LIVE COLLISION INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2020 – A CURATED FESTIVAL PROGRAMME OF LIVE ART INTENDED TO TAKE PLACE OVER 5 DAYS, APRIL 2020
In response to COVID-19 we have taken the decision to postpone our festival dates. Our priority is the health and safety of our artists, festival team, collaborators, audience and the wider public. We will reshape and reform at a later point in the year across live performance and digital platforms. For now, we invite you to join us in celebrating LCIF2020 through a digital rendering of our intended festival programme. ELECTRIC DREAMS, the festival that never was.
We will postpone Live Collision International Festival 2020 from 22 – 26 April until such time as we know artists and audiences can be safe. We will work with festival artists and presenting partners to find alternative dates, and we will continue to adhere to the best advice of the HSE, Arts Council Ireland, our presenting partners, the government and all relevant bodies. Inevitably it will not be possible to present the festival as we had originally intended with all of its composite parts.
The current situation has been impactful on independent artists effecting rehearsal processes, commissions, bookings and subsequent income. We will continue to support our festival artists during this difficult time with support, advice, payments and future planning. We will honour our commitments and find ways to lend essential support at this time to artists and our festival partners.
For now, we ask you to join us for the festival that never was….it is important both the curatorial intention of the festival and the artistic intention of each artist has an opportunity to resonate with Live Collision’s audience. The politic, context, criticality and form, of each artist and their work, is highly valuable and of significant relevance. How individual work & artists sit alongside each other, touch off each other, shape and collide to form our festival programme is no accident. Instead it is a statement of intent, a commitment and an articulation of the vision that sits central to Live Collision; shaping our invitation to our festival audience and acting as a rallying cry to our festival community to come together. Collisions happen, friendships are formed, inspiration is shared, discussions are had, minds are met, ideas contested and we all become richer for spending time together in both purpose and place.
Live Collision International Festival will continue to manifest throughout 2020 & 2021 as a hybrid festival programme – including live performance and digital happenings; publishing, podcasting and networked/streamed performances straight to your personal mobile devices. Together in ELECTRIC DREAMS, with live & digital works propelled by our exceptional festival artists; we will continue to challenge the parameters of ‘liveness’ and celebrate the artistic intent of festival, artists & audiences alike. I look forward to reshaping the festival over the weeks and months ahead and I am certain the forms, in which it will manifest, will reflect the rigour and integrity of our festival artists and community alike. Let’s be there for each other, let’s find ways to hold each other up and remain connected as a festival community. For now please read on to discover the festival that never was… – Lynnette Moran, Festival Director
VISITING ARTISTS
International artists & global visions
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Defiantly challenging homophobia and transphobia, OUT is a duet – a conversation between two bodies, carving out a new kind of space, reclaiming Dancehall and celebrating Vogue culture amongst the bittersweet scent of oranges.
“We’re shape-shifting in a bid to fit in; to be black enough, straight enough, Jamaican enough…” Embracing personal, political and cultural dissonance; this act of interdisciplinary self-expression smashes through normativity, summoning voices and re-enacting movements in an exhilarating mash-up of remembrance and re-invention.
Winner of the 2017 South East Dance A Place to Dance Brighton Fringe Award. Nominated for the 2017 Total Theatre & The Place Award for Dance.
★★★★
“a powerfully eloquent dance dialogue…
performed with both calm reserve and concentrated intensity”
– The Stage
$ELFIE$ is the third performance in a series by Marikiscrycrycry that mobilizes Black and queer aesthetics against the current political climate. Through an expanded choreographic proposition, Sharpe and collaborator Kam Wan fiercely traverse the emotional landscapes of “allostatic load” (wear and tear on the body due to repeated stress), setting ambivalent responses to political melancholia alongside unapologetic joyousness and violence.
“a raw portrait of black, queer identity and politics”
– Exeunt
Doppelgänger DJs Barry and Barry desperately seek connection with the world beyond…
Two of Scotland’s finest live artists, Rosana Cade (Walking:Holding, Sister) and Ivor MacAskill (STUD, Alma Mater), spew out their dark and riotous take on modern communication, as the identical hosts in a surreal phone-in talk show. Doppelgänger DJs Barry and Barry desperately seek connection with the world beyond… Finding humour, warmth and despair in the absurd, accompanied by a weird, wild soundscape by Yas Clarke.
★★★★
“sharp, smart and seriously entertaining”
Herald
We were really excited to be bringing Moot Moot to Live Collision this year. We’ve both previously presented work separately at the festival: Rosana with Walking:Holding in 2013, and Ivor with STUD in 2015, and we really enjoyed the friendly atmosphere and the opportunity to get a glimpse into what’s happening in the performance scene in Ireland. We were thrilled to be invited there as Cade & MacAskill to introduce our collaborative practice to Dublin, reconnect with the local community, and hopefully make some new friends over a Guinness or two. We’ll be keeping in close contact with Lynnette to see what can happen in the future and still look forward bringing Moot Moot there at some point. Sending love to everyone!
— Rosana Cade
IRISH PREMIERES
Large-scale works by Ireland’s leading companies
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Taking location and recent histories as its starting place, THE HERE TRIO work challenges preconceived ideas about site, history and the right to belong in a place. Trauma mediates so much of our beliefs and behaviours, and with this in mind, The Here Trio strives to bring us back into the moment – to a place where those scars, real or imagined, no longer determine our every outcome.
A collaboration in Dance, Film and Sound for Live Collision International Festival 2020. Commissioned and co-produced by Maiden Voyage Dance in Belfast.
TO BE FRANK a new dance-theatre piece exploring how men and boys are shaped by and influence the world they live in. An all male cast take responsibility for guiding a boy though his life as he encounters the realities facing young men today. Together they explore questions of power, violence and the suppression of vulnerability in a world where men are seen as a liability to themselves and others.
Theatre Makers Brokentalkers, Artist / Writer Fiona Whelan and Movement Director Eddie Kay explore the physicality and psychology of masculinity combining movement, testimony and research to create an intensely honest and timely theatrical experience.
I wanted The Here Trio to be performing within the context of Live Collision International Festival this year for many reasons. The piece itself reflects on states of presence and memory and “being”, and explores the edges of these experiences which can lead to separation and conflict. Organising these thoughts and ideas in relation Brexit and the context of the piece’s commission by Maiden Voyage Dance in Belfast, to have presented at Live Collision 2020 would have given a supported home to this collaboration between dance, sound and film, as exploration of digital technology in performance in Dublin is mainly associated with Live Collision. The Here Trio was looking forward also to the openness and curiosity of the Live Collision audiences as we pushed into new ground with our work.
— Liz Roche —
WORK-IN-PROGRESS
New and emerging work from dynamic voices
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DECOYS is a new work-in-progress by documentary theatre artist Shaun Dunne, looking at the reintegration of sex offenders into mainstream community.
An invitation. A live trick. 20 minutes.
We might have to go over time…
“Live Collision is a bold, experimental and challenging platform, that encourages unconventional thinking and experimentation. Sharing Decoys at this year’s festival was going to be a great opportunity for the work to grow and breathe next to some radical thinkers and makers. I look forward to bringing this work back to Live Collision as soon as is safe.”
– Shaun Dunne
WATCH ME (if you want) is an experimental solo show exploring the theme of pornography and its role and impact in society. A highly theatrical performance, blending movement, confession, verbatim, audience participation and lots of shame.
Developed with Johanna Freiburg through the Pan Pan International Mentorship programme in 2019. Further development in Ballhaus Ost, Berlin through the i-Portunus Mobility Scheme. Also supported by Goethe Institute.
“I was extremely proud and excited to present the first iteration of Watch Me (if you want) in Live Collision this year. Finding the right home for a piece of work is essential. Live Collision offers a space that embraces liveness, risk, experimentation, body exploration and community. For my work in progress, my intention was to experiment with the relationship between me the performer and the audience. I wanted to play with blurring these two spaces, to push the boundaries of these roles and to embrace the liveness of all of us being in the one space together. I am sad that this can no longer occur in April but excited for the time where we will all be in a room together again.”
– Fionnuala Gygax
DIGITAL HAPPENINGS
Live, broadcast, published, podcast, VR & streamed performances
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EXPANDED FIELDS by Jenny Roche, Ruth Gibson, Bruno Martelli and Mel Mercier, invites audiences into proximity with a piece of choreography, to encounter the inner worlds, images, sounds and sensations that dancers experience in the performance of a moment of dance. Film, sound installation and virtual reality spaces alongside episodic live performance illuminate the ‘expanded fields’ emanating from this dancing moment, inviting the viewer into an intimate perspective on the complexities of individual and shared experiences of dancing together. The creative team have worked with live performance, film, Motion Capture data and sound recordings of the dancers to produce an installation which enables the audience to enter into this intimate perspective on what it means to dance a piece of choreography.
Renn in Utero is a multi sensory experience through audio, visual projections and touch. Focusing on the idea of rest in a public setting. Renn aims to access tranquility among the chaotic world we live in. Bringing our conscious state closer together as a connected, ruminative & immersive sonic & visual piece.
Fractions of conversations had with friends, field recordings & some archival episodes pulled from Éalú (podcast) are echoed in this piece. Archival visuals highlighting some of Ireland’s overlooked heroes such as Samantha Mumba & Paul McGraw are also included. Whilst exploring and interrogating your perception of race within Ireland. This sensory combination guides you, flowing from a meditative state to questioning our reality.
THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH by Caroline Smith is a filmic interpretation of the ANU Productions’ live theatre production TORCH, the outcome of a two year research phase working with the women of St Helens, an industrial town in the North West of England. Blurring the edges between the real and imagined, this all female production has been reinterpreted for the screen, continuing the theme of the production’s original intention of delving into historical and contemporary events, to bring the voices of communities and untold stories to the fore.
Commissioned by Heart of Glass as part of HELEN made possible by Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence programme.
I was lucky enough to attend Live Collision last year, and witnessed a festival that not only had the quality and variety worthy of international status, but that also felt linked by a direction and a programme of works you could trust. Each piece I experienced felt as if it was conceived with truthful integrity, with a starting point of bold and honest intent, with the aim to consider humanity rather than me, myself and I. Therefore I was delighted to be asked to screen our film as part of the 2020 programme, with the film’s key message being to look and really listen to the world around us. I felt it would be safe in the hands of Live Collision, and that the festival would recognise the importance of the subject matter and provide an audience that could learn from, debate and feel the content of the piece.
— Caroline Smith
PERFORMANCE INSTALLATIONS
Works of time, gestation and temporality
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Sound does not dissolve in water; it travels.
Our oceans have preserved and circulated the sounds of human history- of drowning and survival, of crossings and attempted crossings. As small Island people our daily encounters with the sea, and larger patterns of migration and displacement have shaped who we are individually and spiritually, collectively and culturally. We have sung and spoken about the ocean for as long as we can remember and the ocean has sung for us too. This ancient sea song helps us to re-member ourselves- a resounding ancestral chorus of who we were before we came, how we journeyed, and who we lost along the way.
“I participated in a workshop as part of Live Collision last year and it really gave me a good sense of what the festival is about; the dedication to presenting works that engage with current political and social contexts and conversations was clear, this along with the broad range of interdisciplinary works shown made me think that Live Collision was the perfect platform to present my work. I am looking forward to working with the festival during these compromising circumstances to figure out a creative way to present my work and continue my collaboration with them.”
—Maïa Nunes
Amanda Coogan in collaboration with the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf will present a new performance. REMEMBERING BEETHOVEN AS A DEAF ARTIST promises to be a visually sumptuous performance, telling the stories of the Irish Deaf community to the Ode to Joy.
DISCURSIVE EVENTS
Exploring festival topics & subject matter – WHY LIVE ART, WHY NOW?
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Origins Eile (OE) is a new curatorial collective for people of colour (QTIPOC) based in Dublin led by Karen Miano. OE is dedicated to creating space, visibility and support for POC in Ireland with an emphasis on the safety and celebration of Queer People of Colour (QPOC). OE is an arts & community focused group that organise events, discussions, workshops and more. They are rigorous and self-critical in their aspirations and are open to growing and expanding into whatever the community needs.
Live Collision and presenting partners commission Origins Eile to create and publish a critical podcast and talk based/salon series delving into the subject matter of the festival and taking influence from Octavia Butlers’ works – proposing questions of human extinction, racial distinction, planetary transformation, enforced mutation, generative alienation and altered kinship.
Indigo & Cloth will host a series of morning events curated by Live Collision. We had planned to invite you to an early morning / pre-work art & culture programme with special guests, live performances & gatherings accompanied by coffee and seasonal special products at Indigo & Cloth, Café. Please watch this space for alternative dates throughout summer and autumn.
Fried Plantains Collective is back with NU ROOTS for its third year ever-growing with Live Collison! Nu Roots 2020 artists will take on an ethereal form, bringing low lighting, fog surrounding night experience of live music, poetry and spooky pantomimes. The evening will showcase the Goddess Hecate by Ruairi Coneelly; Afrofuturist artists Demigosh and Dj Karma performing immersive electronic music and soundscapes; Caoimhe Lavelle and Nkiru will perform their gorgeous spoken word and music, while Spooky Beor will delight us in sordid banshee-esque tales. Rising Damp will create deep multidisciplinary live music, Celaviedmai will rock the night with her powerful blend of live hiphop and punk music and Osaro will tell an Orisha folklore and host the evening.
IN RESIDENCE
Writer & Artists in residence
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ISACS (Irish Street Arts, Circus & Spectacle Network) joins forces with Live Collision to host an Open Call for an Artist from their network to receive a residency throughout the LCIF2020 to participate in all activities of the festival. The artist selected will be someone working across live performance and street arts with an active enquiry around audience, proximity and blurring the lines across performance and public space.
Shelley Hastings is a writer, dramaturg and creative producer. Her writing has been published by Southword Journal, Unbound and This is Tomorrow. She has been short/longlisted for the Seán O’Faoláin Prize, The Pat Kavanagh Award, The Galley Beggar Short Story Prize and The Fish Short Story Prize. She was the runner up in the Mollie Salisbury Cup. Previously she worked for over fifteen years as the Artistic Associate/Senior Producer at Battersea Arts Centre in London.
Festival Director
Lynnette Moran
lynnette@livecollision.com
BOX OFFICE
Project Arts Centre:
No.39 East Essex Street,
Temple Bar,
Dublin 2, Ireland.
Open Hours:
Monday – Saturday, from 11am – 7pm.
box-office@projectartscentre.ie
Call: +353 1 881 9613
Funded by Arts Council’s Festivals Investment Scheme and Dublin City Council Arts Office.