BITE SIZE // SCRATCH

BITE SIZE // SCRATCH is a ‘curated’ fast and furious look at the current new blood / next generation artists who are making dynamic new work in Ireland. Irish artists and companies have limited opportunities to *Scratch live work, and Irish audiences have limited opportunities to engage in live processes ahead of final works. Therefore, Live Collision has curated a selection of companies to present as part of BITE SIZE // SCRATCH.

We are excited to see this work sit alongside the rich and varied programme of the festival which is a truly intergenerational programme of live work across disciplines. And a festival programme that evidences artists practice both before and after ‘shows’ happen. Live Collision audiences are critically engaged and we look forward to welcoming them to this new work.

Information on artists featured to follow.

Matthew Bratko:
The Church of The Tides: This Is A Cult

Cults are powerful. Cults are convincing. Cults identify and fulfill deep needs within us. The Church of The Tides is a cult, and an attempt to negotiate the manipulation inherent in organized religion to gain a further understanding of the revitalizing power of religious services.

Matthew Bratko’s work explores the power of spiritual energy in a theatrical setting.  His work is equally a formal exploration of dramaturgical honesty through the use of collective action within live performance, and an attempt to unravel the impact of his batshit crazy religious upbringing on his quest to save the world. He grew up in the Evangelical Charismatic Christian movement, homeschooled by his parents since the first grade.  After a Series of Strange and Unusual Experiences, he’s now a gay art witch utilizing the full range of spiritual expression to harness collective human energy.

Biography:
Matthew owes religion his life. He was born as a result of the “Quiverful” movement that urged Christian couple to not use any form of birth control, and let God plan their families in order to provide Him with “arrows” (believers raised in the church) in his “quiver.” He was pulled out of school in the first grade because God told his parents to homeschool him.

This continued until he left home for UC Berkeley, where he studied Political Science and Performance Studies, started performing and producing theatre, and actualized his latent homosexuality. He continued to the University of Florida, for an MFA in Acting, and produced GUTFest, an underground theatre festival. He moved to Dublin to work with Collapsing Horse Theatre Company, and continued producing theatre and creating his own work. He also performs as KYLE KYLE KYLE KYLE KYLE KYLE KYLE, a surrealist cabaret act.

Chaos Factory:
MorphMe

Chaos Factory present a distorted phantasy.
Come and search for the self in a hall of deception. What reflects back?
MorphMe is a kaleidoscopic examination of the mind. Of the body. Of how the mind sees the body. With self-altering technology at our fingertips and the bombardment of the latest bodily perfection trends, what lengths will we go to to eradicate our perceived flaws?

A multidisciplinary performance that is both alluding and intimate.

Biography:
Chaos Factory is a new experimental Dublin based theatre company founded by Fionnuala Gygax, Danielle Galligan, Venetia Bowe and Rachel Bergin. Chaos Factory’s work is physically led, putting the body at the centre of their exploration in order to make theatre that is playful, strange and beautiful.

Their debut production Kiss Kiss Slap Slap was featured in Dublin Fringe Festival 2018. In order to develop this production Chaos Factory were awarded Incubation Space from Dublin City Council as well as support from Fishamble: The New Play Company’s New Play Clinic.

Chaos Factory are currently developing a new work MorphMe which examines body dysmorphia in the beauty driven world of today. This development is supported by The Arts Council, Dún-Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and The Pavilion Theatre Gallery Space Award 2019.

A BITE SIZE // SCRATCH performance of MorphMe will be presented as part of Live Collision 2019.

Emily Aoibheann:

If aerial is the dance of industrial technology, what will the dance of bio-architecture be? Observing new innovations in space travel and architecture in particular, and considering the little black monolithic portals we carry with us everywhere we go, I see the possibilities of moving towards an organic, mutable-technological future. However, as living architect Rachel Armstrong points out, ‘We are living intimately with the waste of our past’, that of Victorian industrial technology. Are we, as Mark Fisher argued, experiencing a slow cancellation of the future, ‘surrounded as we are by zombie forms on all sides’? 

In a twin-production project on the themes of Civilization and Nature to premier in Dublin 2019, I reimagine and reinvigorate the performance enterprise as a speculative environmental form, holding fast to an idea that the future is possible, desirable and beautiful.

In this talk I will discuss my creative process and ideas; my approach to speculative design; technical challenges in communicating the ‘not-yet’ and the new; methods of transdisciplinary collaboration; accessing the unconscious in process; hauntings and hauntology.

Biography:

Emily Aoibheann is an artist, aerialist and educator. Although her expertise lies in circus and aerial, her varied background leads to a highly creative, collaborative and original integration of multiple art forms.

A pioneer of aerial dance in Ireland, in 2010 Emily co-founded PaperDolls Performance Company, who went on to win the Spirit of Fringe award with Constellations at Dublin Fringe Festival in 2012, the first for an Irish circus company in the history of the festival. In 2014 into 2015, Emily produced a series of work Object Piggy, with aspects of film and illustration, culminating in a performance production at Dublin Fringe Festival. Object Piggy won the Judge’s Choice Award that year and marked the beginning of Emily’s work as an independent artist.

In 2016, she received an Arts Council Circus Project Award to develop new methodologies for aerial movement and performance. In extension, she presented work in progress at Dublin Theatre Festival in October 2017, drawing on an ongoing collaboration with visual artist Liing Heaney. In 2018, Emily received Arts Grant Funding for a two year programme of work including a twin production project on the themes of Civilization and Nature, due for debut in 2019. Public announcements of the work are forthcoming.

Emily co-founded Cat’s Paw Experimental Aerial Dance Meeting with Slovakian Aerial Priestess Ariadna Vendelova in 2018. The first international meeting took place in Košice, Slovakia with support from Tabačka Kulturfabrik in January 2019. Emily is owner and director of Creation Aerial Studio and Aerial Dance School in Cabra West, offering professional training and creative facilities to aerial artists and recreational classes in aerial dance.