Marvellous Mosh thrills audience

Following a successful run at the Dublin Dance Festival, as well as performances in Cork and Galway, dance show Mosh had its midlands show in Longford last Wednesday.

Mosh is a new production by Rachel Ní Bhraonáin, a multidisciplinary artist who has combined dance, music, and storytelling to create a visually exciting spectacle.

Featuring the choreography of Mullingar's Robyn Byrne, this theatrical production is a hybrid of a music gig and a theatrical journey into the heart of a moshpit.

Blending raucous dance, live music, an intriguing set design, interviews with real mosh pit devotees, an atmospheric lighting design and new writing, Mosh dives into the deeper meaning behind a misunderstood subculture.

The show incorporates lecture style presentation, voice overs and spectacular performances of a range of different dance styles to create a show that grips the attention of the audience for its 60-minute duration.

It's a frenetic observation on communal movement, taming chaos to explain why violence can be an answer if the correct question is asked. The show intellectualises a visceral urge, it draws on Robert Boyle's observation on the relationship between pressure and volume to explain why people and gas can have the same motivations.

While the dancers are centre stage in the piece, telling the story with a combination of physical movement and words, the supporting role of the music cannot be understated.

The live element of the drums and guitar draw the audience into the gig, into the front row, and into the mindset of those who want to be part of the maelstrom that is the moshpit.

Ní Bhraonáin's show is a marvel. Byrne's contribution of creating a movement plan that shapes not only a story, but the tone and tempo of the piece cannot be understated. Mosh is a theatrical event that any dance fan has to experience.

By Thomas Lyons