Niche: Audience response

I asked some people who had come to see Niche to respond to three questions: What did you see? What did you feel? What did you think?

Many thanks to Eithne Doyle for these answers:

Niche = A place of retreat or retirement

What did you see?

I did not see a place of retreat or retirement. Rather, I felt that in that dark space there was a sense of cosmic loneliness.

What did you feel?

I felt the young men were living “kidult” lives, relying on games to communicate with one another. They seemed confused, wary of human contact while, simultaneously, longing for it. They appeared not to know their place in the scheme of things and consequently were unable to find their niche. Maybe their niche was pretence. The woman, on the other hand, though she was a remote and solitary figure, was methodically carving out her space, attending to the practical things – as women do – preparing food and sorting clothing but passively, almost mechanically. Her world and that of the
young men never met.
Technically, the piece was superb. I liked the fact that there was no background music. Instead, the dancers provided their own living sounds thus adding hugely to the physicality of the work.

What do you think now?

Is “Niche” a comment on the changing landscape of Dublin’s Docklands? Are these young men reflecting the sense of loss and dislocation caused by the destruction of the old neighbourhoods? Or are they just confused by the changing role of men in our society and by their inability to find their place in that society.

“Change is not made without inconvenience even from worse to better”

Eithne Doyle