I visited Paris in September to attend the celebrations for the Centre Cultural Irlandais‘ 20th Anniversary. 
The following day, as part of Journées Éuropéenes du Patrimonie – similar to Open House weekends elsewhere – I visited some of the buildings in the 5eme near the CCI, including the Mairie du 5eme. The city/district hall sits to one corner of the Panthéon and has all the neoclassical grandeur of the building project to which it and the Panthéon belong. Finding myself alone in the expansive Salle des Fetes, I couldn’t help but celebrate with a little dance. I’m familiar with placing my dancing in relation to urban architecture, using dance to explore what’s possible for a body in these spaces. And I’m familiar with sharing videos online of this work. inviting others into the often solitary dance experiences. What’s different about this video posted as an Instagram reel, is that I used one of the standard filters – Pixie – that adds a sparkle to the image and, though this video doesn’t foreground it, a little eyeliner to human faces. The filter adds a glamour to the image, not out of keeping with the opulent surroundings. It also creates a space on Instagram that’s different from the one in which I danced and even the one I made by framing my dancing on the cameraphone video. This augmentation is supplemented by the sound of Shahab Coohe playing the shantoor on a track with the band Tulca. I met Shahab during a previous residency at CCI and enjoyed dancing to his improvisations very much. Music, physical and digital environment, movement all combine in this short dance to create something I’d like to investigate further.
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