Fearghus Ó Conchúir Choreographer and Dance Artist

Category Archives: Blog

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Moving Layers – Clwstwr R&D NDCWales

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I came across Rob Eagle’s work through Twitter. I noticed that he was developing AR experiences with a queer edge. For NDCWales, working with Rob could be at once an opportunity to innovate in formats of dance creation and presentation and it could also bring gender diversity and sexuality into greater focus in the Company’s creative work.s.

We were interested in a notion of fluidity and liquidity, something that linked the distinctive quality of dance that can keep ideas, experiences and consequently identity in motion, and the potential of an augmented reality to transform experience. In that idea of fluidity, for me was also a sense of the queer as a verb – an action of deviation, of motion – rather than a noun – a label and fixed identity read more…

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Nigel Charnock’s Lunatic for NDCWales

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The energy that Nigel Charnock managed to dance, scream, laugh and whack into the world still reverberates despite his too early death 7 years ago. The challenge that Nigel’s work offers to everyone – performers and audiences – is to be more, to risk going further and to have fun in the process. read more…

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Tir Cyfreddin/Shared Ground – Workshop in Cardiff Dance Festival

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“Outside competitions and professional performances, dance is a gift of one’s way of expressing oneself through movement. It makes one vulnerable. It makes one risk judgment and rejection; yet all giving is thus. A soulful gift is the giving of oneself with no expectation of reciprocity” Eva Marloes read more…

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Annwyl i mi in Japan

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It wasn’t ideal that Ireland (first in the Rugby World Cup rankings) should be beaten by what’s currently a second tier rugby nation –  Japan.  But the hosts played a beautiful game and deserved the win on the day.  The prime … read more…

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Annwyl i mi / Dear to Me: a hidden landscape

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Reading Owen Sheers’ Calon, I came across a quotation from Seamus Heaney’s Postscript that Sheers uses to describe the experience of the Welsh rugby supporter emotionally buffeted by the vagaries of the national team: ‘to catch the heart off guard and blow it open’. I was struck by the surprise, thrill and implied violence of the description and it made me seek Heaney’s poem to understand the context of the quotation. read more…

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Annwyl i mi/Dear to Me: Eisteddfod – Balchder

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The word balchder/pride is often used in relation to the values of Welsh rugby. I felt hugely proud of the dancers for their resilience, commitment and skill in embracing the environment. I saw them pull together, to take care of each other and of the work that we’d done together. And I was moved to see a community and team in action. Ultimately that’s what the work is about. Building a community of support, one that is resilient, inclusive and strong, feels like an important artistic, political, and human activity in these fractured times. read more…

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Annwyl i mi/ Dear to me. Weeks Two and Three

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Because our first iteration of the the Rygbi Project will be outdoors, it’s been important to build this experience of responding to the unpredictability of environment, public and surface into the choreography and into the dancers’ knowledge. read more…

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Annywl i mi/Dear to me. Week One

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This week I’ve been inspired by rugby as a way to forge relationships, communities, teams of support – support that would take care of people but also that would support them to take the risks necessary to excel. I want the work not to be about community but to model it and that means taking time to figure out the structures and approaches that will support our community. read more…

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Rugby around Wales: The Rygbi Project

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Since I proposed that we would use the physicality, emotion and community of rugby in Wales as a way to think about how we come together, work together, thrive together, I’ve been wondering how to absorb information about the experience of rugby from across Wales read more…

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The Rygbi Project – beginning

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I haven’t posted for quite a while. It’s just over six months since I started my role as Artistic Director of National Dance Company Wales and getting to know the company and the people who care about it and invest in it has taken a great deal of energy and attention. But I’m excited that I’ll soon be making work for the company. read more…

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