The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor at Aviva Studios

Sinéad O’Connor’s voice carried risk both on and off the stage. It was emotionally unguarded in her music, and uncompromising in public – used to speak uncomfortable truths even when doing so would bring personal and professional damage. The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor takes that combination of musical power and moral defiance as its starting point, responding to a life lived against the grain.

Conceived, choreographed and directed by the Tony Award-winning Sonya Tayeh, The Surge is the first major stage production devoted to O’Connor’s life and work, presented by New York’s Joyce Theater and Factory International. Performed by a company of 10 women spanning a wide range of ages and dance disciplines, it’s set to O’Connor’s iconic music and her recorded voice, guided by spoken excerpts from her memoir Rememberings.

 “Sinéad has been a part of my life since her first album arrived blaring out car windows in Detroit, where I’m from,” Sonya Tayeh told Crack Magazine. “All of those memories came flooding back when she passed. I was heartbroken and had this sudden vision of 10 women standing in a straight line at the edge of a stage and I was hearing ‘Troy’ in my ears.”

That initial image grew into a deliberate challenge to how age is typically framed in the dance world. The performers cut through the idea of ageing as something to fear, conceal or overcome. Time is treated as a privilege that carries both experience and beauty.

Tayeh’s choreography is physically demanding and emotionally charged, weaving together different styles and responding to music as a force that acts on the body rather than sitting behind it. Best known for her Tony Award-winning work on Moulin Rouge! The Musical, she moves easily between large-scale theatrical worlds and more intimate, idea-driven work. With The Surge, she draws on what she describes as O’Connor’s desire for freedom, unrelenting righteousness and spiritual awakening. “The depth of emotion in her music is unmatched,” Tayeh says, “and vibrates through the dance space with such electric inspiration for me.”

Translating the risk and defiance of O’Connor’s voice into physical form, The Surge carries forward the uncompromising terms on which she lived and created.