Red Torc Performance

Finally this month I was able to take up my residency in DanceHouse to develop new work. I won the Ignition residency, a partnership between Dance Ireland and the Dublin Circus Project supported by Arts Council of Ireland. My residency was meant to take place in March 2020 but when Covid hit us it was postponed until now. During a time where there is very little happening in live performance, this residency was an amazing opportunity. It gave me a purpose and a context to train, to make work again and to be mentored by Amanda Coogan and Kevin Edward Turner.

I was under no obligation to do a showing for this residency but I felt live performance is a huge part of the process of learning and developing new work, and there is much to explore!

Something magic happens in live performance; a collective energy between viewers and performers. It is a shared experience, and in my case, a shared journey. I did a performance on the streets of Dublin on Saturday and was over whelmed by the amount of support I received. People in the street were so generous, supportive and empathetic. There is such a need for this lost connection of liveness.

I’m a performance artist with a background in Jewellery- making and so, for Saturday’s performance I made a Torc of red ice. As I walked up Grafton Street on Saturday morning my ice jewellery melted and dried in rivulets down my body and onto the street. The audience, the people on Grafton street were with me every step of the way as I explored this new work. An audience witness is a hugely important part of developing and making live performance.

The work started as an idea to make ethical jewellery. Disturbed at the understanding that diamonds and gold are two out of the top three causes of war. I wondered could I join my different disciplines to explore this destruction, to both the land and to people. An environmental and human rights piece. The performance picked up national attention and appeared twice in the Irish Times news paper as well as the Broadsheet paper. Video and images coming soon!