I’ve been capturing field recordings over the last two years as part of the Dance Connects Project, travelling to cross boarder counties Cavan, Monaghan and Fermanagh-Omagh to meet practitioners of diverse dance communities working across professional, amateur, community and commercial dance in contemporary, jive/country, line/social, Sean-Nós, hip hop/urban, Scottish Country and Flamenco in their border areas.
Researchers Dr Aoife McGrath (School of Arts, English and Languages, QUB) and Dr Victoria Durrer (School of Art History and Cultural Policy, UCD) have been mapping out dance practices in these boarder regions and have a number of different branches to their research tree that includes, everything from detailed reports that will be useful for these communities and to local authorities, to short films, an upcoming podcast that includes the dancers’ voices and experiences and an exhibition ‘Moving through and around’, an exhibition by Helena Hamilton, Aoife McGrath, Simon Mills and myself, in collaboration with eight dancers: Ruth Clarke, Marion Crowe, Jamie Fagan, Jessie Keenan, Tina McGurren, Rebeca Sanchez, Aysha Treanor, and Dylan Quinn.
Some info on the exhibition launch below, it will be travelling around the country through 2025/26 so hopefully plenty of opportunities to see all of their gorgeous work.
https://struleartscentre.co.uk/show/moving-through-and-around-exhibition-launch/
This is a short film that captured the dancer’s first meeting at the incredible Marble Arch Caves. The composition was made from field recordings from the site itself and and sounds from my studio here in Westmeath.
12th - 17th March 2021
Sorca McGrath is a musician, vocalist and audiovisual artist. She was a recipient of the RTE Choice Music Prize for her work on the album Precession with the band Ships, she also writes under her own name and through the Wounded Healer moniker as a solo artist. Wounded Healer is a process based audiovisual project, examining rupture and repair as agents of change.
Her audiovisual piece 'Grief as a Ghost' was written to be performed live in March 2020, for the St. Patrick’s festival, which was postponed due to the rupture of life as we knew it, as the global pandemic landed on the shores of Ireland.
Almost a year later, as live performances remain out of reach for the time being, Grief as a Ghost was filmed in February 2021 by a small masked crew, in the incredible surrounds of St. Finnian’s Bay, Co. Kerry. Thanks to the hosts at The Driftwood Surf Cafe and the attentive arrangements for artist and crew, by Emmet Condon of Homebeat, a once off performance was captured with the hint of silhouettes of the Skellig Islands and the wild Atlantic sea as the backdrop.
The piece as described by Sorca “is a prayer of loss and love that weaves augmented vocals, sounds and visuals in response to each other, creating a unique tapestry of sound and vision through each passing.” She adds, “It was created with a live audience in mind, as an immersive experience, but hopefully as we’ve all had to find ways to immerse ourselves in experiences in our small intimate spaces at home, some of its communal intention will come alive through the film that was captured”.
Photos courtesy of Hens Teeth Studio.
Sorca McGrath 