Author Archives: Fearghus
← Older postsDance and Drawing at the CCI
March 15, 2024As part of the Centre Culturel Irlandais’ programming for the Paris Olympic year, its director Nora Hickey M’Sichili has assembled an exhibition on Gaelic Sports in the centre. It’s the third in a series of art and sport exhibitions … read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentHeaney dancing
January 28, 2024What a poet can establish in the act of writing a poem is something a reader can get from the completed work, that is a realisation that as persons and as peoples we can get further into our selves and farther out of ourselves than we might have expected; and this is one of the ways that poetry helps things forward. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentArt of Sport – Artists’ Talk at the Butler Gallery
September 10, 2023It’s an honour and frankly a buzz to have Abú be presented in the Art of Sport exhibition, curated by Anna O’Sullivan, at the Butler Gallery as part of Kilkenny Arts Festival this year. To have our dance work there, presented with impact on specially constructed screens and with Murli’s music filling the gallery, is testimony to the ability of dance to resonate with a wide range of audiences and in the most refined of artistic contexts. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentStep Up 2023
August 11, 2023It has also been important for me that Step Up offers early career professionals the chance to focus on being performing artists. The funding system in Ireland has tended to prioritise creative artists in a way that has incentivised performers to make work rather than see performing as a viable skill, craft and art that can be deepened and enriched with experience and opportunity. I’ve wanted to underline that contributing the performer’s art to the creative process makes work better for choreographers, audiences and other participants. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentSome signs are secret, some manifest
April 28, 2023The space was charged with these memories that are presences now as real as the chalk that still marked the floor, presences that claim space alongside the official military and religious narratives in the chapel’s history. We, as many others have and will, are making different stories and experiences material in the chapel and in ourselves, working with histories that have been lived through us but that exceed us as individuals. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentTearmann Aiteach/ Queer Sanctuary research
February 4, 2023Thanks to a residency opportunity from Dance Ireland, Isabella and I have spent a couple of weeks of research together at Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig. We applied for the residency time to deepen an investigation of how two queer … read more…
Posted in Blog | Tagged Queer Sanctuary, Tearmann Aiteach | Leave a commentAugmenting and filtering – Paris
October 29, 2022I’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. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentAbú – What people said
July 26, 2022Thanks to Rachel Sheil, we got to hear some of the things people said about the Abú performances at UL and Ahane GAA pitch. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentStep Up 2022: Abú – Birdsong
June 13, 2022In conversations with audiences members, a number people at both performances mentioned how enjoyable it had been to be able to hear the sounds of birds alongside or between the music composed by MuRli. The references seemed incidental but they speak to what I think of as an achievement of the piece and of the performances: that we could be with the dancing and with the environment because they were open to each other. read more…
Posted in Blog | Leave a commentPerforming at Originate: Dublin Dance Festival 2022
May 31, 2022Performing at the Dublin Dance Festival(20/21 May 2022) was an emotional experience fuelled primarily by the strong sense of gratitude for how my dancing body has been enriched by a history of relationships that go to make that place. It’s been two pandemic years since I’ve been in Dublin so there are many people there, friends and colleagues, that I haven’t seen in person for at least that long. And as I stepped into the large, airy space of Studio 4 in Dancehouse and began to warm up, I found myself smiling at the many memories of working there. read more…
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