tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37939882259893014382024-08-30T18:23:39.627+01:00Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.comBlogger172125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-45401700823196738182010-08-04T23:15:00.005+01:002010-08-04T23:33:48.642+01:00

My new website has just gone live. You can find it at www.fearghus.netThis blog has been a important way for me to share my work with people and for that reason, the new website is still built around the blog. However, it means that the blog won't exist here on blogger anymore. So if you want to stay in touch with my work, please join me at www.fearghus.netMeanwhile, thanks to blogger for

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-75848452892886744032010-07-14T13:26:00.007+01:002010-07-19T09:22:18.848+01:00

I’ve just finished a project with five second year BA students at London Contemporary Dance School. I’ve been encouraging/facilitating/mentoring them to think about context when they are developing their choreography. In particular, I’ve focused their attention on Kings Cross, where the school is based, and which is the biggest city centre regeneration project in Europe at the moment. Mostly

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-26145230959785048502010-06-04T18:25:00.004+01:002010-06-04T19:47:42.029+01:00

Because Matthew was coming to do Match with me, and since Stéphane was already in Shanghai with his Australian partner, I offered Culture Ireland and the Pavilion that we could do some of the Niche material as an additional performance. Of course it wouldn't really be Niche without Mikel and Bernadette but I hoped the material would survive its being juxtaposed with the strange Expo environment.

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-1196477359109646532010-06-03T07:54:00.008+01:002010-06-04T18:25:35.135+01:00

It was sad to say goodbye to Xiao Ke, He Long and Feng Hao at the end of our series of Dialogue performances in Shanghai. The challenges we faced cemented our relationship and made the piece stronger. But I did have the consolation of familiarity: Matthew and Stéphane were around for me second week in Shanghai so that we could perform Match and some of the Niche material at the Irish Pavilion at

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-34330973177848148092010-05-28T16:20:00.005+01:002010-05-28T17:00:08.127+01:00

Downstream Garage is an important venue for what we would call fringe performance in Shanghai. It is a place where young artists can meet, rehearse and perform, all free of charge since no tickets can be sold as the venue has no performance licence. I visited it on my first trip to China and helped then to buy a dance floor for the venue. It was good to be able to dance on that floor last week

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-59234999713658340282010-05-28T15:10:00.005+01:002010-05-28T15:47:39.578+01:00

We were looking forward to performing in the Ke Arts Center as part of the Shanghai Repertory Theatre’s International Spring Festival. Our producer, Zhang Yuan, got us a slot in the festival and I was very happy as it gave us a context for our performance and a potential audience. The Ke Center is a well established space, originally for visual art but increasingly for performance and the

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-10030609874904619532010-05-28T02:37:00.005+01:002010-05-28T03:06:54.780+01:00

Performing at the Irish Pavilion in the Expo wasn’t easy. I think Xiao Ke, Feng Hao and He Long felt a little weird in the Expo environment as they felt it to be a manifestation of the Chinese government and its desire to present an image of harmony and success to the world. The Disney-style parade that passes through the Expo each day sings over and over the message ‘One World’, but my Chinese

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-51253286063752134252010-05-25T15:32:00.004+01:002010-05-25T15:40:57.103+01:00

Until I upload my own copy to Youtube or Facebook here's a link to RTÉ's Dance on the Box website where all the dance films are available to view.http://www.rte.ie/danceonthebox/films.htmlIt is amusing to reflect that my duet on the pitch at Croke Park provoked more public discussion than this solo dance in a church. Croke Park is clearly the holier ground these days.

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-4019821515472829812010-05-18T16:10:00.006+01:002010-05-18T16:48:57.442+01:00

Last night, RTÉ screened my second Dance on the Box commission called Mo mhórchoir féin. I made the film while we were rehearsing for the Open Niche project and that is one of the reasons that I haven’t written about it until now. Because RTÉ was going to premiere the films, I also felt I had to keep it under wraps but also something about their protective sensitivity around the film made me

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-63950749941306635292010-05-16T15:30:00.004+01:002010-05-16T16:08:35.334+01:00

Three weeks in Beijing have passed quickly and tomorrow I leave for Shanghai and the whole Expo experience. As always, being in China has taught me a lot about myself, my habits and preconceptions, nowhere more so than in relation to traffic and travel.I spent the first week waiting for Platform China whose studio that I’m staying to provide the promised bicycle and in the meantime took a lot of

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-24836098400168996052010-05-04T04:16:00.007+01:002010-05-04T04:53:46.059+01:00

I've been in Beijing over a week now. I'm staying in Caochangdi, an artists' village beyond the famous 798 art district but not quite as far as Beigao where I stayed last year. I'm living in a studio that belongs to the Platform China gallery, one of the many galleries in the village. The whole place, however, is under threat of demolition by Government-sanctioned developers despite its

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-41474280122616162842010-04-29T04:29:00.006+01:002010-04-29T05:51:54.195+01:00

After the visa and volcano induced panic that preceded my arrival to Shanghai, it was reassuring to realise that I don't feel as anxious about arriving in China as I have in the past. I know what to expect though this may be a dangerous misconception in a culture where so much is still impenetrably incomprehensible to me. At least I'm getting a sense of how much I don't know.I've begun to

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-13167918624775953112010-04-21T07:59:00.002+01:002010-04-21T08:08:53.260+01:00

I'm hoping to leave for Shanghai today, volcano permitting. Problems with visas and flights made it seem as if I might not be able to go, but everything is back on track now. I'm performing during May, primarily in the Irish Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo but also in the Ke Center for Contemporary Arts and at the Downstream Garage in Shanghai centre. I'll spend three weeks in Beijing prior

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-17206721357121695242010-04-17T16:05:00.003+01:002010-04-17T16:27:55.390+01:00

Saidhbh at Feenish has uploaded Sweetspot to Vimeo and though it may appear out of synch with my Open Niche, Mo mhórchoir féin and Shanghai EXPO preoccupations, there are lots of reasons why it's appropriate to reconnect with Sweetspot.First of all, the out-of -synchness of this post reminds me that my work doesn't develop in a linear way (a useful note as I contemplate building a website whose

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-89796895618120157982010-04-15T18:26:00.006+01:002010-04-17T16:36:20.397+01:00

We finished Open Niche in Cork just before Easter and since then I’ve had a chance to go on holiday and stand down my brain from the state of high alert it needed to be in through March with its tour, its film-making and its preparations for performing in Shanghai next month. Open Niche was deliberately demanding for me and for the team: we weren’t just fitting the existing Niche performance

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-47567908027691625882010-03-25T23:40:00.008+00:002010-06-21T20:29:20.663+01:00

Arriving in the beautiful Daghdha space on Monday I was daunted by the amount and variety of participants that I needed to bring together to make the piece work. Six dancers from the MA programme in UL with whom I'd already made a short piece, Lucy Suggate who contributed the demented but fiercely precise energy of her Latin Beach, Ed Schouten's focused duet for Isa and Yesse, and the trio of

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-88181399076799224402010-03-24T00:16:00.004+00:002010-03-25T23:40:20.803+00:00

We opened Niche at Pavilion with the dancers from Dublin Youth Dance Company crossing the space from auditorium to stage to join us during the performance. The ease with which they entered and left the playing space, moving from watching to doing to watching again helped to underline the sense that the dancers are not in a separate world but that we all share the same space, are citizens of the

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-2477062882819003952010-03-17T22:50:00.002+00:002010-03-18T10:33:58.732+00:00

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-79014822166706348172010-03-14T20:31:00.003+00:002010-03-14T20:51:43.272+00:00

Matthew, Mikel, Stéphane and Bernadette have gathered again in the wonderful studio 4 in Dancehouse and Niche is being transformed in to Open Niche. We were joined this week by dancers from the core professional company of Siamsa Tíre, The National Folk Theatre. I was expecting that Anne, Adrienne and Jo would come but unfortunately injury prevented Jo from taking part so the material we had

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-78815684298668102010-02-23T20:53:00.005+00:002010-02-23T21:35:19.070+00:00

I've started rehearsing a solo for Mo mhórchoir féin, the film I'm making with Dearbhla Walsh for the Dance on the Box commission. The title is from the Confiteor, the part of the Catholic mass where the congregation confesses 'to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I've done and what I've failed to do.

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-33665763376687157442010-02-19T12:37:00.002+00:002010-02-19T12:53:44.608+00:00

Talking Heads is a an exhibition of work at the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art The information that they sent out to publicise the event connected to the thoughts that my residency with Roberta Lima prompted. It is also relevant as I begin preparations for making a new film with Dearbhla Walsh for the RTÉ/The Arts Council Dance on the Box series. Taking its title from the filmic convention

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-51129538732122835962010-02-14T00:07:00.005+00:002010-02-14T21:41:40.489+00:00

I've spent the past week in the studios at the University of Limerick working with the MA students on a piece of material, some of which will be included in the Limerick performance of Open Niche. The MA students are Karen, Katrin, Kasia , Patric, Lisa and Erika, a diverse group that is notably bonded. They dance together, eat together, travel around campus together. That cohesion was

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-39198635082610139112010-02-11T20:50:00.006+00:002010-02-13T23:58:40.025+00:00

Until the end of April, my time and creative energy will mostly (though not exclusively, thanks to a successful Dance on the Box application of which more quite soon) be consumed by Open Niche. After I made Niche in 2008, I knew I wanted to continue the life of the piece and to share it with different venues around the country, but it didn't feel right that a piece made in response to a

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-40586306976123657572010-01-31T21:24:00.002+00:002010-01-31T21:32:12.883+00:00

It's nice to be reminded of what we achieved with Pick'n'Mix:The Dance Selection; and it's useful encouragement to get on with the next incarnation. Maybe it will be in a library on Walthamstow's High Street?

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3793988225989301438.post-17135640250144047602010-01-29T19:41:00.004+00:002010-02-04T09:26:21.711+00:00

I flew directly from New York to Limerick to start a two-week residency at the Daghdha Dance Company. I applied for the residency so that I could work with the video artist Roberta Lima whom I met in Beijing during our residencies at the RedGate Gallery. The video work that she made there with my help has already been shown in an exhibition in Tirol. Coming from a practice which had involved

Fearghushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05276348393160607634noreply@blogger.com0