“I got positivity, ambition, hopefulness, drive,” says Doherty. “I got worry: they’re worried about the climate, they’re worried about queer rights, trans rights, about equality. They’re worried about their A levels.
“There’s complexity, there’s intelligence, there’s passion. They’re a bunch of legends, really.”
The London premiere of Wall will take place at Sadler’s Wells Theatre on Saturday 13 July; shows in Wakefield, Falmouth, Ipswich, Latitude Festival and Leicester will follow.
To create the work, Oona Doherty and the NYDC team interviewed the dancers about the UK; in turn, the cast did the same with members of a different generation. Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Leckey spliced the resulting audio to soundtrack a powerful hour of dance where the dancers “fall and fall – but keep getting up again.”
Doherty is an acclaimed dancer and choreographer. Her first solo work – Hope Hunt and theAscension into Lazarus – was awarded the “Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival Best Performer Award” in 2016 and the winner of the “Total Theatre Dance Award” at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017. In 2019, it was voted “No. 1 British dance performance of 2019” by the Guardian.
But she knows first-hand how the arts can change a young person’s life. Born in 1986 in London, she moved to Belfast when she was 10 and studied at St Louise’s comprehensive college in Belfast.
“I failed my 11 plus exam, so I went to a comprehensive college. But I was really lucky – we had one teacher there who trained dancers, put everything into it, ran an after school club and everything,” she said
“Not everyone has that. You might get lucky like that – but what country you’re in, what class, what school you go to, determine what opportunities you get.”
Cuts to funding have devastated arts education across the UK, and Northern Ireland has been particularly hard hit.
In 2023-24, Stormont’s budget for education was reduced by about £70m or 2.5%. Continued inflation means that the real-terms reduction is much larger. There is a £300m gap between what funding the education system needs and what it has, the department of education has warned.
Arts education is often the first to feel the pinch.
“Reduced funding may prevent disadvantaged children from availing of activities such as art, sports, music and drama, opportunities they are otherwise less likely to be able to access,” a recent report from Ulster University warned.
Programs like NYDC help nurture young dancers who are looking to be professionals. It’s “fantastic,” Doherty says – but arts provision should be for everyone.
“Even if you don’t become an artist, per se, at that age, it’s so important to have those opportunities to be creative. It’s good for your social skills, for your confidence, for your brain development. Everyone is having to make do with less. The funding has just been cut. In Northern Ireland particularly, it’s been cut more than anything else – it’s on the brink.”
With Britain under a Labour government for the first time in 14 years, change might be coming. But the real transformation will come from the next generation, Oona Doherty says – and we’re in good hands.
“It matters what they think. Some of them, maybe some of them up there sweating on stage, will be the next politicians. And like I said – they’re legends.”
You can get tickets for Wall here. The London premiere of Wall will take place at Sadler’s Wells Theatre on Saturday 13 July.
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