Oona Doherty - Almost Blue & Navy Blue

Performed by **Oona Doherty** with a lone trumpet, Doherty describes this goodbye or farewell dance as “an attempt to move what has come before and expand through chaos back to the gentle hum that came before the beginning, a kind of waltz of the inner solar system”. The piece was originally co-commissioned by Cork Midsummer Festival for Irish Modern Dance Theatre and originally created for dancer Steve Batts of Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company in Londonderry.

Navy Blue is performed by OD Works, Oona’s own company based in Marseille. Navy Blue is Doherty’s second work for a large ensemble, a thrilling amalgamation of ensemble movement, poetry and political candour. The work is in two parts, contrasting Rachmaninoff’s luxuriant music of the Piano Concerto No.2 with the high-energy pulsations of Jamie xx, the hierarchies of dance with creative freedom, and individuals with the immensity of the universe. Grappling with life’s insignificance in the face of the vast expanse of infinite space, the piece ends with Doherty’s words: “I will walk out of this theatre, and you will walk out of this theatre, and we will do unimportant things and those things, thank God, will matter”.