Oona Doherty
Northern Ireland | Dance/Performance

Hope Hunt
& the Ascension into Lazarus

Between dance, theatre and social commentary, the Belfast-based performer and choreographer Oona Doherty and the dancer Sandrine Lescourant dismantle the stereotype of the working-class male. Under the dazzling stage lights, she utilises this intuitive, impressionistic dance-theatre to explore the experiences and feelings of disaffected male youth: Chavs, neds, smicks, petty criminals and thugs. Magnificently inventive and uncannily sensitive, this work invites audiences to look behind the mask of social expectations and moral concepts and question social and cultural norms. Until finally that which actually connects all of us across all gender expressions – the eternal search for truth, hope and love – becomes visible.

«Hope Hunt & the Ascension into Lazarus» is an intelligent and deeply moving confrontation with the ideas of masculinity and vulnerability. Oona Doherty has already picked up numerous awards and festival invitations for this amazing solo performance, to which she has given a new dimension this summer together with the dancer Sandrine Lescourant.

«There’s reverence here, and humour; a massive talent and a hugely original voice.»

(The Guardian)