After receiving the inaugural Artist in Residence for ‘Siamsa Tire’ in June 2017, my initial idea was to develop a piece of work/s or an installation based on the ethos of the National Folk Theatre, using materials that both relate to my own practice and would be of relevenace to the the troupe and its past. Initially I decided to work with the dancers in relation to the traditional style of dancing which was relevant to the Kerry based Folk Theatre group. The style was introduced by the dance master Jeremiah Molyneaux, born in 1883, who later became affectionately known as ‘Munnix’.
I have been working with the dancers of the National Folk Theatre of Ireland at Siamsa Tíre since 2017 on a drawing performance/installation. We began by tracking the movement of the footsteps for the Blackbird set dance, a tradtitional dance using the Munnix style of dance using natural materials, resulting in large scrolls made by the dancers own marks from the pattern of the Blackbird dance. Since then we have been using somatic expression to explore cultural traditions and fusing them with environmental issues by way of a performance-based drawing with materials from the landscape including peat, sand and charcoal.