Author Archives: Fearghus
← Older posts Newer posts →Mind Your Step: After the performances
March 10, 2015This robust permeability of Niche depends to a great extent on the qualities of the gifted, creative performers and also to the history of our working together and clarifying the intention and ethics of our way of performing. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentMind Your Step: Niche back in the Docklands
March 10, 2015When I saw the call for artists to participate in the Mind Your Step project, I was worried that it didn’t seem to acknowledge the work of dance artists and others who had linked choreography, urban planning, regeneration, architecture and … read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentThe Rhythm of Fierce: interview with Ellie O’Byrne
February 27, 2015Ellie O’Byrne hosts a weekly arts and culture show in Cork. She came to see a run of The Rhythm of Fierce during our final week of rehearsals at Firkin Crane and when she joined in the dancing herself at the end of the run, I knew she’d be a sympathetic interviewer. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentDance democratisation: Review of Cure at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre
February 11, 2015If choreography is about the placement of the body in the space and each of us manifests our existence through this vessel named “body”, it is just natural that everyone has his version of choreography. If dance-making is about epitomizing the body as a medium of communication, this is what the performance is about. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentL’intime – at the Tipperary Dance Platform 2014
October 25, 2014It occurred to me that in a context where the particular support of an artistic community isn’t available, what Alex and Jazmin are doing in the Tipperary Dance Platform is to curate their own community of support. It is a generous curation, making opportunities for dance enthusiasts, audiences, and professionals at different stages of their careers from Ireland and abroad. It is an act of community building that relies on their hard-work, sustained discipline, creativity, resilience and a network of personal and professional relationships. It does also need funding and infrastructure, even if the actual money is in no way commensurate to the work they and their network put in to making the platform happen read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentNew steps with old friends
July 11, 2014The human body exceeds its corporal borders, (violently, erotically) but does so in relation to external formal structures. Smear wasn’t difficult for Stéphane and me since our dancing together invariably produces sweat and a slippery contact that generates movement beyond the direct lines of pressure and intention. Sweat crosses the body’s skin border, and does so involuntarily. It is not really consciously controlled even if we can generate the conditions that call it forth. Emotional states such as fear also generate sweat as an involuntary exceeding of physical containment. Sharing sweat creates a space of mingling of our insides in a shared point of generative contact. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentBodies in Urban Spaces at the Dublin Dance Festival
June 1, 2014I’ve been aware of Cie. Willi Dorner‘s Bodies in Urban Spaces project for a number of years as it’s been a fixture in dance festivals across the world and videos of its various iterations have provided eye catching and arresting images of dancers squeezed into the crevices of urban space….I loved that near the end of our route, a group of boys in bright hoodies noticed a sculpture of bodies, inspected it and followed the crowd to the next arrangement. Seeing them run and cycle alongside us, I felt the choreography had expanded to include them in a way that reminded me of the effect of Keep Walking in our E.motional Bodies and Cities work: the choreographic structure that is introduced can provide a lense for seeing a bigger choreography beyond it. read more…
Posted in Blog | Tagged Bodies and buildings, bodies in urban space, Dublin Dance Festival, Willi Dorner | Leave a commentRiga Residency
May 21, 2014I’ve spent this past week in residency with Olga Zitluhina, funded by an Arts Council of Ireland bursary. I met Olga as part of the E-motional Bodies and Cities project in 2012/13….Seeing Olga’s impact in Latvia, I question my own lack of tangible legacy. It may be that I am not motivated to create lasting structures. I make temporary structures instead because I expect that people who engage with mine will want to create their own once they’ve had the experience, impetus or example I can provide. read more…
Posted in Blog | Tagged Olga Zitluhina, residency, Riga | 1 CommentCure at The Mac, Belfast
April 23, 2014Cure is alive when it’s performed. And so is a particular way of embodiment for me.
If I don’t perform I worry that Cure is over – finished in my body, finished as a work available to be performed again. Performing keeps alive the possibility that there will be another performance. read more…
Shetland with Sarah Browne
March 5, 2014Clarity is important to me but sometimes you have to trust when something works even if you can’t define it.
Last week I joined Sarah Browne in the Shetlands to help her in the making of film that she will show as part of a new exhibition at CCA in Derry. (It opens March 29th ). We’re agreed that I am the Choreographer. However there will be no danced steps, no interventions that abstract the movement of the subjects. And yet I feel my contribution is part of my wider choreographic approach. read more…
