I’ve been developing movement material/a dance that turns on itself, gradually expanding the energy and scope of its gyre until it settles again (thanks to fellow Artist in Resident Emily Cooper who reminded me of the word ‘gyre’ when she came to watch me working). At CCI, I repeated the dance regularly to get to know it and its possibilities and gradually I amassed these solo recordings that I thought I’d assemble into something bigger. Working on video is a way to amplify the dancing when I don’t have access to other performers, a way to grow from the singular. And it’s interesting that despite the potential megalomania of multiplying myself, the choreographer in me pays less attention to me as an individual performer in the triptych I’ve made. What’s activated instead is the temporal, physical and energetic space between the bodies on the screen. And of course not only the moving bodies, but the ever-present bodies in the large religious paintings at CCI that canonise versions of how bodies could be and that remind us of CCI’s long religious history not just as a centre of Irish culture but as a centre of Irish Catholicism. Of course culture, politics and religion are not separate – and CCI’s building and evolution is a material manifestation of how they have intertwined and separated in Irish history. And that history links Ireland beyond its geographical borders, not only to France but to wider European and global histories. The courtyard at the CCI has plaques that commemorate the building’s use as a shelter for ‘displaced persons claiming America citizenship’ in the Second World War and of the Polish Seminary set up by survivors of theDachau concentration camp. Thanks to a partnership with Dublin Fringe Festival, the CCI courtyard currently has three large posters which display utopian manifestos by three collectives: Glitter HOLE (a queer performance space and DIY drag collective), WeAreGriot (a collective of Nigerian-Irish poets and storytellers) and gender.RIP (a trans- led art collective). As I dance at CCI, I’m thinking about the kinds of embodiment and movement that this important Irish cultural space can support. And I’ve been grateful that it has been so hospitable to the impulses and experiences that make my body.
The triptych has a long history in Christian art and as the name implies, it often refers to works that could be folded shut. It’s hinged on a dynamic of opening and closing, of revelation and protection. I’ve used this multiplication of the solo in video in collaborations with Dan Dubowitz, in the twelve screen installation of solo performances for Tattered Outlaws of History, and in a triptych for If the Invader Comes
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