Category Archives: Blog
← Older posts Newer posts →L’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…
‘The renaissance has begun’ – Arts and Culture in Waltham Forest
November 20, 2013Earlier this month, I took part in a networking evening for ‘creatives’ in Waltham Forest where I’ve lived since moving to London 20 years ago, having fallen in love with dance and with Pete. Hosted at the William Morris Gallery (deservedly and delightfully Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2013), the event was a great opportunity to meet some of the many people in Waltham Forest who are involved in the cultural sector both locally and in (mostly London-based) national cultural institutions like the Royal Opera House and the Barbica read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentPorous
October 17, 2013Porous is a 20 minute piece I’ve been invited to make for Maiden Voyage as part of their Dance Exposed series that brings dance into public spaces. It will premiere officially in the Belfast Festival this weekend, with three performances on Saturday in the gallery space at the MAC and three further performances on Sunday in the foyer of the Ulster Museum.
I don’t often do commissions and I was curious to know what prompted Nicola Curry, Artistic Director of Maiden Voyage to invite me to make a piece for the company. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentCure: Remembering discussion, food and flow at the Dublin Dance Festival
October 16, 2013As I continue to tour Cure, and try to extend the choreography in a way that invites people in to the work from different angles, it’s great to have this video reminder of the the supper we held at Fire Station Artist’s Studios before the premiere in the Dublin Dance Festival last May. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentCure: Autumn tour – Ennis and Tralee
October 7, 2013I am always happy that the right people find their way to the performances (I don’t expect that it’s for everyone) but I do believe there are more people that could be the right people if only I could let them know that it will be ok. The challenge is that some of what people appreciate is exactly what would have put them off coming if they’d known it in advance. That post-show discussion reassured me that Cure had a resonance in Tralee, as it did in Ennis. And it’s that reassurance that makes the investment of time, resources and energy worthwhile, for however many people see it. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a comment ← Older posts Newer posts →