As I See It (week 2)

Hey, right, firstly I want to say thank you for your feedback. It has been an interesting and busy week, which has helped shape the forthcoming post.

Five years ago, I was in the local centre for women who identify as lesbian or bisexual in Cork, Ireland, Linc, and I saw a poster; seeking people in wheelchairs who wanted to dance, there was a date, time and venue for a workshop, so I decided to go along.

It was on a Saturday morning, with something like a 10am start (madness, Saturday's are for sleep, aren't they?). I went along and knew nobody, had no expectations, didn't even know if I'd like it. There were a good few there, by the time we took our first break I was hooked, completely addicted, I was moving my body in ways like never before and using my chair as a tool to dance, as opposed to using it because I had to. I was dancing on my knees and it was seen as beautiful. When I went home after the first day, I could feel it, my mobility had improved, I went back on the Sunday, thirsty for more, my body felt like a spunge which wanted to soak up all of this new information, information of how to move, how to travel in my chair, how to interact with other dancers to mention but a few. Anyway there were a series of workshops which for me built up more of a hunger to keep continuing. On completion of the workshops, which took place in both Cork City and West Cork, weekly community classes started up, taught by Tara Brandel and Rhona Coughlin, who also facilitated the workshops. Again the weekly classes had me hooked. I continued these classes for a while and got to work with people like Jess Curtis. I started taking other workshops which Tara led in a local school of dance who supported Croi Glan from the start. My love for dance was growing. I developed skills in things like contact improv, taking and giving weight,  working on my own as well as with a group, becoming aware of space, getting used to using my body both in and out of my chair and allowing my chair become part of my body. In June 2008 after a lot of rehearsing and chocolate biscuit cake I was performing in a dance piece, Body, choreographed by Tara Brandel as part of the Cork Mid-Summer Festival. I was dancing with dancers from other companies as well as Croi Glan. dancers who have been dancing for years, I was actually sharing the stage with them! Just before we performed 'Body', Tara asked me if I would be interested in making a debut with her, I couldn't believe it, needless to say I said yes.  A few months later I was introduced to a new dancer, Dawn and a choreographer, David Bolger. David had never worked with an integrated company. He blew my mind, he is the best in Ireland you could wish to work with, he really listened and took every body's opinion on board, listened to our stories and took a genuine interest in the company and us as individual dancers. He created a piece with us, On The Wall and anytime we perform it, I feel an amazing sense of pride. I don't know what it is, maybe the piece is just so close to my heart because a chunk of it is about how I learnt to walk.   After working with David and premiering his piece at Cork Mid- Summer Festival, we  started working with Adam Benjum. On working with Adam I got to know two more dancers, James O'Shea and Tom Pritchard. Adam created a piece, This Is, which we premired at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2010. Making the piece I found tough, looking back is it any wonder, it was just my third professional piece. It is a really good piece and even got a four star review in an Irish national newspaper, The Irish Times; “In spite of the billing, /This Is/ (sic) isn’t a dance-in-progress anymore, but a fully-formed piece that sets new standards for Croí Glan Integrated Dance. Choreographer Adam Benjamin is a veteran creator for disabled and non-disabled dancers and has never focused on the politics of different bodies onstage. Instead, he gives unwavering attention to the movement and /This Is/ displays this creative guile, particularly in the seductive quintets where the performers continually merge and split into short duos and trios. His craftsmanship was well-rewarded with committed performances from the five dancers”.  In between meeting and working with Adam the company did heaps more. took various workshops with various people such as Jeff Wallace, Scott Wells to mention but a few. When we met and worked with Jeff he told us of a contact improv festival in Willard Wisconsin USA.  

After 1the Fringe Tara, Dawn and I traveled to the US. It was awesome, we danced at GLACIER, the contact festival for six days. It was held in a Christian retreat centre in the woods where some shared cabins, others camped and the rest stayed in the centre. The six days were amazing, life long friends were made and so much dancing was done. The GLACIER gang are an amazing group of people, so supportive and caring. After the GLACIER festival Dawn, Tara and I traveled up to Minneapolis where we went to a performing arts school, yes, just like Fame! We also met an amazing group, Interact. Interact is a group of people with disabilities, all types and their sole focus is art, every form of art, from visual to performing. Their work shop and rehersal space was at the back of their amazing shop, where they sold their goods The striking thing about the group is they encouraged and supported each other, they gave each other genuine praise, that does not happen in Ireland within the disability community, mind you, does it happen in any community?   We also met a group called Young Dance, a dance company who wanted to become integrated. After a few days in Minneapolis we drove to Madison, it was awesome, we were meeting up with most of the folk we had met at GLACIER and also staying in one of their houses. While Tara and Dawn did a wall running workshop I went to a local contact jam. It was funny, I was dancing with a group who I was so comfortable with, but yet a week previous, didn’t know them at all. When I first met them I remember doing contact with them was really different, I wasn’t been given any weight at all, then I told the group I could take weight and dancing with one group of people for six days, things changed, it was now like working with people I knew for ages. After that Dawn, Tara and I visited an elementary school and spoke to the students, fairly awesome.

After our trip State side we worked with a few groups in Ireland and did performances in County Cork doing double bills with the Cope Foundation as well as with Tara and Shana Brandel with their aerial duet ‘Sisters’. We also did a three week aerial course with an amazing french woman, Genevieve Mazin. A lot of preparation went into this, both Tara and Dawn advised me what stretches to do to stretch and tone specific muscles. The day finally came, we, Dawn, Julie and myself went down to West Cork to do three weeks of aerial, Nellie, the Aussie, who came from Down Under to do work experience with the company. The aerial work was awesome, sometimes frustrating in that I had to figure out how to move my body in a harness. I mastered it and all of the stretching really paid off, it allowed me have the ability to lie on my side and back while in the harness and to come to standing after a swing as well as change the direction of my body in mid swing, ok it may not sound all that great in writing, but in reality and my head, wow. You see I honestly did not know how much aerial work I would be able to do, or how my body would react to it.

After doing the aerial project, we went into working on a new project, whereby a core group of dancers had a set piece of choreography and local community groups of an area would be slotted into it. The piece, ‘In These Islands Are My Body’ by Tara Brandel explores how the environment has changed over a life time. Over the Summer of 2011 we performed it in Cork, Clonmel, Callen, Mayo and Minneapolis. We also performed This Is and On The Wall in Barcelona. The company has also performed at other festivals and taught at various places, including Barcelona.

Tuesday two weeks ago, the company was filmed my an Irish television http://www.tg4.ie/en/tg4-player/tg4-player.html check it out, it was aired Thursday just gone. Last Tuesday the company celebrated its fifth birthday.    It was lovely, an informal sharing of snippets of some of our work in between having some yummy food with company friends.