Research Notes (for you beloved)
is the public outcome from a period of research and development I undertook at Chisenhale Dance Space between November last year and early March this year. The r & d’s working title was Syncopal Actions and falling states and picked up from last years material developed for SPILL Festival 07. It was supported by a space bursary from Chisenhale which gave me 50 hours in the studio, and and Arts Council of England Grants for the Arts award which paid for travel, more studio time and inviting Doran George into the space to converse and input with me about my process. Doran and I have been dialoguing for years now about one anothers work, along with Fiona Wright, he was crucial in the development of my more movement based (dare I say dance) work last year for SPILL and whilst undergoing his own work at Chisenhale has been a wonderful intervening and supportive presence during the space bursary.
Here’s a short biog:
Doran’s experimental dance/ live art practice focuses on the physical, emotional, interpersonal, and cultural body in recovery. His performance work has been funded, commissioned and presented internationally.
and here is a link to his current project, The Mourner’s Dance.
During one of the studio days that Doran came in for, he made a dance.
In the initial proposal the activities in the studio were defined as:
- Construction of action based tasks that are currently impossible to master, cultivating emergent dances at the point of break down,
- Dances on the edge of my ability to balance.
- Working with movement material that does not follow a compositional, dramatic or kinetic logic, but the upsetting of the harmonious mechanics of my body.
- Body and action appeared as an object. Actions as places alongside each other, movement offered for consideration
- Formalism as a vehicle through which a nascent emotional nature is found in the functional imperatives of the/my body.
Which is pretty much what happened.
Here are my final notes that I gave to the audience who came to the public showing of material Chisenhale Research Notes (for you beloved) and references, they include some of Doran’s input. The material was approximately 17 minutes and in four sections. Silence and a piece from John Duncan’s sound work Palace of Mind were used.
Here are some images grabbed from video, not great quality but still give some impression.
Several audience members sent me remarkable texts in response to the work in reply to what did you see me do? Here, with typos, is Note to self, what I think I did.
The intention is now to keep working and extending the material and to develop it into a full work with the support of commissioning venues.
Some of the material will be introduced into Untitled (for you Beloved) at endurance, VIVID, Birmingham, 26th April.
ENDURANCE
24 – 26 April 2008
Endurance is a three-day programme of screenings, performances and exhibition exploring the physical and mental limits of human endurance. Spanning four decades this international programme looks at the co-development of moving image and live art and the integral role the lens has played in the development of live art practice as both mirror and collaborator.
See full details here: Endurance, VIVID press release
and the schedule here: Endurance, VIVID schedule
In Untitled (for you Beloved) Kira O’Reilly explores the collision between the hard surface of the physical space with the softness and vulnerability of her body. Concrete against skin, cold against warmth, falling against not falling.
There is a play with the notion of endurance as she makes these investigations, and wonders what is endured, if anything?
The audience bears witness to these forays; attempts, failures, clumsy, ungainly, embarrassed and assured and the ever changing sounds and colours that interrupt her body. The work is explicit, sometimes uncomfortable, and seeks to question rather than provide easy answers.
