Dumbworld, 2026
Sinead Hayes, John McIlduff, Megan O'Neill, Stephanie Dufresne, Cristian Emmanuel Dirocie
The Lyric Theatre, Belfast - 11th March 2026
Where do you start? The last time I began a review with those words was in my years as a film reviewer having just watched a screening of Terrence Malik's film The Tree of Life. It was less a sense of bewilderment at what I had seen on the screen than a question provoked by the film's extraordinary scope and ambition. A bewildering overreach for some, utterly sublime as far as I was concerned, I saw it as an attempt by a visual artist to put across something that is impossible to put entirely into words alone. For similar reasons it seems an appropriate way to start a review of Where We Bury the Bones, a multi-disciplinary work created by Dumbworld team of John McIlduff & Kate Heffernan with music composed by Brian Irvine who, with an orchestra and a singer, have a few more tools at their disposal to approach a challenging subject.
The title has ominous connotations for the people of this island and I imagine it evokes similar horrors for people in many other places that have seen war and violence in recent decades, and indeed in the world today. That's not what the piece is about, although it could certainly be seen to be a part of it, as the work starts with the discovery of various artefacts during an archaeological dig in Kilkenny, one of which is a bone. One of the first considerations is to identify whether it is a human bone and to look for any signs of trauma, indications of an injury or violent death, as that would be the beginning of a story, a way of building a picture of a life. As an archaeologist René, in an onscreen message, considers that there are limitations on how much scientific enquiry can imagine, and wonders what an artist would make of such material. That's the beginning of Where We Bury the Bones.
Well, that's one starting point but we may actually need to go back further than that. Where indeed do you start to consider the circumstances that lead to an ancient bone being found in this part of the world? A narrative description has already set the scene, considering the historical formation of the valley, building up a picture through our understanding of the geology, chemistry, behaviours and patterns in nature, the valley hewn by ice and shaped by the flow of the river, but there is more than one starting point here, there are layers of history and the flow of time has also contributed to the picture. These are marked out by a number of musical and theatrical layers including a sung voice, technical and historical data feeds, dramatic presentation, a music score played by an 8-piece orchestra, dance movements, and a live projection of an actual scale model of the landscape in question.
"Where do you start?" I admit does apply to some extent with grappling with understanding what the work is about. Where We Bury the Bones started as a commission for the Kilkenny Arts Festival in 2025, the work stemming from the questions that arise with the discovery of a single bone unearthed during archaeological excavations in Kilkenny’s Abbey Quarter. So the work is 'site specific' in a way, but evidently it has a much wider remit and perspective, so is indeed hard to know where to start. As a work of many layers, there are similarly many layers and ways to approach the work. Words are just one way, but that alone can never be entirely sufficient even if Megan O'Neill, dressed in white, appears to give voice to the bone itself. Interacting with the other elements however, how the music speaks and how bare technical facts meet with lived human experience - past, present and looking to the future - allows the viewer to piece together their own story and indeed their own part in the story.
The past is evoked in snatches of traditional Irish music, some the on-stage orchestra interacting with an on-screen musician, the present with the creation of a skateboard park that is overlaid on the site. On a voice-over, some of the skaters testify to its importance to the here and now, a place where community comes together but also a place where new stories are made and another layer of history and archaeological mystery may be laid down for the future. The scope of what is brought together over the running time of one hour is tremendous and Brian Irvine's music has a large part to play in creating that environment, creating the musical landscape to bring it all together. As a composer Irvine has never been tired down to a single style of music but uses whatever instruments and means of expression are necessary for any given work. His score for this work has a 'voice' without telling a ‘story’, the theatrical chamber orchestration reminding me of Louis Andriessen, but with a directness and purpose of its own, anchored in the landscape in its unearthing of people and history but liberated in the flow of time; past, present and future layered.
There is no narrative line to tell you any of this. Where We Bury the Bones doesn't rely on theatrical conventions or familiar musical reference points or motifs, it doesn't settle for fitting it to preconceived ideas or tell you what you should be taking away from this. It does what it should do which is to let the medium determine the best way of getting the ideas across, building a picture, allowing the multi-disciplinary elements to create their own connections as well as creating the space for the individual in the audience to place themselves within it. If you come out of seeing an production wondering what it was all about, that is much better than having answers handed to you. In the case of the scope and ambition of what this work is about, answers would be impossible anyway in an hour-long performance, but it does nonetheless give you everything you need to think more deeply about our place in this world for a long time afterwards, along with the realisation that we take too much of it for granted.
External links: Dumbworld
