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SooToday.com, Canada - October
24, 2007
TAPEIRE BREAKS ALL THE RULES.
Astounding feats of the feet.
By Jack Hopper
To be deemed by your peers as cutting edge,
any art teacher will tell you that you must first
know the rules in order to successfully break them.
Tapeire producer, director, choreographer
and front man James Devine definitely knows the
rules and has created a theatre experience that
defiantly shoves the swear finger in the face of
every single one of the principles of traditional
celtic dance.
Fusing traditional, original and experimental
music with Irish dance and rhythmic tap, Tapeire
is exhilarating, inspiring and almost exhausting
to witness.
Have you ever seen a dancer tap Queen's
Another One Bites the Dust?
Or challenge a typewriter to a tap-off?
Didn't think so.
The audience at Tuesday night's Algoma
Fall Festival presentation of Tapeire was treated
to a most enjoyable history lesson as Devine illustrated
the roots of Irish dance from Sean-Nos (meaning
"old-style") to its transition into a
theatre setting.
All of this, of course, wrapped up
in a punk-rock attitude.
On fiddle, Ashley MacIsaac demonstrated
his classical training and wowed the audience with
his solo performance of an excerpt from Vivaldi's
Four Seasons.
Award-winning harpist Phamie Gow was
astounding to listen to as she created sounds with
the harp one would swear was three or four different
instruments.
As one of Scotland's premiere percussionists,
Paul Jennings played everything from pots and pans,
to spoons and cajon drum (a wooden box that is played
by slapping it with the hands) in an impressive
display of rhythm, timing and creativity.
To compare Tapeire to Michael Flatley's
Riverdance is an insult.
To witness the raw, exhilarating
energy of Tapeire is to witness the next generation
of Irish dance theatre.
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