Moving Earth - Eco Dance Day, 14th of June

SWAMP is a solo dance performance that explores swamp landscapes as a metaphor for and a place of memories. The choreography draws on danced embodiments of earth, water, and roots to access the complexity of memory processes. It follows a partly narrative, partly abstract structure, moving through the three phases of remembering: sliding into, being in, and awakening from memories. With its immersive, at times meditative atmosphere, SWAMP invites the audience into an inner landscape where repression, flashbacks, and disorientation mark a difficult yet healing journey of “working through” memories – much like crossing a swamp. In a time marked by personal and collective trauma, the performance opens a space for relating to memory and nature without claiming control over either.

Annekatrin Kiesel is a contemporary dance artist who relocated from Berlin to Ireland in late 2024. She studied dance in Cologne and Antwerp and holds a Master’s degree in Dance Studies.

For over 15 years, she has brought her artistry to a wide range of projects as a dancer and choreographer, working across contemporary dance, dance theatre, music theatre, and performance. Since moving to Ireland, she has placed particular emphasis on developing her choreographic voice and sharing her passion for dance through teaching and community engagement.

From the beginning of her career, she has been involved in artistic research projects and choreographic works, often exploring the relationship between movement and psychosomatic states.

A receptive exchange between a moving body and the plant life under foot. No stone is left unturned as the flora in this landscape takes what opportunities are presented, doing so gladly, forging ahead to grow through the cracks and take root between the rocky soil. 

Julie is a Mayo based movement artist, with experience in improvisation and instant composition. A Geography and Anthropology graduate, her interest lies in exploring ways in which these seemingly disparate areas of interest can inform and speak to each other. Her practice centres around the making of dances in the moment and how the material of the body can relate to place and the natural world.

for the world we're after is about the constant tension between the reality we’re living in and the utopia we are dreaming of.

We ask: What are the constant obstacles creating the tension between what is and what could be? Is the fight the main purpose and drive for our lifetime?

Photo Credit: Josip Bolonić

‘Composing in the Moment’ - Contemporary Dance Performance 

Dance artist - Bernadette Divilly

Musician - Sharon Murphy 

Duration - 10/15 minutes

Description - ‘Composing in the Moment’ is a contemporary dance performance focused on perceptions of belonging and relationship to place. Bernadette and Sharon have an intimate connection to both the culture and landscape of North Connemara and are very excited to explore belonging in this context, while articulating through the composition international themes of disquiet.

Image credit: Cormac Coyne

Bio

Bernadette Divilly is a dance movement artist using socially-engaged practices centred on the body-mind relationship, practising in the West of Ireland. She advocates, along with a growing number of international practitioners, for the intelligence of the body as central to politics, governance and working with conflict.

Dance movement is central to Bernadette's understanding of what it means to be at home – to be human on a shared planet where sentient bodies are connected and resonate within a physical world. Body, mind and spirit are experienced through the template of the physical body. Movement is a shared language for all life, a language of creation.

Her practice is based on depth psychology and somatic studies. She uses contemplative dance and collaborative arts practices to bridge and connect the private and public realms and to creatively develop new understandings of landscape, culture, migration, health and the body. 

Image credit: Elodie Rein