest level of abstraction. It needs to be work which doesn’t back away from artistry but is also able to connect with audiences and their starting point as much as anything else.

Do you have any influences?

I do. One of the first things I really responded to was physical theatre companies. I found a film in the archive in Laban by DV8 called “Enter Achilles”and I loved it. I thought it was brilliant. The dance world is so huge, so substantial, there is so much that you can see and get access to, that you really do have to figure out what it is that you like, and what it is that you can produce. I have also appreciated people who have lived slightly closer to the theatre world, Matthew Bourne, Ballet Boys, Motion House which had a real circus element to the work that they produce. I like to find the sweet point between narrative, contemporary dance and musical and physical theatre. Matthew Bourne’s partner, Arthur Pita, does that. DV8 was also a company that was something special for me.

Where to now?

I want to take everything I am learning, the work I do with international commissions, the touring work I am doing with other companies, and I want to bring that back home. I do want to take a bigger move home and I want to establish my new dance company here and I want to produce original dance theatre work here in Belfast. That is what I want to search for investment for.

I will be the artist in residence at the Belfast International Arts Festival this year and I am working in Egypt and that work will be performed in Belfast and then Palestine.

I am hoping to start up a Youth Dance Company, which will consists if an intensive three month course and then a performance at the end of that. There are so many young dancers who have to go away to train and I want them to know that there is an industry here for them to come back to.

I’ll still be touring with other companies and I don’t want to stop dancing quite yet, but I do want to keep bringing material back to Belfast so people can see what it is I am working on. That is the plan for the next while.