‘I Hope You Hear Us Through the Clouds’: The thundering, rousing dance track that pays tribute to Sinead O’Connor | Dance

SOnya Tayeh remembers watching “Saturday Night Live” in October 1992, at her home in Detroit, when a young woman with a shaved head behind a microphone tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II, saying, “Fight the real enemy.”

“It felt like the whole world stopped,” recalls Tye, who is still amazed by Sinead O’Connor’s protest against abuse in the Catholic Church, and the defiance in “those eyes that seep into your soul and burn… It was like I could feel the world shaking beneath my feet. It got the better of me,” she says in a video call from New York. I can see one side of Tayeh’s head being shaved, and a long curtain of dark hair falling on the other side.

It was a watershed moment for the teenage Tayeh, but a watershed moment for O’Connor, as the backlash derailed her soaring career. Some say it was deliberate self-sabotage by an artist who didn’t want to become a pop star. (O’Connor later said in her memoir, Memories: “I’m a protest singer. I had things to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame.”)

The life of the singer from Dublin may seem a far cry from that of a Lebanese-Palestinian girl who grew up in a Muslim family and was, at the time, immersed in Detroit’s underground rave scene. But O’Connor’s spirit spoke to Teh: “I was the kid who shaved her head and grew her armpit hair, and it was like, ‘Fighting the real enemy!'”

When O’Connor died in July 2023, tributes poured in for a woman who struggled with her mental health and was often insulted and ridiculed during her life. “Then, are you giving all this grace to this person you hit?” says Tayeh, who at the time was an award-winning choreographer. “When Sinead died, I was so sad about it. I was painting my room, listening to her recordings, and I felt sad and thought about how the world had taken away from her. She was so far ahead in the game, but she was so vilified.”

Tayeh was in discussion with the Joyce Theater in New York about creating a new dance piece, but he did not find the right idea. Suddenly, listening to O’Connor’s song “Troy” one day, she liked it. “I had this really clear vision of just women, sweaty women in line.” She called her producer and said: ‘I’ve got it! It’s a Sinead O’Connor score, with women over 40.’ And he was like: ‘Fuck yeah.’

O’Connor was 56 when she died, was still making music, and was finishing a new album. Tayeh says working as a middle-aged woman in music is rare, but dancing isn’t all that different. At 49, she always wonders: Where do the dancers age? Where do artists talk about their lives, bodies and experiences as they age?

So these are the beginnings of The Surge – the title refers to a surge of energy, “a hyper-awakening, a roar, a momentum” – which is about to have its world premiere in Manchester. At first, Tayeh had no idea what the work would be like. “I don’t have a piece yet,” I said. I don’t have a company yet, but I do have this amazing, heartbreaking, heartwarming resource. So let’s start here.”

This may seem like an unexpected choice for Taya, given that she is best known for her Tony Award-winning choreography for the musical Moulin Rouge! – a red, catchy extravaganza of fast pop songs that continues to be played all over the world (currently on tour in the UK). But her career encompasses all aspects of music and dance culture: She started dancing in Detroit clubs in the 1990s, then worked with pop stars (Miley Cyrus, Kylie, Florence + the Machine) as well as revered groups like the Martha Graham Dance Company. Most recently, Tayeh choreographed the stage version of Girl, Interrupted in New York, and directed and choreographed the new musical Black Swan.

The Surge is certainly one of the most personal projects Tayeh has undertaken. She told me she’d listened to the audiobook of O’Connor’s memoir — narrated by the musician herself — 10 times.

It is a turbulent story: O’Connor was abused by her mother, and she describes violent physical and verbal abuse, and being held captive in her room and in the garden shed for hours on end. It was a chaotic family life, but at the age of fifteen, O’Connor was sent to a boarding school for wayward girls, adjacent to the former Magdalene Laundromat. It was a nun there who bought O’Connor a guitar. Her early songs, filled with rage and confusion, gave way to hymns of healing and forgiveness, and she was always spiritually searching, from her deep Catholic roots to Rastafarianism to her conversion to Islam.

Tayeh relates to O’Connor’s spirituality and her questioning of the religion in which she was raised. Even if it is more than that; “It was the musician’s explicit demand to be heard, which was linked to some very difficult childhood experiences,” she says. “Her wailing was like something inside me.” Tayeh was bullied when she was young. “Extreme bullying,” she says. “We were the only Arab family in my community.” “Literally having to put your hand on your head to protect yourself while walking in the hallways. It creates a foundation of fear and anger. That’s very confusing when you’re 12 years old,” she describes.

Hearing O’Connor’s music gave Tayeh hope. “I thought, ‘Okay, I’m not going to die. I can actually create a world for myself and a voice for myself.’ She shaved her head in college to defy what was expected of her (“I’ve never danced better”). Fundamentally, The Surge is about “peeling back the layers to find the raw self underneath.”

I’m watching a demo on Zoom from London. Dancers in a New York studio receive a pep talk from Tayeh before they begin. “Let Sinead carry us on this ship,” I hear her say. “There is nothing to prove, everything can be given.” Then the movement comes in waves: rolling, peaking, and yes, rising. The room contains wooden benches, like church pews, and the ten women slide and crawl along them, sitting in contemplation or disappearing between the rows. They practice gesture rituals. There is a real sense of community and collectivity. until.

When she called on Tye to cast a group of women over 40 who were inspired by O’Connor, “a lot of people showed up,” she said, the oldest of whom was in her 80s (the combined ages of the final cast are 529). “It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. The spiritual power of that room was unmatched by any experience.” Even watching on an iPad 3,000 miles away, I feel like something special is happening in this studio.

The soundtrack of O’Connor’s songs—from Troy and Mandinka to In This Heart and her stunningly beautiful cover of Nirvana’s All Apologies—ranges from prayer-like sadness to gritty fury. The dancers come out. I never thought of O’Connor’s music as particularly danceable, I tell Taya. It’s in arms. “All those albums, you can just let them play and dance to them!” In the studio, Tayeh would turn on the music and “we would scream and cry and laugh,” she says. “And trying to feel race upon race, trying to make our heartbeats match.”

Sometimes, songs start playing when Tayeh doesn’t press play, and she feels O’Connor’s spirit close by. “Beautiful things happened in that space,” Tayeh says. “And I wouldn’t say it was my iPad. I would say it was a connection to her, and a saying yes to us.”

“I hope you hear the sound of these bodies together,” she continues. “I hope the buildings we go to do this work will vibrate loudly, through the clouds, to their core. Because people love it. And people like me need it.”

Boom: A Poem by Sinead O’Connor He is in Aviva Studios, Manchester, From 25 to 27 June.