This site has limited support for your browser. We recommend switching to Edge, Chrome, Safari, or Firefox.

Airborne

There's an almost disarming delicacy to Curious Seed's work, as evinced by this beautiful, Herald Angel Award-winning production, “And The Birds Did Sing” Christine Devaney, dancing solo for the entire forty-minutes long duration, infuses so much raw emotion into even her micro gestures, that it's deeply heartfelt and moving. 

Performance

Curious Seed: “And The Birds Did Sing”

Place

Tron Theatre, Glasgow, UK, March 22, 2024

Words

Lorna Irvine

Christine Devaney in “And The Birds Did Sing.” Photograph by Maria Falconer

subscribe to the latest in dance


“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”

Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.

Already a paid subscriber? Login

A more ethereal piece than the last work I saw from Curious Seed, “Teenage Trilogy,” it's at once personal and inventive, finding Devaney in reflective mode, drawing from lived experience and imagination—there's an invented character, Birdie, an eccentric neighbour who feeds the birds that gather at her window every day. (Birdie, although fictional, represents humanity at its best, albeit as a whimsical kind of totem). This is a jumping-off point to consider our daily interactions. The rest is Devaney asking questions about the reliability of memories, entwined with what our bodies go through in real time.

On a dreamlike set, designed by Yvonne Buskie, fragments of paper positioned high above her are shaped into an arch for this outdoor setting, evocative of, variously, wings, clouds, a jagged cityline, or a Rorschach psychology test design, which makes sense, given that this is both a framing of Devaney's life, and a wider meditation into impermanence, love, family, climate change, and that which will outlast us all.

Christine Devaney in “And The Birds Did Sing.” Photograph by Maria Falconer

Her dreamy, lyrical monologue defies a linear narrative for a fragmentary poem, augmented by her nimble extensions, tentative tiptoes and arching back. At one point, crouching down with legs lifted, she appears as though airborne. She is her many selves: curious child cradling a small dead bird with care; a lover, curled around another, a woman returning to old haunts but gripped with inexorable grief. Her body's sharp, instinctive movements trace paths which feel as intimate as a secret from a sister. Metaphors from the text are brought  vividly to life with bursts of frenetic leaps, and bold gestures: breadcrumbs as stories through scrunched—up paper balls; outstretched arms for navigating new territories, pointed fingers emulating bird claws on the ground, palms down to bring a sense of respite and calm.

The text is wry and touching, finding meaning in small things. Devaney describes the trains rumbling overhead as sounding “like the devil taking a shower.” She's sanguine, always seeking “a new song” to get her through tough times. “This is about existing and not existing, and a child's heart-bursting belief that there is something in between,” she states at the outset. “How small we are,” she later muses.

There's a sense of Devaney knowing when to rise, when to gently flail, and when to simply lie prone or in a foetal position, letting Luke Sutherland's gorgeous music fill the space when words are rendered superfluous.

Christine Devaney in “And The Birds Did Sing.” Photograph by Maria Falconer

The soundscape by Sutherland is sublime, pizzicato strings, looped, treated vocals and elegiac ambient work, evocative at times of American duo, A Winged Victory For The Sullen. Whether dark and dissonant, or swelling in symphonic beauty, Devaney responds to the shifting moods with a visceral, soulful choreography with an intensity that's almost spiritual. I find my body responding in kind, taking deep breaths as though experiencing a guided meditation, and exhaling only at the end. 

And the birds of the title? They’re a constant, symbolic of nature’s resilience, providing a sense of reassurance when things become overwhelming. 

What a lovely, thoughtful piece Curious Seed have created here: it's a tincture for the soul—quietly majestic, affecting as  a fully integrated dance piece and theatre performance. It's never mawkish or twee, but rather, lucid and honest about  life's little trajectories. It provokes much discussion and feeling, one to sit with, process, and ponder.

Lorna Irvine


Based in Glasgow, Lorna was delightfully corrupted by the work of Michael Clark in her early teens, and has never looked back. Passionate about dance, music, and theatre she writes regularly for the List, Across the Arts and Exeunt. She also wrote on dance, drama and whatever particular obsession she had that week for the Shimmy, the Skinny and TLG and has contributed to Mslexia, TYCI and the Vile Blog.

comments

Featured

Heady Notions
REVIEWS | Karen Hildebrand

Heady Notions

“State of Heads” opens with a blaze of white light and loud clanking onto a white-suited Levi Gonzalez, part Elvis, part televangelist addressing his congregation. A pair of women sidle in—Rebecca Cyr and Donna Uchizono—dressed in ankle-length white dresses and cowered posture.

Continue Reading
Winning Works
REVIEWS | Róisín O'Brien

Winning Works

The late John Ashford, a pioneer in programming emerging contemporary choreographers across Europe, once told me that he could tell what sort of choreographer a young artist would turn into when watching their first creations.

Continue Reading
Ballet at 41° South
REVIEWS | Leila Lois

Ballet at 41° South

Last weekend, the Royal New Zealand Ballet hosted two nights of performance in collaboration with the Scottish Ballet at the St. James’ Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand. The bill included two works by choreographers affiliated with Scottish Ballet, and two by RNZB choreographers. There was welcome contrast in timbre and tempo, and common themes of self-actualisation and connection, through a love of dance. As RNZB artistic director Ty King-Wall announced in the audience address, the two-night only performance was in the spirit of “bringing the companies together in mutual admiration and respect.”

Continue Reading
Back to School
REVIEWS | Victoria Looseleaf

Back to School

Who knew that a PB & J sandwich could conjure Proust’s madeleine? Certainly not this writer. But it’s not farfetched to think that Lincoln Jones, the artistic director, choreographer and conceptual guru of American Contemporary Ballet, had the idea of memory in mind when he conceived “Homecoming.”

Continue Reading
Good Subscription Agency