Scorched Earth

Scorched Earth is part crime-drama, part psychological thriller — piercing into a dark but fundamental question of the Irish psyche. What right do we have to the land beneath our feet? What are we willing to do to keep it? Or take it.

Inspired by John B. Keane’s The Field, the work draws audiences into the stark world of an interrogation room, where a Detective and suspect dredge through the ghosts of an unsolved murder long thought forgotten.

Blurring the lines of dance and theatre, Luke Murphy — creator of the flawless multi-award-winning Volcano, a hit at Brisbane Festival 2024 — weaves story, striking visuals, and visceral movement into a tapestry through which five international performers sear a picture of wanting, striving, deserving, and resenting.

A poetic final chapter of reaching and failing leaves no doubt of the cost of success.

Scorched Earth is a Co-Production with Dublin Dance Festival and Galway International Arts Festival and is supported by a 2025 Arts Council of Ireland Arts Grant Award and Culture Ireland. Created with additional support from Dance Cork Firkin Crane; Shawbrook Residential; Cork City Council; Town Hall Theatre/Black Box Theatre, Galway; Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, and Bathway Theatre at University of Greenwich. This project is supported through the Giving Program by Tim Fairfax AC and Gina Fairfax AC, and Shaun and Suzanne Kenny.