Fearghus Ó Conchúir Choreographer and Dance Artist

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A new adventure: ‘Fleadership’ and National Dance Company Wales

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Joining NDCWales allows me to work with an experienced team and to realise transformative projects over a longer period. And it will challenge me to learn. Not just Welsh. There’s lots for me to learn in that changed rhythm. I will want to listen to the company, to listen to all kinds of people in Wales – people who know dance and those that don’t. And I’ll want to stay connected with that network of inspiring friends and colleagues who have sustained me over the years. I wouldn’t be able for this opportunity without them. read more…

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Sweat

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During the second stage of my residency at CCI and at La Briqueterie, I’ve been ill and so I’ve not had the energy to sweat. I haven’t loved being sick. I’ve had to be patient, slower. And that has brought me in directions I might not have otherwise found. read more…

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Ag cleachtadh don Táin/Rehearsing An Táin

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My first dance outing of 2018 was a weekend rehearsal in Dublin for An Táin. read more…

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Residency in Paris

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I was in Paris at the beginning of December thanks to a residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais and at La Briqueterie, the Centre de Développement Chorégraphique du Val de Marne. Every year, the CCI supports Irish artists with residency time (and in the case of visual artists, studio space) in its beautiful premises in the centre of Paris, behind the Panthéon and in the heart of the Sorbonne University quarter. For me, after The Casement Project and the submission of my PhD, I knew I would value some time to begin the process of discovering what route to follow next in my work. So I was delighted to have been awarded a CCI residency to start that process. read more…

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A gift: Tanztendenz’s 5th International Choreographers’ Atelier

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One of Tanztendenz’s projects is a workshop for choreographers from Germany and abroad. The artists are hosted for a week and stimulated with a ‘mix of practical exercises, shared excursions and public lectures’. Most daringly, there is no pressure for any particular outcome from this gathering and stimulation of choreographers. It’s a gift. read more…

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Brave Interdependence/Idirspleáchas Cróga – a talk for Aonarach le Chéile Festival, Dingle

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I want to propose an alternative way of thinking about artists as part of the wider public. The model I have in mind is the brilliant sean nós singer in a community. Everyone has a song, and in group gatherings it’s great to hear everyone’s song, but we know there are some people with a particular ability and gift in singing. And when they sing, they sing for the whole group. Their distinctiveness does not put them outside the group. Nor do they need to diminish their distinctiveness to be connected. If any of you have seen the people ag windáil (literally ‘winding’ the singer by holding their hand and rotating the lower arm from the elbow), connecting physically and encouragingly with the singer, it’s clear that the exceptional gift can be linked and channelled viscerally into, and supported by, a community. That’s the kind of artist I’d like to be in relation to communities that welcome me read more…

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A response from Quarto Collective to Butterflies and Bones at The Mac

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From Quarto Collective Blog: Recently I went to Butterflies and Bones, performed at the MAC as part of The Casement Project, and the Belfast International Arts Festival. The piece was choreographed by Fearghus Ó Conchúir, together with his team 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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The skeleton of Dublin – Filming Allagóirí Chumhachta (and The Casement Project)

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The quarry where we’re filming has provided, in the words of one of the four brothers whose family has run it for generations, the skeleton of Dublin. Granite from this quarry near Blessington has been used in state buildings and … read more…

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