Marguerite Donlon mounted her first work, “The Last Lifeboat,” on BalletX in 2018, a dance theater paean to her grand aunt, Kate Gilnagh, who was given the last seat in the last lifeboat on the Titanic. The Irish-born, Berlin-based choreographer created her second work for the company, a world premiere called “Big Wig.” It’s a comic delight that riffs on Irish folk dance.

Like marching bands, the Ice Capades, and the Rockettes, Riverdance once stole the hearts of American audiences. Donlon grew up on Irish dance and hilariously spoofs the rigidity of the upper body, the dangling arms, the proscribed kick steps, and most of all the curly-haired little girls who dance it. I once encountered a gaggle of pre- and early teens in a hotel lobby, all costumed and made-up, for an Irish dance competition. They were not wearing wigs, but were coifed in their own russet shaded curls. Dance critic, Jack Anderson, scornfully called one of Riverdance’s spin-offs a “garish mixture of Irish dance and other forms.”

Donlon blends those other forms—ballet, contemporary, tap—into a dance that begins with 14 dancers in Silke Fischer’s scanty nude undies, the better to play with her long comically overdone auburn wigs. The women, en pointe, walk out like street girls looking for a john or a fight. De-Poli, the tallest of all, in a black swirl from the waist down that could have passed for an Ottoman Sirwal, was devilishly whirlish. It all quickly begins to look tribal and unhinged, the audience almost ready to hoot along. 

Composer Paul Calderone borrowed musics from Irish folk bands, and arranged them as an original composition—“My Lagan Love” (by the Chieftains,) is a mournful nineteenth-century lullaby rooted in the culture surrounding the River Lagan in Belfast, and tunes from other parts of Ireland. Dancers exit the stage and return with the wigs as ties, shoulder pads, or tails. As music from wild Irish Folk traditions takes over, the dancers fall into a feral romp degenerating into what could be a scene from Lord of the Flies. 

“Big wig” is also a jibe referring to a self-important person. I can’t help but think Donlon also had in mind a sly swipe at Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance. Someone had to do it.