The Line Society is a new dance/theater work developed with the support of The Pavilion Theater (October 2024). The piece takes inspiration from a real event: a train journey from Dublin to Sligo, halted for five hours when the emergency brakes were pulled. Trapped together in the crowded carriage, filled with football fans singing, dancing, and arguing, the space became a kind of compressed society — a living microcosm of chaos, joy, and confrontation. From this moment grew the idea of The Line Society: a portrait of human behavior in close quarters, and an exploration of how individuals influence and shape the collective.

Originally conceived as a dance piece set within a liminal space, the work expanded during a creative residency at The Pavilion. Two poetry collections became central influences: Pleasures of the Damned by Charles Bukowski, reflecting on the bitterness and wisdom of age, and I, Coleoptile by Ann Cotten & Kerstin Cmelka, with its youthful search for growth and purpose. Their contrasting perspectives inspired a choreographic structure that embodies the ebb and flow of personalities within the society.

At the center of the performance is the Conductor, a figure inspired by Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo — a charismatic, obsessive force who directs the rhythms and rituals of the group. Alongside them are a cast of archetypes: Mother Hen, the caring but defiant protector; The Drunk and The Crier, playful disruptors and storytellers; and The Child, a blank canvas who must find their own place in the society.

The stage design evokes a deconstructed train carriage: a raised white rectangular platform framed in black metal. Within this container, the performers move through a life cycle of a single day. Morning rituals awaken the space to classical strains of piano and violin. As the day builds, rhythms shift into the energy of Irish traditional music, releasing feral, communal movement. In the evening, storytelling, drinking songs, and folk traditions explode into chaotic celebration, before collapsing into exhaustion at dawn.

Through this arc, the child gradually finds their own style of movement and expression. The Conductor, unable to keep up, passes on the baton — a symbolic act of renewal and continuity. The society moves forward into a new cycle, shaped by the next generation.

Themes
At its heart, The Line Society is about hope. In its compressed train-car world, the piece reflects contemporary anxieties around instability, isolation, and uncertainty — issues of housing, work, community, and the future. Yet within this turbulence it insists on the possibility of growth, renewal, and change.

Combining dance, theater, music, and poetry, The Line Society is a tapestry of human experience: cramped together, always searching for the next stop, yet capable of joy, transformation, and collective forward movement.