Performance / 20-22 February 2014

VISITANT

Tickets: 15/12

All tickets 19 February just €10!

Show Time: 8.00pm

Inspired by the Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”, Visitant is the latest collaboration between composer Trevor Knight, Japanese Butoh Dancer Gyohei Zaitsu, and artist Alice Maher. Previous work includes the critically acclaimed slat, The Devil’s Spine Band and The Gift. For this project they are joined by harpist/vocalist Aine O’Dwyer (United Bible Studies) and costume designer Yuni Hong (slat).
In Marquez’s story, an angel creature, half celestial, half decrepit human, falls to earth and is confined in the hen house of a peasant family who put him on display for the locals as paid entertainment.  This strange parable of human greed and an inability to recognize true beauty is the starting point for Visitant, which will exist at an artistic intersection where music, visual art, butoh dance, and a dose of sci-fi will meet. Music and sound will form the backbone of the performance allowing an open, improvised formula of interaction.
Butoh
Butoh is an avante-garde performance art with underground origins in Japan in the late 1950’s /early 60’s. Its founders Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno were influenced by the German expressionistic dancer Mary Wigman, as well as writers such as Genet, Artaud and de Sade, the Surrealist and Dadaist movements, Marcel Marceau and flamenco dancer La Argentina. Hijikata’s first experiments were called Ankoku Butoh or “The Dance of Darkness”, tapping into ancient DNA and dormant primaeval forces thus allowing the body to speak for itself through improvised unconscious movement.

Credits

Devised by the company
Directed by Trevor Knight
Choreographed by Gyohei Zaitsu
Lighting Design by Marcus Costello
Set Design by Alice Maher
Costume by Yuni Hong
Composed by Trevor Knight and Aine O’Dwyer
Production Management by Miriam Duffy
Produced by Aisling Murray
Performed by Trevor Knight (keyboards/vocal/devices), Áine O’Dwyer (harp/vocal/melodica) and Gyohei Zaitsu (butoh dancer)

Press

“If Hieronymous Bosch were a 21st-century composer and theatre-maker, this is what he would do. A powerful work that makes the audience question itself as well as what constitutes a ‘civilised’ human”. The Irish Times on “slat”
“Beautiful and thrilling….an essential experience” The Arts Show, RTE Radio 1 on “slat”

Disclaimer

Suitable 16+ (possible nudity)

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