Notes, Thoughts and Impressions from the 55th Venice Biennale

Before we move on to 2014, I'd like to catch you up on my wonderful November trip to catch the end of the Venice Biennale (First published on www.VULGO.ie).  I didn't get a chance to write it up until just before New Year's Eve, due to finishing off the radio projects, and more intense editing of the TG4 documentary, which is hopefully "coming soon" - I'll keep you posted.  But how is the following for some new year inspiration?  Bonne Annee to you dear reader! Here's to more great and inspiring adventures in 2014 :-)

AIDE-MEMOIRE TO THE OVERWHELMINGNESS OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIC PALACE.  GIARDINI – ARSENALE. 

IDIOSYNCRATIC OUTSIDERS; GARAGE ARTISTS; MAGIC; AMATEURS; OBSESSIVES; LONERS; HEALERS; EVERYTHING SPIRITUAL [WITH A FEW WELL-KNOWN LIVING ARTISTS THROWN IN TOO].

From the minute I read Waldemar Januscak’s article in Sunday Times Culture Magazine in May about the weirdo line-up this year, I knew I had to get there.  The 2013 Venice Biennale had me firmly in its grip.  At the time I was toiling on my WB Yeats Radio series [see previous two VULGO posts], and immediately thought how relevant the magical, obsessive oddball themes were to WB Yeats.  Plus – if not now – when?  Who knows where we’ll all be in 2015…  [The Aer Lingus direct flight was reasonable too, at €130 return].

Appropriately drenched in the subconscious material of endless Venetian WATER, the Venice Biennale is the most important art exhibition in the world, involving 88 countries, and sets the tone in the art world for the next two years.

So, the curator must aspire to the role of diviner.  Utopian Venice, floating in so much water that you have to either board bus-boats (vaporettos), or swim to simply get from A to B, is the perfect hostess for this dreamy metaphor. 

Forget “subtext”.  This Biennale’s curator Massimiliano Gioni dredged up the subconscious, and even the unconscious from the substrata where they usually skulk, [low-key but volcanic], into the forefront of our awareness.  Where does art come from?  This was flagged unambiguously right from the first portal as he inserted Swiss psychotherapist Karl Gustav Jung’s extraordinary “Red Book”,  strategically at the entrance to the Giardini [strongly] suggesting the frame in which everything was best considered. Pages of Jung’s private illustrated manuscript glowed in lowly-lit glass cases.  Like Turner Watercolours at National Gallery of Ireland, we were requested not to photograph them however.  The famous psychotherapist’s drawings depicted self-induced visions and fantasies he had worked on privately for over 16 years. This was Jung’s debut in the art world as Gioni juxtaposed his little known Red Book with works of contemporary art for the first time ever – inviting a meditation on inner images and dreams throughout the entire exhibition.

 

Just to add an Irish twist here - while this sounds joyous indeed, it perhaps wouldn’t have been to the delight of Lucia Joyce, who got on notoriously with Jung when she was his patient.  Her famous father didn’t exactly click with Jung either. [This is on my mind as I have just read Carol Loeb Schloss’s biography “To Dance in the Wake”].  The Joyce’s might wonder, as Olwen Fouere [the only Irish artist who featured in Gioni’s selection – in “Camillo’s Idea” by Aurelien Froment at the Arsenale] did, why Aran Island visitor Antonin Artaud [esoteric and theatrical visionary who was deported from Ireland in a strait jacket in 1937] or WB Yeats weren’t featured more, or indeed at all? In another incidence of Jungian synchronicity (or even just "plane" old synchronicity), Fouere, who I was lucky enough to collaborate with on the aforementioned Yeats radio documentaries, and a forthcoming TG4 documentary on Erina Brady shot last May, happened to be on the same flights to and from Venice to Dublin with me.  But I digress.

While an adjacent room to Jung's Red Book housed Art Deco Tarot Cards by “the wickedest man in the world” Aleister Crowley and his partner Frieda Harris, the main thoroughfare led through to a large, bright room adorned with philosopher Rudolf Steiner’s famous blackboards, ‘mystic outpourings’ that were an obvious major influence on Joseph Beuys. A manifestation of philosopher as artist trying to explain the universe to us “the blackboard diagrams of Rudolf Steiner feverishly relate the idealist dream of grasping and conveying the universe as a whole”.  But does Steiner, founder of the Steiner School system qualify as an artist? If so, it must be in the Beuysian sense that everyone is an artist.  The definition of an artist was very blurry in this exhibition. 

Even the line between journalism and art was blurred, for example in the Iraqi Pavillion Jamal Penjweny’s deeply poignant documentary film ‘Another Life’ which tells the story of Kurdish traders eking out a terrifying sub-existence smuggling alcohol from Iraq to the Iranian border on donkeys.  But I digress again.  The Venice Biennale is like that – as labyrinthine and easy to get lost in as the inner ear of Venice itself. 

 

Back to Steiner, whose blackboards were also the backdrop for Tino Senghal’s fairly forgettable installation [at least I have forgotten it already].  Steiner was a Theosophist, an organisation you may be familiar with thanks to its founder “Madam Blavatsky”, as championed by our own WB Yeats, AE, and other lesser known figures in their esoteric circle. Dreams, hallucinations, and visions.  Where do they come from?   Incidentally, Steiner was not only a Theosophist, he was also an Anthroposophist (I invite you to google that term).  So you can imagine how a sense of cosmic awe permeated the whole Exhibition – like a shimmery reflection of the spooky and marvelous city of Venice itself. 

Of course there is nothing like a random encounter to remind you of the everyday nature of the theories being put forward by Steiner, Gioni, et al.  Jungian synchronicity, for example.  When I was diligently photographing Rudolf Steiner’s blackboards (for later scrutiny), I heard a voice behind me.  “You seem very interested in those”. 

“Oh yes, I am” I replied.  I turned towards the source of this voice for a chat, and as the conversation went on I became more and more sure that this was a Dublin accent I was hearing. Indeed it was. This voice was from Cabra, no less.  Seamus Hughes introduced himself as dancer/choreographer/artist, originally from Dublin but now residing in Switzerland.  He had his own dance company in Australia for over a decade, trained with (Abbey School of Ballet- trained) Des Domican in Dublin, because he was good at lifting girls, and ultimately got a scholarship to London.  He then went on to dance in the Geneva Ballet.  What are the chances? This encounter could have been part of the exhibition!  We discussed the outsider theme of the exhibition, and Seamus [Jim] Hughes declared himself happily to be an outsider where the Irish art scene is concerned - though he did speak highly of the late Dorothy Walker, who introduced him to Joseph Beuys in the 1970s. 

Here is a picture I took of the same Seamus Hughes in the Giardini, though really I should have taken his picture in the Rudolf Steiner room just to get the background absolutely right. 

Seamus was keen to get involved with the Tino Senghal performers in their performance, and when I heard that, well, I let him to it and proceeded to the next room, which contained the work of the extraordinary Swiss artist Emma Kunz.  Seamus, who is also now a qualified practitioner of Bert Hellinger’s Family Constellations Therapy [chiming perfectly with the exhibition], highly recommended her.

Swiss Emma Kunz [1892 – 1963], believed that her drawings, as products of “the most profound interiorisation of the outward and the purest exteriorisation of the inward”, allowed her to discern and transform negative energy.  

Kunz practiced “healing art” and certainly is a manifestation of what French philosopher Bernard Stiegler termed  “Artist as therapist” at a recent talk run by Gradcam at DIT Mountjoy Square. 

To give you an idea of what I am talking about, here is an excerpt of her biog, as presented alongside her geometric drawings at the Giardini:

“Born into a family of impoverished weavers, Emma Kunz became aware that she possessed paranormal abilities – telepathy, extrasensory perception, and healing powers – when she was just a child.  During her school years she developed an interest in radiesthesia, a form of divination that uses energy fields, and began to draw extensively in her notebooks.  It was not until 1939 however that she began her healing practice, and began to make elaborate geometric drawings in pencil and colour crayon on millimetre graph paper.  Guided by a pendulum, Kunz produced each work in a single session, sometimes working continuously for more than 24 hours.  Despite their aesthetic appeal, Kunz’s drawings were not meant to function as art.  Rather, they were an integral part of her healing rituals, in which she would lay the drawings on the floor between herself and her patient in order to divine energy disruptions”.

[hats off to the great illuminating, enlightening and very well written programme notes throughout the exhibition]. 

For me, the piece de resistance that still has me thinking, has to be “387 houses by Peter Fritz”, the Arsenale installation of unknown Austrian insurance clerk Peter Fritz’s model buildings – found in 1993 meticulously wrapped in black garbage bags in a junk shop.  And here they are in all their glory for the world, and its mother, to behold in the Venice Biennale, curated by Oliver Croy (the artist who found them), and architect Oliver Esler.  Little is known of Fritz [1916 – 1992] himself, but his exquisite model buildings, which never saw an exhibition spotlight during his lifetime bear testament to his extraordinary unheralded talent – and what some would term his obsession. Art to some, obsession to others.  The moral of this?  Keep going to junk shops, keep making art in your garage, and keep hoarding.  Much of Gioni’s line-up rang to me of a glorious paean to hoarding.  I grew up with hoarders, and I’m not sure if I should tell them about this.  [Stop reading, Mum!] Does this mean they were right all along?  Must get in touch with Gioni who boasts his selection is “idiosyncratic, obsessive, and motivated by the same desire to catalogue the world around us that led aristocratic collectors to keep cabinets of curiosities in centuries gone by”, celebrating “the human imagination as a wild, untameable beast.” Meanwhile, over at the Arsenale, the Encylcopedic Palace itself, by Italian émigré to the US Marino Auriti was also never seen in his lifetime, though he patented it, and had high expectations of world domination. I love the purity of basing this entire exhibition around a person who by many standards would be considered to be a “failure”.  As Beckett put it, “Fail again, Fail better”. Well Auriti certainly is failing better here at the entrance to the Arsenale, having this great world exhibition named after his "failed" vision. 

My thoughts meandered.  Hm, might Marino Auriti’s 1955 notion of The Encyclopedic Palace be like that of VULGO’s utopian founder Charles Wilson Peale [pictured in "The Artist in his Own Museum", right, on the main VULGO page] and his utopian [albeit realised] Philadelphia Museum?  Hmm, perhaps.  At least the similarities outweigh the dissimilairities. 

 

The curator, Massilmiliano Gioni offers guidance:

“Auriti’s [utopian] plan was never carried out, of course, but the dream of a universal, all-embracing knowledge crops up throughout the history of art and humanity, as one that eccentrics like Auriti share with many other artists, writers, scientists, and self-proclaimed prophets who have tried – often in vain – to fashion an image of the world that will capture its infinite variety and richness.  Today, as we grapple with a constant flood of information, such attempts seem even more necessary and even more desperate”. 

Once you've passed that Palazzo, toying so mercilessly with our desire, and indeed our expectation to know everything [especially now, in the age of the internet] it's just a matter of time before Gioni's onslaught - films, photographs, videos, archives, bestiaries, labyrinths, performances, installations - renders you delirious!  Or speechless.

It's actually impossible to really see everything, let alone to catalogue it, so I'm not even going to try.  After Auriti's "failed" Palazzo, Robert Crumb’s Genesis, and a series of more than 40 black-and-white photographs taken by JD ‘Okhai Ojeikere recording fluctuating fashions in the hairstyles of Nigerian women from the Sixties to today. Even at this early point in the Arsenale the dizziness was beginning to set in. 

Here is Steve McQueen, in his anthropological slideshow presentation:

There is the spellbinding and exhilarating archive rap “Grosse Fatigue” by Camille Henrot (Paris, 1978):

Lots of Archive work and research throughout…

16mm projectors and record players…

The Arsenale was populated with artists who were charming characters too.  For example, overlooked parachutist and aerial photographer Edward Spetterini [1852 - 1931], whose beautiful black and white clouds were given an airing:

 

 A charismatic multi-lingual performer, Spetterini presented his balloon expeditions through state of the art slideshows.  By 1928 however, he had already become an anachronism and died in obscurity.  Technology overtook him and left him behind.Until 55^th Venice Biennale! [Does this sound like a potential movie script to you?]

Also there was genteel Eliot Porter - Harvard lecturer turned photographer who began photographing when he received a present of a Brownie in 1921. 

The other claptrap art work that stopped me in my tracks, and still has me espousing its virtues, was that of Brasilian Arthur Bispo di Rosário [1910 – 1989], who believed he had been called upon by God to inventory the world. It was thrilling to see what closely resembled a shopping trolly you might see a homeless person pushing around with all their worldly possessions on it vindicated as “high art”. 

Rosario made his opus obsessively, in preparation for Judgment Day during his five decades in Rio de Janeiro Psychiatric Hospital. In case that makes you as curious as it did me, here is a very short excerpt of “Prisoner of Passage” by Hugo Denizart, a documentary about Rosario shown recently  at V & A Museum: 
The Prisoner of Passage [extract] - video documentary by Hugo Denizart from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

 Incidentally, keeping on an Irish theme, I reckon someone like Mark Patrick Hederman [Abbot of Glenstaal Abbey], would dig this exhibition, its celebration of the unconscious, and the myriad of ways artists find to tune into that vast reservoir.  [Check out his interesting book “Tarot: Talisman or Taboo'].  You may think this stuff is “heathen”, but according to Hederman, it isn’t. 

And here, from Kilkenny, via Konrad’s Heart of Darkness, The Congo, beautifully shot in infared military film, Richard Mosse doing us proud at The Enclave:

The stills were stunningly beautiful – we have seen them before at Photoireland Festival.  But the film installation on several screens, synchronised with exquisite dramaturgy, with killing, guerilla soldiers posing, and innocent children dancing was hard-core.  A C-section at the end was most visceral of all.  Like the aforementioned Iraqi film, this blurred boundaries between current affairs and art, giving us a window into a never-seen world.  But how did this camera get so intimate, win such embedded access with these most outside of all outsiders I wonder?  

The Enclave was the talk of the international press, including the Guardian newspaper, and deservedly so. 

There was undeniable magic too, albeit “British Magic” in Jeremy Deller’s multi-room left wing extravaganza at the British Pavillion over at the Giardini.  What had this London born, 47 year old winner of 2004 Turner Prize to offer? 

Well, after being welcomed by a domineering British Harrier Falcon with his wings magnificently outstretched, I walked through rooms with several photographs of David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase, one of “Londonderry”

– in the same series; a very British film featuring freemasons and British blah blah etc, was offered British tea [civilised], and a mural featuring the mighty William Morris,

for all the world like Big Jim Larkin [who was, after all, from Liverpool] throwing a boat at Roman Abramovic’s obnoxious superyacht which was audaciously and shamelessly moored in the canale at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

On the facing wall, there were the archaeological remnants of the great socialist revolutionary Morris's very democratic printing plates, designed for deliciously egalitarian mass consumption;

something about roubles and framed archive Russian currency on the adjacent wall. 

In the final room, true to Morris's philosophy, you were democratically offered to ink up and print your own original print [hand-made by yourself!  Everyone an artist! of the same Abramovic meets Thor moment on the way out.  How amazing was that?  Well, I have to admit – it really was quite amazing. 

Personally, especially by the end of day three, my head spinning from all the art, I was definitely receiving some messages.  Hearing voices.  Someone was channelling something, for sure.  I had to get out of there. 

What I needed was a magic moment of ethereal calm: this came, as if someone had waved a magic wand, in the form of a small white boat drifting slowly across the final harbour of the Arsenale bearing a crew of musicians playing a graceful lament by the Icelandic composer Kjartan Sveinsson. Icelanic fishing boat, "SS Hangover".  It returned and departed endlessly, even into the mists of November, long after all the super-yachts had departed, playing Sveinsson's music at the end of the Arsenale.  Gorgeous. 

I have heard lots of references to the main themes of this year’s Biennale at various art talks since my return from Venice.  And that was only one month ago. That word “the uncanny” keeps popping up.  As well as “outsider”.  Listen out - you will hear them pop up again and again too.  So watch out for this Zeitgeist, it’s blowing your way from this great Venetian Lagoon of the Unconscious.

And one caveat, just as the conscious in relation to the unconscious, what you read here is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.  I would safely say that this was the most inspiring exhibition I have ever been to. I hope I have given you some idea of what you missed!!!!

 Here are a few more exhibitions and artists of note.  I heard of more, eg Corin Sworn at the Scottish Pavillion from others who got to things I didn't make it to.  You catch things on the wind like that.  And then look them up online - our own private flatscreen encyclopedic palace.  If you want to know more email me and I may give you a private consultation with mini-ipad images.

·       Dorothea Tanning (1910 – 2012): “Self Portrait”

 

·           Sarah Lucas - looks like a difficult yoga pose to get out of!

 

·       Mother obsessed garage-artist Achilles G Rizzolli (1896 – 1981) lived at home with his mother, drew cathedrals, drafted symbolic buildings “YTTE” [Yield to Total Elation]:

Kohei Yoshiyuki “ThePark”, 1971 – 1979: covertly photographing voyeurs of sexual trysts [and the trysts] with infared film and a modified flash.  Hm what does that make him?

·       Eva Kotatkova, “Asylum”, 2013

 

·       Shinichi Sawada (Japan 1982) suffers from severe autism.  Ancient primitive art meets masks of Noh theatre meets Manga cartoons?

 

·       Danh Vo (1975, Vietnam), Cultural Anthropologist & Family Historian: imported remains of colonial era Catholic Church.  Imperialism as a war of dreams; colonisation of myth & imagination

       Cindy Sherman - but I'm now delirious and drifting into the obvious.

 

 "Venetians" at the Arsenale, by Pawel ...

Real Venetians at Maria dell Saluti Festival

The exquisite, immersive Korean Pavillion was the perfect place to end.  "To Breathe".  Phew.

Deirdre Mulrooney

www.deirdremulrooney.com

deir@indigo.ie

Post-script: As far as I can deduce, the Biennale never stops.  Even en route to the airport at Lido Vaporetto stop in the height of low season, I ran into two Swedish artists - Carl Michael Von Hausswolff and Leif Elggren - who had just been to Lazarus Island where they staged an art event to coincide with the end of the Biennale.  They had also held a beach party art event to coincide with the opening on Lido Beach.  It just consisted of eating, drinking, and having a good time, talking to people.  Lazarus Island, they told me had been a leper colony, and was also Armenian speaking.  Lord Byron had gone there to learn Armenian.  Carl Michael Von Hausswolff had been to Limerick, where he was a featured artist in EVA many years ago, and would love to come back to Dublin. That's the sort of place Venice is I guess.

But right now I've got to go and get a life [get out of my garage or equivalent] and go to a party here in Dublin!  Allow me to make my excuses [for any imperfections in these notes], and leave... And incidentally congratulations if you have read this far!

"WB Yeats: Words for Music Perhaps" 2, with Bill Whelan, Jim Flannery, Olwen Fouere and Donnacha Dennehy airing on RTE Lyric FM on November 15th

Programme 2 is coming together now - phew!  It features a nice relaxed chat between greats, composer Bill Whelan and Yeats legend Jim Flannery.  There are funny anecdotes, deep stuff, and interesting revelations.  I won't be giving them away here.  We're also lucky to have the extraordinary Olwen Fouere on board, revisiting Yeats extracts, and sharing her insights and experiences with us.  Photos of her rehearsal/recording with Jim Flannery below.  Check out his book!  Then to top it all off, we have composer Donnacha Dennehy speaking to us from Princeton about his Yeats settings, written for Dawn Upshaw on "Gra agus Bas".    :-)

Thanks to Patrick Sutton of Smock Alley Theatre for kindly lending us the rehearsal space. 

WB Yeats: Words for Music Perhaps (2), will be broadcast on RTE Lyric FM at 7pm on Friday November 15th, 2013, and will be available afterwards as a podcast.

Jim Flannery & Olwen Fouere at The Boys' School Smock Alley Theatre

Olwen Fouere and Jim Flannery discuss WB Yeats

Olwen Fouere and Jim Flannery revisit WB Yeats at Smock Alley

Olwen Fouere as Aoife with Ciaran Hinds as Cuchulainn in 1989

Two decades on, Jim Flannery and Olwen Fouere revisit WB Yeats in 2013

Olwen Fouere as Cathleen Ni Houlian, 1990

Composer Bill Whelan

Prof JW Flannery and his Yeats book.

Composer Donnacha Dennehy

"WB Yeats: Words for Music Perhaps", Programme One Featuring DIT Conservatory of Music reconstructions & "Everlasting Voices" for RTE Lyric FM nearly there!

OK, as I write this, and upload these random iphone photographs of recordings of forgotten scores by Walter Morse Rummel, Edmund Dulac, and Dr. John Larchet for WB Yeats plays with the DIT Conservatory of Music [recorded and edited by DIT's Ben Rawlins],on April 19th and June 28th, Tom Hickey's narration of programme one is being mixed by sound engineer supremo John Davis.  Very exciting! I thought this day would never get here, but I think it is now safe to say that we are well and truly nearly there.  Huge thanks to all at DIT for their kind contribution to the programme - Kerry Houston, Cliona Doris, Julie Maisel, David Scott, Arun Rao, Tom Doorley, Noel Eccles and Ben Rawlins.  Also thanks to "Everlasting Voices" team William Brooks, Nuala Hayes, and Paul Roe.  All going according to plan, you will be able to hear the first of two one hour documentaries "WB Yeats: Words for Music Perhaps" on Friday week, November 8th on RTE Lyric FM in their 7pm "Lyric Feature" slot.  

DIT Conservatory of Music on June 28th, 2013

Singer David Scott, June 28th, 2013

Cliona Doris, Julie Maisel, & Noel Eccles on June 28th, 2013

Here is what to expect: In WB Yeats: Words for Music Perhaps Jim Flannery, Bill Whelan, Donnacha Dennehy, DIT Conservatory of Music, and other Yeats luminaries shine light on the little known role of music in Yeats’ “magical revolution”.  Programme One narrated by Tom Hickey.

In the hope of effecting a democratic, “magical revolution”, not only did WB Yeats evolve a philosophy of chanting his verse, but he also commissioned avant-garde composers Walter Morse Rummel and George Antheil to write music for his plays. What was his relationship to music?  Riverdance composer Bill Whelan and director Jim Flannery reconsider their 1990s Yeats season at the Abbey in light of the first ever recordings of Rummel’s and Edmond Dulac’s forgotten scores, performed by DIT Conservatory of Music. What was WB Yeats – said by many to be tone deaf - hearing in his inner ear? Contributors include Ron Schuchard, Margaret Mills Harper, Donnacha Dennehy, Cliona Doris, Noel Eccles, Olwen Fouere, Harry White, Emilie Morin, Charles Timbrell, and Declan Kiberd.

DIT Conservatory of Music, June 28th, 2013

Walter Morse Rummel's as yet unheard score for "The Dreaming of the Bones"

Cliona Doris & Tom Doorley, April 19th, 2013

RIAM Rehearsal of "Everlasting Voices" by William Brooks, Oct 23rd, 2013

"Everlasting Voices"

"Everlasting Voices"

We were also extremely lucky to find "Everlasting Voices" a new composition by William Brooks, featuring Nuala Hayes on auto-harp, and clarinettist Paul Roe, inspired by WB Yeats and Florence Farr's experiments on "Speaking to the Psaltery".  They kindly allowed us to record their rehearsal at Dublin's Royal Irish Academy of Music last Wednesday, October 23rd  before their lunchtime lecture/performance there.  Here are some pictures of their most fascinating and rather beautiful project:

Nuala Hayes plays auto-harp in "Everlasting Voices"

Margaret Mills Harper, Director of the Yeats Summerschool

Florence Farr, and her Psaltery, made by Arnold Dolmetsch

WB Yeats in 1923

"Everlasting Voices" by William Brooks at RIAM

Thanks too, to Irish Theatre Institute for allowing us to rehearse the VO for programme one there.

"My Art Education" on RTE Sunday Miscellany

"Palette", by Tony Cragg

Life is busy right now and I am in the Yeats-zone, in production with my imminent pair of radio documentaries "WB Yeats: Words for Music Perhaps".  This morning we recorded a wonderful conversation with greats composer Bill Whelan and theatre director Jim Flannery on their five-year annual Yeats season at the Abbey theatre.  Last week we enjoyed Yeatsian conversation with Donnacha Dennehy on his extraordinary Yeats settings; with Margaret Mills Harper on Yeats, Music, Magic and other stuff; and with Charles Timbrell on the intriguing Walter Morse Rummel who wrote the original score for The Dreaming of the Bones.  Next week we chat about the Abbey Orchestra and other related topics with Harry White, as well as with Emilie Morin, Ron Schuchard (Author of The Last Minstrels - check out the e-book version), and musicologist Aileen Dillane.  We're looking forward to it.  And next Saturday, October 12th promises a very special recording session I'll tell you about later!   So watch this space!  Or should I say - listen...

"Outspan", by Tony Cragg

"Eroded Landscape" by Tony Cragg.  From an exhibition entitled "Things Organised Neatly", funnily enough!

"Choose your Colours Carefully", by Tony Cragg

"Five Bottles", by Tony Cragg

In the meantime, here is a link to my latest contribution to RTE Sunday Miscellany, entitled "MY ART EDUCATION", involving a Turner Prize winning sculptor based in Wuppertal, Joseph Beuys, Pina Bausch, and butter - among other contributions that are well worth a listen:

http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9:10201406:68:29-09-2013:
 SUNDAY MISCELLANY 29 September 2013   
New short writing:
The Roundabouts – a poem by Pat Boran
Riverrun by Gemma Tipton
Seán Lester by Maurice Cashell
My Art Education by Deirdre Mulrooney
St. Cyril and a cottage near Lanesboro by Jack Harte
Seamus Heaney in Heaven – a poem by Iggy McGovern
Music:
Prelude in G Flat by Sergei Rachmaninov with James Rhodes (piano)
Aria from Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach performed by
Jens Schöwing’s trio project
The Trout by Franz Schubert sung by Olaf Bär
Adagio from Sonata for Violin and Piano by Leo Janacek with Victoria Mullova (violin) and Piotr Anderszewski (piano)
The Ariel Hornpipe / Eleanor Kane’s Blue performed by Manus McGuire(Fiddle), Denis Morrison(piano) and Garry Ó Briain( guitar)

PS I pick the above images, all (except the Kerrygold), sculptures by Tony Cragg, because I like them, and, they all seem to involve tidying, and cleaning utensils...  You will understand the relevance better if you clean your conscience by listening to my radio essay!  
 

"Comhtharluint Iontach" / A Lovely Coincidence, on RTE Sunday Miscellany

As over in Germany Longford-born Marguerite Donlon launches her 4th International Dance Festival n.o.w. dance saar with a world première of her newest choreography, »Wings« on Thursday, 3rd of October 2013 at the theatre tent in front of the Saarland State Theatre - listen back here to my contribution to RTE Sunday Miscellany, "Comhtharluint Iontach", broadcast last Sunday, about being randomly thrown together with this lrish dance prodigy at Irish College in Colaiste Columba, An Ceathru Rua, at the tender age of twelve, many moons ago! 

Click here to listen - it's the last story on the programme: 

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/sunday-miscellany/

Sunday Miscellany 15 September 2013

New short essays:
Kathleen Lynn by Art Ó Súilleabháin
Leonard Cohen by Roslyn Dee
Sister, sister by Lucy Montague Moffatt
Pilgrimage to Hampstead by Jack Harte
Comhtharlúint Iontach / A Lovely Coincidence by Deirdre Mulrooney
Music:
Courante from Partita No. 4 in D Major by Johann Sebastian Bach performed by Glenn Gould (piano)
I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen
Romance Larghetto from Horn Concerto No 1 in E Flat Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performed by Barry Tuckwell ( French Horn) with the English Chamber Orchestra
Song Without words Opus 109 by Felix Mendelssohn performed by Antonio Meneses (cello) and Gerard Wyss ( piano )

http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9:10197306:68:15-09-2013:

1943 - A Dance Odyssey at Druid Lane Theatre for Galway Culture Night!

I'm delighted that 1943 - A Dance Odyssey has been selected to be screened alongside greats like "Pina" and "NY Export: Opus Jazz" in "An Evening of Dance" at Druid Lane Theatre, Druid Lane, Galway on Culture Night - September 20th, 2013 from 6.00pm - 10.00pm

• 
  

  

Galway Dance Project was established in 2011 to support the development of dance in Galway. On Culture Night it will present a series of free dance showings and screenings in an informal atmosphere at Druid’s beautiful theatre. Beginning at 6pm, a number of Galway’s contemporary dance artists will perform excerpts of work in development where audience members will be invited to come and go as they please, ask questions or give feedback on the work.

Dancers on the night will include Genevieve Ryan, Berni Divilly, Katarzyna Voetter, Daniel Howe and Caoilfhionn De Bhaldraithe with music by Mr. Ebby. The showings will begin at 6pm and run until 7.30pm and run again from 8pm until 9.30pm. This is a perfect opportunity to develop a greater interest and understanding in contemporary dance practices and performance as well as a greater intimacy with the Galway based dance community.

As part of the evening, a reception will also be hosted by Galway Dance Project to announce its forthcoming programme running September to December 2013. Refreshments will be provided in the foyer of Druid Lane Theatre and attendees can enjoy a glass of wine together with their dance experience.

Also on the night, a series of local, national and international dance films will be screened Backstage at Druid Lane Theatre.

The films: 6pm Pina is a tribute to choreographer, Pina Bausch, in which her dancers perform her most famous creations.  8pm: NY Export: Opus Jazz   is a vibrant new film adaptation of a classic work, conceived by New York City Ballet soloists Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi. shot in visually dynamic locations around New York City and set to an evocative jazz score, the ballet follows the daily lives of disaffected urban youth. Blending jazz and ballroom dancing with Latin, African and American rhythms, it is a masterpiece of dance, with a powerfully expressive, sexy and contemporary style.

9pm: 1943 – A Dance Odyssey explores a forgotten reel of film by Irish film industry founder Liam O Laoighaire showing a mysterious modern dancer teaching her tiny pupils in her Harcourt Street studio and dancing freely in the open air in his 1943 “Dance School”. Seventy years on, Deirdre Mulrooney’s documentary discovers who were these tiny dancers and where did the dance of life take them? 

Finally at 9.30pm:  Siul, piece produced and created by Galway based dancer, Berni Divilly, considers the walk of survival and transcendence across time and space.

Tell your Galway friends, and get there if you can! 
www.galwaydanceproject.com

Dance Emergency Shoot; Dance Odyssey on Bigger Screen in Bealtaine Festival; Tree Duet in TickKnock's Save our Forests Sun

It has been a busy few months.  We boarded our Tardis, and got the drama/dance recreations of 1940s Dublin for Dance Emergency (the TG4 Splanc documentary), in the can.  Not only that, we got it in there with the legendary Olwen Fouere re-incarnating 1940s Modern Dance pioneer Erina Brady.  Hooray!

Merrion Square 1940s Flash Mob

Just as I had hoped, Olwen was uncannily perfect as Erina Brady.  With the help of choreographer Jessica Kennedy (of www.junkensemble.com), we managed to recreate a very spooky version of Mary Wigman's iconic "Hexentanz", as well as other choreographies Brady would have performed in Dublin.  There are also a few others we imagine she may have created.  The idea was to find a point where all of our aesthetics intersect - Olwen's; Jessica's; and what we imagine Erina Brady's aesthetic may have been.  (Oh yes, and mine too).

Choreographer Jessica Kennedy photographed by Dragana Jurisic

This translated into a barefoot tree flash mob in Merrion Square exactly one month ago today - on that freezing cold, hailstone-y Friday, May 10th (remember?).

Ingrid Nachstern and Olwyn Lyons dance in Merrion Square

We were so blessed to have dedicated dancers Ingrid Nachstern, and Olwyn Lyons; and from the College of Dance in Monkstown (where Joanna Banks is Director), Georgia Begbie, Shauneen Beggan, Caoimhe Ennis, and Orlaith Carr on board for that test of dance vocation.  During the hailstones, they would practice the choreography under the big trees.  The second the sun came out they would dash out on the cold, wet grass, and dance like it was the sunniest, warmest, most wonderful day we ever had! They were truly awesome. 

1940s Flash Mob in Merrion Square

Looking at these photographs you'd imagine it was a perfect summer's day.  Trust me, it was not.  And not only that, these trojans never so much as complained.  It's inspiring to see that level of professionalism and commitment.  Plus the dance looks wonderful too.

Tree Dance in Merrion Square

I was thrilled to work with the mighty Una Kavanagh again too [since our last collaboration, "ShesaWhore" in Project Cube in 2001]. Una played Reverend Mother alongside her TATSOI collaborator Niamh Shaw.  Niamh and Una make a very convincing pair of 1940s Brigidine nuns, I have to say - which is quite chilling when you think about their contribution to "Laundry".  Other College of Dance pupils played the convent girls in Jacqueline Robinson's 1940s modern dance class [taught by dancer Karen Gleeson as Robinson].  The main challenge for these accomplished, well-trained dancers - Sarah Hanley, Aifric McKinley, Jessica Concannon, Karen McNamara, Hannah Greene, Megan McEvoy, Aoife Ledwith, and the aforementioned - was not to look as good at dancing as they actually are.

Una Kavanagh and Niamh Shaw

In our Bohemian Tardis back to forgotten 1940s Dublin, dancer Lucia Kickham portrayed Ireland's first home-grown modern dancer, June Fryer.

Lucia Kickham and Karen Gleeson photographed by Dragana Jurisic

Lucia and Karen performed a gorgeous duet in our make-believe recreation of a so-called "Bottle and Pyjama" party, hosted by Olwen as Erina, to a fabulous cast of real-life Bohemians including Helen McNulty, Marc Brady, Liadain Herriott, Megan Kennedy, Dragana Jurisic, Caoimhin O Briain, Gary Farrelly, and more arty bohos.  No acting required.

Bottle & Pyjama Party photographed by Dragana Jurisic

Dance Emergency has also been graced with the epic talents of gorgeous Zena Donnelly as young Erina; Tom Hickey, as Erina's cousin Tom Brady, and Peter Sheridan, who takes a genius turn as the detective.   So as you can imagine I can't wait to get into the edit next Monday June 17th and see how this all cuts together.  Lan ar aghaidh!

Dragana Jurisic and Megan Kennedy photographed by Dragana Jurisic

In the meantime I've been transcribing interviews, and planning it all out.  I've also been sorting the fundit film awards - namely, prints relating to "1943 - A Dance Odyssey", with the help and advice in this case of fine art printers, Inspirational Arts.   So if you are one of the generous believers who is waiting for one of these, rest assured the pigment print is drying and it will soon be wending its way in your direction. 

It was a total thrill on May 28th, to see the fruits of this labour, "1943 - A Dance Odyssey", for the first time on the big screen as part of Bealtaine Festival at Axis Arts Centre, Ballymun.  The audience was wonderful, comprising many of the performers from CoisCeim Dance Theatre's preceding "Dance Across Dublin" show, who were lapping it up, and appreciating the presence of the impressive Ann Fryer/Walsh.  Ann was one of the tiny tots in the 1943 film, and currently teaches keep fit classes across Dublin herself in the Fitness League.  As one of the audience members astutely pointed out, Ann is a real advertisement for Modern Dance as an art form.  From my own point of view, it was amazing to hear a live audience respond wholeheartedly to the film - laughing, ooh-ing, ahh-ing, and generally empathising. 

Tree Duet, TickKnock, with Olwyn Lyons and Ingrid Nachstern

Coincidentally, in something like a full circle since Richard Boyd Barrett kindly opened the Bohemians Exhibition at European Union House in memory of June Fryer, on May 9th, 2012 [see below], yesterday afternoon, at his TickKnock "Save our Forests" event, our eco-dancers Olwyn Lyons and Ingrid Nachstern reprised Jessica Kennedy's aforementioned "Erina Brady Tree Dance" choreography from Dance Emergency in a gorgeous "Tree Duet" to "Pass this On" by cool Swedish band "The Knife".  The weather was much better this time around! I'm sure Erina Brady would have been happy with that, and maybe was hovering around  in some other benevolent dimension.  But that's just the friendly tree-loving ghosts...

Tree Duet, with Ingrid Nachstern and Olwyn Lyons

Speaking of ghosts - in other news, my BAI funded Yeats radio project "Words for Music Perhaps" is also happening...  More of which soon enough.  Watch this spooky space... Woo, woo.

Tree Duet, with Ingrid Nachstern and Olwyn Lyons

Oh and one other thing - in the meantime, after the Dance Emergency Shoot, Dublin Dance Festival 2013 ran from May 14th - 28th.  I was happy to be invited on to RTE Radio One's "Arts Tonight" with Vincent Woods, to discuss the proceedings with Seona Mac Reamoinn.  (I told you it has been busy).  Here is a link if you'd like to listen back to the podcast: 
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arts-tonight/programmes/2013/0520/451551-arts-tonight-monday-20-may-2013/?clipid=1219507

And all of that without even mentioning the whole lettuce and purple sprouting broccoli phenomenon in my urban back yard.  I'll save that for another day.