Immersive musical theatre piece with spoken word, song and The Gralton Big Band that invites the audience to dance, inspired by the history of Ireland's rural dance halls.
The Devil's in the Dance Hall comes to Ulster Hall on Thursday 22 October, starting at 19:30. It's an immersive theatre piece by Edwina Guckian, presented as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival and Belfast TradFest.
The show takes its lead from the true story of Jimmy Gralton and the suppression of Ireland's rural dance halls in the early 20th century. Back then, gathering to dance, play music and think freely was seen as a threat, and Guckian builds the performance around that tension. She draws on oral history, folk memory and the energy of the big-band era to recreate the parish hall as a place of movement, learning, courtship, argument and possibility, and asks what happens when church and state dictate how a community socialises. At its heart is the collective joy of dance as a form of defiance.
Spoken word, song and the roaring sound of The Gralton Big Band carry the story of how these dance halls became centres of community life, right up until the 1935 Dance Hall Act closed them down. As the performance unfolds, the boundary between stage and floor dissolves and the audience are invited to dance the night away. It's as much about the music and the movement as it is about the history.
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There are two ways to see it: a Dance Floor Ticket for £30 puts you on the floor, while a Balcony Seated Ticket for £25 lets you watch from the balcony. The show is at Ulster Hall, 34 Bedford Street, BT2 7FF, on Thursday 22 October at 19:30.
