How To Be A Dancer In Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons, Teaċ Daṁsa
Teaċ Daṁsa, How To Be A Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons. © Fiona Morgan
“Welcome to Sadler’s Wells East. Please make sure you have turned off your mobile phones. We hope you enjoy the show.”
The tannoy announcement hadn’t even ended and already our hosts for the evening had walked on stage, boombox and axel grinder in hand. As the woman broke open a metal lock on a large wooden box, sparks flying everywhere, a man stood observing the audience silently, with the occasional bemused/impatient glance back at his partner in crime.
Unconventional?
Welcome to the world of Michael Keegan-Dolan.
Teaċ Daṁsa, How To Be A Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons. © Fiona Morgan
One of my favourite discoveries of the 2024/25 London dance Season via his work Nobodaddy, the Irish choreographer brings his work How To Be A Dancer In Seventy-Two Thousand Easy Lessons to Stratford. In this biographical monologue, creator becomes performer as he recites extracts from his life growing up in Ireland and establishing himself as a dancer and choreographer for ballet and opera companies across Europe. He is accompanied by his long-term collaborator Rachel Poirier, who we last saw in Nobodaddy running about the stage in a pair of feathered angel wings. I’m please to say her scene-stealing, wild, erratic ways, and, dare I say, slight fear in her eyes, remains.
Keegan-Dolan’s signature chaos and love of props bring this spoken word piece to life. Scenes evolve continuously, perfect for the TikTok generation. His comedic timing is top notch, with music excerpts cutting off at unexpected moments, balloons popped to frighten, a child’s bike ridden gleefully, and a horn blasted erratically. There’s a level of philosophy in this too, with reminiscences of a man in Gibraltar telling him to throw an egg in a lake to remove his worries, snippets of poetry, and reflections on the choreographer’s homophobic and xenophobic encounters (presented as mick-takes of his bullies, of course).
Teaċ Daṁsa, How To Be A Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons. © Fiona Morgan
A life changing experience with a yoga teacher develops into the only pure dance extract of the night, with Rachel Poirier dancing to Bolero while Keegan-Dolan looks on like a proud teacher (all the while holding up the wooden box – we are never far from the ridiculous). His choreographic style has an edge of exhaustion; Poirier’s limbs are thrown about with purpose yet limpness. I would love to know how this man, who started in hip-hop, came to ballet in his late teenage years and once auditioned for contemporary heavyweight Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, developed his signature style of dance.
And it is questions like this that made the work feel incomplete. Much was left unanswered and there was no overarching lesson to lead the narrative towards a satisfying climax or conclusion. The work skipped vital moments in Keegan-Dolan’s history, such as the decision to move from dancer to choreographer, while big revelations, such as this life changing experience with a yoga teacher, were left on cliffhangers: he knocked the door of the teacher’s house and told us it was a pivotal life moment. Was the door magical? Why did he change your life, Michael?
I entered the theatre in desperate need of some escapism from the stresses only starting a new job can bring up. And, despite all the questions left unanswered, this work was the tonic I needed: it was absorbing, funny and ridiculous yet serious. That I hardly took notes speaks volumes.
// News just in: Michael Keegan-Dolan has announced he has cut ties with Sadler’s Wells and is no longer an Associate Artist due to differing positions on the war in Gaza. Read more [external link] //
★★★★
How to be a Dancer in Seventy-two Thousand Easy Lessons, Michael Keegan-Dolan
Sadler’s Wells East, London / 17 September 2025
Press ticket
Until 20 September 2025
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