Fall and Recover: Creating Modern Dance with Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Ireland

Abstract

This article considers a contemporary dance performance, Fall and Recover, which premiered in Dublin in 2004. The work is choreographed by John Scott, but was developed collaboratively by non-professional dancers from among Ireland’s population of refugees and asylum-seekers; a number of subsequent performance works have also been created. The article briefly discusses Irish political and social controversies that have arisen owing to an influx of refugees in recent decades. The article considers the power dynamics involved in creating intercultural dance for public performance, and finds that the work serves to destabilize the hierarchy between the production’s creators and performers. Fall and Recover and its successor works, which are non-narrative in character, challenge and expands familiar hallmarks of Irish cultural identity.