COIS_Website_Hero_Images_1600x800px_Dodgems

Dodgems

By David Bolger & Charlie O'Neill

Dodgems

roll up roll up … … beautiful … poignant … humerous … show-stopping … CoisCéim show us why we’ve come

Sophie Gorman Irish Independent

Set on a real bumper-car track, DODGEMS immersed its audience in the textures of an exotic and multicultural fairground. They sensed the speed, the energy and the mayhem in a displaced and alluring world in which a bawdy band of new arrivals and indigenous misfits play out the dodging and crashing of life against a haunting soundscape.

A clever, entertaining and suspenseful dance drama…full of surprises

Irish Independent

… the act of colliding versus the act of avoiding – and it underpins much of what O’Neill and choreographer/director David Bolger set out in Dodgems…. surges into a finale of show-piece dancing, a joyous and seemless integration of folk dancing styles

Michael Seaver Irish Theatre Magazine

Over two levels, the set is exquisite. A real bumper track morphs from pastoral scene to pole dancing club to nunnery and is a brilliant testament to CoisCéim’s characteristic and ingenious skills with staging.

Stephen Mulkearn Metro

Director/Choreographer David Bolger & Charlie O’Neill hit on a marvellous concept, blending the exotic but unconventional ways of outsider circus folk, whose difference we revel in and even enthusiastically accept, with the experiences of our new outsiders … terrific staging and performances

Seona Mac Réamoinn The Irish Times

… exciting and original piece of visual, physical, musical theatre…

Colin Murphy Tribune Arts

Gallery

A figure cast in red light wearing a fedora and long fur coat
An ensemble of figures positioned around a dodgem track
A figure standing on a dodgem track in an Irish dancing dress and wig
Two figures in side profile facing each other, both seated in wheelchairs
Two figures on a dodgem track with the smaller hugging the other from behind
A figure driving a dodgem car
Two figures leaning over a table cooking with an ensemble watching in the background
Three figures seated in a dodgem car with a sign reading 'Taxi' hung above on the car's pole
A figure in a nightdress standing cast in red light against the pole of a dodgem car
A figure seated on top of a chest leaning forward
A figure standing in a doorway mid-speech with one finger raised towards the camera
A figure in smart dress standing centre stage with an ensemble of nuns in movement behind him
Two figures standing on a dodgem track with the smaller of the two hugging the other from behind
Two figures hand in hand with one pulling the other along on a briefcase on wheels
A child kneeling and cradling another figure's head in their lap
A lone figure sitting in a dodgem car among other empty cars on a dodgem track
One figure in movement out of a dodgem car with another swinging from the dodgem car pole behind
A figure in movement out of a dodgem car on a backdrop of a fairground
Two figures seated in a dodgem car on an unpaved path through grass

Performed at

Premiere

O’Reilly Theatre

Dublin

25 September - 12 October 2008

Credits

Cast Piotr Baumann, Jason E. Bernard, Simone Choplain, Lee Clayden, Amanda Coogan, Unita Gay Galiluyo, Monic Munoz Marín, Emma O’Kane, Diane O’Keeffe, Mark O’Regan, David Toole
Little Girls Shauna Harris, Carla Ong, Elizabeth Ozyuianuina
Musicians David Carmody, Ellen Cranitch, Simone Mendonca

Creators David Bolger & Charlie O’Neill
Set Design Paul O’Mahony
Lighting Design John Comiskey
Music Ellen Cranitch
Sound Design Alexis Nealon
Costume Design Kathy Strachen

Stage Director Mags Mulvey
Stage Manager Stephanie Ryan
Photography Leon Farrell, Ros Kavanagh, Chris Nash, Patrick Redmond
Graphic Design ALPHABET SOUP