Sara Muthi (ROU), Oran Leong (IRL), Aoife Kavanagh (IRL) and Amanda Øiestad Nilsen (NOR)
Post-dance is the second performance event researched and developed by Sara Muthi. As opposed to publishing text as the result of her research Sara prefers to forefront the questions, shortcomings and potential surrounding live-art practices in the Ireland through performance and open dialogue. By way of commissioning live-art in collaboration with visual artists, dancers and musicians in conjunction with institutions and venues across Dublin, Sara aims to re-examine the often preconceived ontology surrounding performance practice. With one eye on the developments of performance practices internationally, particularly in Europe, it is through vigorous research, collaboration and an element of education that Sara develops her research based events.
Post-dance is a new and rather empty terminology. Initially a 2015 conference of the same name it took place at MDT in Stockholm. Created by Danjel Andersson, André Lepecki and Gabriel Smeets, it gathered artists, scholars, thinkers, producers, activists and those who care deeply for dance. Together they considered this new vocabulary as a container for contemporary dance practice/thought which may otherwise suffer from an attempt at capturing it in historically loaded language. Post-dance has no agenda to advance or project the future of movement. Rather, it gives licence to connect things that seem farfetched, make what was once evident, foreign again; consider and cross-pollinate work that does not easily slot into commercial or institutional contexts.
Post-dance is an “open-source concept.” “It is not a leader. It is a container. It needs to be filled.” While performance art practice is overrun with multi-/inter-/post- disciplinary artists, dance may have become a term so vague and unstable that it can envelop any-body. The Dublin context, however, does not often consider the cross section of these paralleling practices. Both approach similar concerns of embodiment, meaning and touch through varying methods, methods that are appropriately and productively transferable. This contribution to Post-dance aims to connect often disparate creative performing communities. It proposes a space to borrow and test each other’s methodologies in order to labour for new answers to worn out questions like; what is dance? What is performance? It also has the potential to prompt answers to questions we have not yet asked.
This performance/lecture hopes to introduce the container of Post-dance to the Irish context through subverting expectations of what we consider to be dance, live-art, musical composition and, perhaps, audience. Post-dance is a container that serves the needs of every national community differently. This is Dublin’s contribution, hopefully one of many.
Press
The research for this project was supported by the INCUBATE residency at Draíocht. Post-dance was kindly funded by Fingal County Council Artists’ Support Scheme. This project is supported and hosted by the Project Arts Centre, Dublin.
Funding
Sara Muthi (ROU) is a Dublin based performance art researcher. She is a recent graduate of MA in Art in the Contemporary World at NCAD and now undertaking a Masters in Philosophy at Trinity College. As managing editor of inaction.ie she commissions critical writing on Irish performance art while developing events such as the performance and panel discussion Anticipation: Actualisation (2018) at the NCAD Gallery. Block Universe is London’s leading performance art festival and international commission body of which Sara acts as a communications assistant for its London and upcoming Berlin programme. She was awarded the INCUBATE residency at Draíocht from June – July 2019 and is currently a Gallery Assistant at the Hang Tough Gallery in Portobello.
Oran Leong (IRL) is a Dublin based dance artist working in a variety of styles and a recent graduate of MA in Contemporary Dance Performance at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. He has worked with contemporary dance companies and choreographers including Iseli-Chiodi, Catherine Young, Kristyn Fontanella and Muirne Bloomer. He is Assistant Artistic Director of Laois Youth Dance Ensemble and was appointed a Fellow of Tipperary Dance Platform 2018/19. This summer, he performed his solo An Chéad Chéim Eile at Lisbon Dance Platform and Project Dance Paris and was commissioned for a site-specific solo by Draíocht presented June 2019. Oran has nearly two decades of Irish dance experience and teaches and trains regularly in aerial dance.
Aoife Kavanagh (IRL) is a composer, pianist, music teacher and choral singer currently undertaking an MA in Music Composition at Trinity College. There she received a grant from the Trinity College Provost’s Performing Art Fund to create a screen-dance exploring the relationship between music and movement. Aoife’s compositional output is multi-faceted. Her background in ballet, jazz and contemporary dance has influenced her creations for dance and live performance. Her choral piece, Coiscéimeanna premiered in the National Concert Hall in May 2019 by the Mornington Singers. Earlier this year Aoife was commissioned to write the music for a collaborative piece between the Dublin Youth Dance Company (IE) and Rise Youth Dance Company (UK).
Amanda Øiestad Nilsen (NOR) is a Norwegian theatre scholar and dramaturge. She holds a BA in Theatre Studies from Bergen University and an MA in Dramaturgy from Aarhus University. In 2017 she wrote her master thesis on post-dance focusing on post-dance as a rebellion for a rehabilitated dance knowledge in the contemporary performing arts field. She works as a critic and writer, freelance dramaturge and as a prompter at the National Theatre in Oslo. She also runs a post-dance blog: www.post-dance.com
Disclaimer
Credits:
Soiléir Doiléir was directed, produced and edited by Oran Leong.
Post-dance original sound design was created and produced by Aoife Kavanagh.
Photography and videography by Kristian Mantalvanos.