Lord of the Dance: Irish Step Gets Its Perfunctory Doc in Jig

Details

Jig
Directed by Sue Bourne
Screen Media Films
Opens June 17, Quad Cinema

Related Content

• Dance, Dance, Revolution: Big Emotions and an Extra Dimension in Pina
  December 21, 2011
• An Outcast Takes on the Mean Girls in Spork
  May 25, 2011
• Mahnahmahmeh: Muppets Reboot Can't Quite Get Its Act Together
  November 23, 2011
• QUICK FIX
  November 16, 2011
• Fall Arts: The Merce Cunningham Company Dances to an End
  September 7, 2011

More About

• Louder Than a Bomb
• Irish Dance
• Dance

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

If the structure behind Jig seems familiar, it is. That’s because Sue Bourne’s film employs the same formula as nearly every entry in an increasingly prevalent documentary subgenre devoted to chronicling specialized competitions. Last represented on-screen via the slam-poetry doc Louder Than a Bomb, the contest film generally splits its time between a lengthy introduction that tracks the contestants as they prepare for an upcoming championship, introducing us to both the various players and the art form they practice, and the contest itself. Jig, which details the increasingly competitive world of Irish step-dancing, is no different. But even for “jigging” aficionados, most of the interest is likely to reside in the film’s first half, which mixes scenes of intensive practice with a discussion of the material costs of the expensive, but likely unremunerative, pastime. By contrast, Bourne’s lengthy chronicle of the World Championship is severely under-contextualized, leaving us in the dark about the competition’s structure and frustrating our efforts to take a rooting interest in the proceedings. Worse, she gives us only tiny snippets of the dancing itself, continually cutting away to reaction shots and ensuring that the art form the film is designed to showcase is never glimpsed as anything other than a collection of fragments.