MAM

Michael Keegan-Dolan and Teac Damsa

Teac Damsa Dance Consortium

Lowry, Salford

February 3-4, 2026; 80 mins, no interval

A chaotic, joyous scene from Teac Damsa's Mam. All pics: David Gray

This exciting and widely-trailed dance show starts its UK tour in Salford Lowry’s huge Lyric Theatre, a superb location where the width and depth of the stage, the strong sight-lines and the technical provision allow a real appreciation of MAM's staging, varied music and range of dancing.

The Salford location, set within a huge Irish-heritage Greater Manchester population, brings a committed audience for a show which is grounded in the landscape, music and traditions of Ireland while its promotion as a Dance Consortium event attracts the loyal audience that knows that on offer will be some of the best contemporary dance from across the world. 

The opening is unusual and mysterious, hinting at ritual and maybe subversion. A little girl in a white dress - possibly communion ready - and a talented accordion player in a ram’s head mask are revealed. A curtain pulls back to 10 more seated, masked figures, percussive with feet and hands. Masks are quickly removed as the scene settles to something more familiar. The accordion music develops to strong Irish rhythmic patterns and cadences and the seated figures take on their role as accomplished dancers. The child observes. 

What follows is quite astonishing. Eighty minutes of familiar, mixed with challenging, music and vibrant dancing across a range of styles and groupings. Chairs are used as props to reinforce belonging, engagement and occasionally acrimony, as well as an essential, brief, resting place. Irish rhythms are the foundation of much of the music and therefore the timing of the dancing, but the dance styles and choreography explore widely. Dancers stretch, lounge, twirl, occasionally pose and often surprise. There are times when you almost want to join them: you might be at a wedding feast. 

Creator Michael Keegan-Dolan has observed that across the world, 95% of dance is not for performance but for self expression, for ritual, for community, for longing and for joy. In this production, joyousness is much to the fore, probably a large part of the reason the audience goes home so happy. But there is a fierce antagonism at times, just as in the real world, as well as the fierce determination to celebrate joy.

The music is fiercely positive too, and not just essential accompaniment. The opening section relies on the deep sensitivity of virtuoso Irish traditional concertina player Cormac Begley, with the Irish style to the fore, accompanied by a strong embrace of alternatives and occasional strangeness. In the next section, European classical contemporary collective s t a r g a z e performs live to enrich the range, starting with a Baroque-style violin solo from Mayah Kadish, before moving through a variety of genres, including jazz, to vary the mood.

Exciting and entertaining though it is, it’s quite hard to understand whether there is a moral or developmental story to the production. In the Q&A that followed the first-night performance, creator Michael Keegan-Dolan suggests there isn’t: people can develop their own ideas, though he strongly suggests that his ideas are rooted in West Kerry, where he has lived for 10 years with nothing between him and America except the sea, rooted in the human condition, in the changing nature of humanity's comfort in being suspicious, aggressive, welcoming and supportive, and in the continuing and surviving elements of colonial oppression.  

I'm slightly confused by the show, and it's probably meant to be so. But I do know that if it had a longer run, I would watch it again. 

Keegan-Dolan said, “One thing I like about what I’ve been trying to do is that it’s Irish but not Irish, you know..?"

Yes, I know. Ideal for Manchester.

More info and tickets here