Author Archives: Fearghus
← Older posts Newer posts →E-motional Bodies and Cities: Walking the city
April 17, 2013From our experience of doing the final E-motional Mapping in Limassol with a big group of people following us, we knew that such a crowd of specific spectators had a big impact on how we experienced our process and on how we manifested that experience. Having a large gathering of people on the streets has the practical impact of changing the dynamic and energy of the environment. It occasionally obscures the geometry of the quintet and so challenges our ability to compose with the shape of our relationship in the city. Moreover, even though we are clear that this work is not a performance, the crowd of designated spectators which has gathered specifically to follow us (as distinct from the casual spectators who encounter us on the route) creates a frame that we are drawn to fill. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentE-motional Bodies and Cities: Wounded Cities
April 7, 2013“Places, even when materially demolished, remained haunted by …. the ‘unresolved remainders of memory’. These unresolved remainders ‘do not consist of depositions laid down as is assumed in theories preoccupied with leaving marks and traces in an unchanging material base but in pathways that branch off every more diversely into a multiple futurity’. At some moments in time and in some places, we might encounter those residuals and move through pasts to possible futures and return differently to presents. Places are thus both personal and social, made of human and non-human lives.” Karen Till read more…
Posted in Blog | 1 CommentCure/E-motional Bodies and Cities – Resurrection in Limassol
March 31, 2013Children have no difficulty falling and getting up again. I’ve noticed when I’ve presented work to audiences that aren’t familiar with contemporary dance that they remark on the fact that I am like a child in that I am comfortable moving around on the ground. I guess it’s not a thing that adults do so much or give themselves much permission to do. And it’s a skill we lose if we don’t practise it. Dancers practise falling and recovering quickly and I’ve noticed in Cyprus that it is the dancers who are already thinking of what next while I sense others are still in the stasis of shock. In this case, the dancers will test the way ahead, getting things moving when crisis has caused things to stop. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentCure: Formation – work with Elena Giannotti
March 18, 2013Elena was the last of the choreographers for me to start work on for Cure. One of the first things she asked me to do was to learn to make an origami crane. (You can follow the tutorial here if you want to have a go). The process requires care and concentration and we discussed the relevance of care in the work of recovery. As a doctor of Chinese medicine, she has a deep understanding of the careful, caring commitment to a process of recovery that is required by both patient and doctor. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentCure: Davin O’Dwyer on Austerity, Homeopathy and Bad Medicine
March 18, 2013When seen as a rejection of austerity, the Italian vote actually makes some sense. As a supposed cure-all for everything that ails us, austerity is sorely lacking in evidence to support its efficacy.
Our doctors don’t prescribe homeopathy or placebos, and our departments of health tend not to rely on complementary medicine as a cornerstone of public-health policy. Unfortunately, in capitals and central banks all over Europe and North America, the promotion of fiscal policies that run contrary to the evidence are the only policies that are being entertained right now. read more…
Cure: Illness, individuality and the group
March 11, 2013Psychologist Oliver James points out that mental health is not just an individual problem nor can it be addressed by individuals alone. Through Cure, I have been able to experience and build on the support of a particular network that has sustained me (artistically at the very least) in the past and continues to do so in this work.
However, in accepting that good mental health depends on a sense of belonging, I don’t accept that groups are sui generis beneficent since it is precisely the intolerance of some collectives that excludes individuals and puts them in psychologically, emotionally and socially vulnerable situations. read more…
Employment-based Postgraduate Programme: I’m doing a PhD
February 24, 2013Minister for Research and Innovation, Sean Sherlock, announced the recipients of a new Employment-based Postgraduate Fellowship that supports MA and PhD researchers to work with Irish businesses and organisations. I applied to the programme before Christmas but couldn’t announce the … read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentE-motional Bodies and Cities: Art and Geography Conference in Lyon
February 20, 2013Irish artists had a strong presence at the Art and Geography Conference I attended last week in Lyon. Ríonach Ní Néill and Joe Lee, Christine Mackey, Michelle Browne, Olwen Fouéré and Andrew Duggan all made strong presentations of work and reflection on practice in a way that encouraged me about bringing my own work into this academic arena. The conference was an opportunity for me to recognise connections between many strands of my own practice and that of my peers in artistic and academic disciplines. Ríonach presented a new film, Area, that she’s made with Joe Lee. It’s a beautiful film filled with stories, arresting images, eloquent dancing from many different kinds of bodies and no small amount of love. I recognised in it many of the Macushla dancers with whom, through Ríonach, I have had an opportunity of working but I also recognised the Docklands’ streets where much of the film is set and where my own bodies and buildings research started when I was Artist in Residence for Dublin City Council. read more…
Posted in Blog | 1 CommentCure: Rehearsals with Sarah in Limerick
February 9, 2013What was most exciting for me was to realise that in finding the right material, that Sarah had found how to choreograph for me. The material released in me associations from which we could build images as well as providing information (touch, stretch, resistance) that informed the movement material I generated. We talked a great deal but once the material arrived in the studio, the choreography seemed to arrive with it with relative ease. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentCure: Rehearsals with Stéphane in Melbourne
January 25, 2013When I think about Cure, it’s important to recognise the place of strong energy, of roughness, of effort in a process of recovery. It’s not all about breathing deeply and fading away into meditation. Something about that turbulent Dionysian energy makes me feel alive even if I am not one to live too long in chaos. Perhaps what I enjoy is surviving the chaos, making it through to calmness and for that reason I need the disturbance so that I can experience the pleasure of rediscovering equilibrium. If I were always in equilibrium, I’d get bored – and worse: I’d wonder if I were alive. So recovery for me is about recognising my appetite for and investment in the challenge. Without challenge, I don’t know that I’ve survived. read more…
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