Fearghus Ó Conchúir Choreographer and Dance Artist

Author Archives: Fearghus

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Ste Murray’s photos of Féile Fáilte

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Ste Murray has been documenting The Casement Project from the outset.  His photos of Féile Fáilte give a flavour of the atmosphere, activity and beauty of the day. You can view a selection here

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Press shots from Féile Fáilte

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Having rehearsed until after 11pm the previous night and knowing that we would be active again until midnight that day, I was a little reluctant to get myself and the dancers to Banna for a press call at midday on the … read more…

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‘We are Orlando and we keep dancing their dance’ by Theo Clinkard

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Theo wrote a beautiful and thoughtful blog post for SoutheastDance about his response to the Orlando shootings and how it affected his dancing in Butterflies and Bones: ‘Dance continues to have a new found relevance for me these last few weeks. It is inherently empathetic, uniting, celebratory and hopeful.

Its ephemerality a distillation of this moment in time. To dance is to humanise and this is needed now more than ever before.’
read more…

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After the premiere of Butterflies and Bones

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We don’t get to know everything about a work from its premiere. It evolves with each performance and reveals more about its potential. It surprises me, even as I begin to understand it more deeply. That, at least, is my aspiration when I’m making work and it is that hope to be surprised by the work and by the performers in it that gives Butterflies and Bones its openness, malleability and resistance to determinacy. read more…

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Premiere of Butterflies and Bones

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Roger Casement was denied his full identity. In Glasnevin he is still in exile from his beloved Antrim, which he wanted to be his last resting place. These successive internments, the posthumous exiling’s from his own place and from his own self, are addressed beautifully in Butterflies and Bones. read more…

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Jeffrey Dudgeon’s lecture for Hospitable Bodies: The Casement Symposium

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HOSPITABLE BODIES: THE CASEMENT SYMPOSIUM Roger Casement in 1916 Friday 3 June 2016 British Library Jeffrey Dudgeon   I am opening today’s session and have therefore to give you a crash course in the Casement diary controversy, and indicate where … read more…

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Gerard Howlin in The Irish Examiner on The Casement Project and the Arts in Ireland

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Butterflies and Bones is the deposition of Casement’s natural body, from the body politic, first one state and then another created for him. Through dance, in sweat and sinew, a sense of the true man will be recomposed. There is a limit to words and dance as an art form powerfully surpasses it

The enactment of art, the nurture of artists, the years of trial and experiment by a man from the Ring Gaeltacht like Ó Conchúir and the talented dancers who perform his work, is a synthesis of many talents and arts forms besides their own. It is a cultural ecosystem which in Ireland is parched to the point of exhaustion. The recent diminution of the arts portfolio in government, is further demoralisation, yet again. read more…

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Colm Tóibín on Roger Casement

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I’ve been thinking about people who might be interested in the biography of Roger Casement.  As I’ve tried to make clear, Butterflies and Bones which we premiere next week in London is an imaginative response to the life and after-life of … read more…

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Rehearsals at The Place – The Casement Project

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I hadn’t planned initially to have this phase of rehearsals in London but after the sense of connection to people who were supporting the project that I felt when we rehearsed there in September during Choreodrome, it was clear to me that we couldn’t disappear for half a year and then come back with a premiere. Maintaining and building on connections and networks of support felt like a necessity. And so, thanks to the help of The Place, we were able to rehearse for a week. read more…

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After the Bodies Politic Symposium: The Casement Project

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There is still much to process from the Bodies Politic Symposium. What was fascinating, as the day progressed, was to see a common energy and sense of shared cause in what might have been disorientatingly diverse material. By the end of the day, we could sense the potential of what Jesse Jones called, a radical solidarity between queers, feminists, people with disabilities, travellers, and other bodies long marginalised for their deviance (this true even of that ‘deviant’ majority – women – whose embodiment has long been stigmatised and consequently policed and disciplined.) read more…

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