Medicated Milk
Ireland’s international festival of dance, film and media arts
Limerick 2-5 November 2017
Light Moves, Ireland’s international festival of dance, film and media arts, is back for its fourth edition this year, running 2nd-5th November with events across Limerick City. The festival invites audiences to see dance differently, with an intriguing programme packed with thought-provoking and cutting-edge new and existing work offering an inspiring and stimulating journey of discovery.
Light Moves has enjoyed sell out successes in previous years, creating a home for screendance in Limerick. This year’s festival programme offers the most exciting line up of artists yet, featuring world class dancers, filmmakers, visual artists and musicians from Ireland and as far afield as China and Iran. Highlights include works by Aernout Mik (Netherlands), Harun Farocki (Czech Republic), Cindy Sherman (USA) and Amanda Coogan (Ireland). The festival will feature live dance and music performances, exhibitions, film screenings from an open call submission, workshops, a festival symposium, talks and more.
Details of the 2017 programme were announced at Dance Limerick on Tuesday 12th September by festival curators Mary Wycherley and Jürgen Simpson, who were joined by special guest Matt Packer, director of EVA International to officially launch the programme. This was followed by a performance by producer Neil O’Connor (Somadrone).
Mary Wycherley and Jürgen Simpson said: “Screendance’s capacity to connect seems increasingly significant. It is an opportunity to reconsider the communicative qualities of movement and body and their relevance in a world increasingly shaped by screens and technology.”
Light Moves will take place in locations across Limerick, including Dance Limerick’s home in John’s Square with the historic St John’s Church, Belltable, Limerick City Gallery of Art and the University of Limerick.
The festival will begin with two events on Thursday 2nd November. At 6pm, the installation series Screendance in the Gallery at the Limerick City Gallery of Art presented in collaboration with Light Moves will open, featuring video pieces by Aernout Mik, Harun Farocki, Cindy Sherman and Rosemary Butcher along with works from the ground-breaking Carriageworks commission 24 Frames Per Second. This reception will be followed by the festival’s opening performance at Dance Limerick Space (St John’s Church), Moments Of Movement by award winning Berlin-based documentary filmmaker Eva Stotz & Amsterdam tap dancer Marije Nie, with guests including saxophonist Cathal Roche, percussionist Erik Kooger and live sound designer Benjamin Jefferys. Moments of Movement tells the story of steps; our own steps, and those of faceless masses forced to be on the move globally. The piece combines the visually stunning and global film archive of Eva Stotz, with the virtuosic and evocative rhythms of Marije Nie.
Light Moves 2017 will feature an incredible line up of Irish artists and films including Falling Out of Standing, by CoisCéim Dance Theatre and Anú and choreographed by David Bolger, Owen Boss and Louise Lowe; I’m Roger Casement, directed by Dearbhla Walsh and choreographed by Fearghus Ó Conchúir; Sekar Arum – Forging The Irish World Academy Javanese Gamelan directed by Maurice Gunning, and Amanda Coogan: Long Now, which captures Amanda Coogan during a gruelling six-week live durational exhibition. Ríonach Ní Néill‘s I Modh Rúin tells the story of women who went against the status quo and brought their families up as Irish speakers. See the Man, choreographed by Maria Nilsson Waller and directed by Jose Miguel Jimenez, focuses on a fortnight in a soccer team’s life which takes in both the last match of the season and the public presentation of their Tchaikovsky-fuelled dance performance. Jimenez also directs Medicated Milk, choreographed by Áine Stapleton, a re-telling of the life of Lucia Joyce.
The exhibition at Limerick City Gallery of Art will showcase leading artists working in dance, film and the visual arts, for the period of the festival until January 2018 as part of the LCGA’s own programme. The exhibition will feature:
- Doll Clothes by Cindy Sherman (USA), who is widely recognized as one of the most influential artists in contemporary art with her exploration of the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation. Doll Clothes presents a photograph of the artist as a paper doll, reflecting on Sherman’s fascination with the politics of identity, particularly in relation to women.
- Daytime Movements by Aernout Mik (Netherlands) and Boris Charmatz. Mik’s work takes an ironic look at human behaviour placed in out-of-the-ordinary situations, with video installations that present physical and psychological states rather than a linear narrative. Boris Charmatz has long been established as one of France’s leading philosopher-choreographers. In their collaboration Daytime Movements disorder of bodies interferes in a daily environment, with every gesture hiding or revealing signs of a disturbing strangeness…
- Workers Leaving the Factory in Eleven Decades by Harun Farocki (Czech Republic), whose work has been the subject of major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Modern in London and elsewhere. The film on display at LCGA focuses on the area in front of a factory, an area that can be both a site of social conflict, and the boundary between a worker’s personal and professional life. The film also references the first cinematic film, Workers Leaving the Lumiére Factory in Lyon, by the early cinematographers Louis and Auguste Lumiére.
- Rosemary Butcher‘s Vanishing Point, a moving evocation of women’s position in an often male-dominated society, with the figure of dancer and choreographer Elena Giannotti set against the desert in Andalucia. As one of the most singular British choreographers of her generation, Rosemary Butcher was a seminal figure in postmodern dance.
- The final instalment of works shown by Light Moves 2014-2017 from 24 Frames Per Second, a major exhibition of 24 screen-based works by 18 Australian and 6 international artists commissioned by Sydney’s Carriageworks art centre. This year LCGA will be displaying three of these works.
The Belltable will again be home to a programme of feature length films, chosen by the festival curators for their stunning visuals and thought-provoking interaction with the theme of screendance. “Life, death, hiccups” feature in the Hungarian Huckle, – the tale of a murder mystery in an eccentric rural community that is as funny as it is unique – and to which the Washington Post responded, ” An unforgettable experience… Wow.” Decasia by Bill Morrison is a mesmerizing tour de force offering audiences an all-encompassing experience of cinematic grandeur, and was described by Village Voice as, “a fierce dance of destruction.” The third feature film is the multi-award-winning Lithuanian In Memory Of The Day Passed By, set on the sidewalks of Vilnius, (Prize Film Festival Molodost, Moscow 1990, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam ‘Jury, Prize’ & ‘Audience Award’ 1990 Winner, Golden Leopard, Locarno Film Festival2007, Feature Film Prize, Barcelona).
The 2017 Light Moves Symposium will explore topics ranging from “Dance making with a 360 Camera” to “Item Numbers in Bombay Cinema: Choreographing the Sexy within the Cine Machine”, with contributors including Eva Stotz, Marije Nie, Cathal Roche, Chu-Li Shewring and Dr. Erika Balsom. Dr Balsom, senior lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London and a frequent contributor to Artforum and Sight and Sound, will also be giving a dedicated talk on subject of Moving Bodies: Capture and Control in the Late Works of Harun Farocki (whose Workers Leaving The Factory In Eleven Decades can be seen at the LCGA exhibition.) Filmmaker and sound designer Chu-Li Shewring, whose past experience includes producing films about the arts and working as a medical videographer at Charing Cross Hospital, will give a talk on Vibrations Movement, Media and Sound Design. Ailbhe Murphy, Director of Create, will lead a forum addressing Screendance and Community: Community, Place and Collaborative Arts, with leading artists Lucy Cash, Emily Claid, Mary Nunan and Monica Spencer. Fearghus Ó Conchúir, Áine Stapleton and David Bolger will participate in a public interview, Bodies in Time – Embracing History in Screendance.
The festival will also offer unique opportunities to learn via its Screendance Labs. Eva Stotz will lead an immersive 2-day workshop on the topic of Screendance and Documentation in Challenging Situations, discussing her documentary One Million Steps, where shooting collided with the Turkish uprising. She will look at ways to cope with extreme temperatures, sandstorms, and conflict whilst attempting to make your documentary, and address how to go into situations of political unrest and be able to create a documentary that does justice to the events portrayed. In ScreenLab 2 Nicholas Ward and Jürgen Simpson will offer a hands-on introduction to the potential of real-time technologies in the creation and presentation of screendance, drawing upon cinema, digital art, performance and installation art. Nicholas Ward’s work explores physicality and effort in the context of performance and game design, and has been presented internationally at exhibitions and conferences including Amaze Independent Video Games Festival, Berlin; EVA International Biennial, Limerick and Venice Biennale of Architecture, Italy. Jürgen Simpson is a composer, performer and lecturer, and director of DMARC, whose film scores include six works with director Clare Langan and seven screendance works with director Mary Wycherley. The Festival is also presenting a Screendance Lab for BA Students, led by Scottish screen dance artist Katrina McPherson, combining a practical exploration of screen dance and the viewing of historic and current works.
This year’s family film is the animated Ballerina, voiced by Elle Fanning. Suitable for audiences aged 4+, this feature length animation tells the story of 11 year old Félicie, who has no money but one big, passionate dream: to become a dancer. This film, which will be on at the Belltable at 2.30pm on the Saturday afternoon, has been described by Ross Wilcock, The People’s Movies as “great family film that’s fun, heart-warming, entertaining”.
At the end of the festival, the Light Moves 2017 Festival Awards (with a monetary worth of over €2000)will be presented for works submitted via the open call that demonstrate particular artistic excellence in their exploration of screendance by challenging and renewing its scope and direction.
The festival is produced by Dance Limerick in partnership with DMARC (Digital Media and Arts Research Centre) at the University of Limerick. Light Moves Festival is funded by the Arts Council, Limerick City and County Council and the J P McManus Fund.
TICKETS & FURTHER INFORMATION
Light Moves Festival Passes and Tickets are available from: www.lightmoves.ie or
Dance Limerick, 1-2 John’s Square, Limerick (cash/cheque only).
Tickets to feature films and the family film are available fromBelltable, 69 O’Connell St (061) 953400 / www.limetreetheatre.ie.
All installations at Dance Limerick and Limerick City Gallery of Art.
Single sessions cost €6 (€7 on the door), feature films (including the Family Film) cost €8 (€6 for children for family film only), a full festival pass costs €75/50, as does attendance at both Screendance Labs. For further ticket details see: www.lightmoves.ie.
For more information:
Emer Casey, Dance Limerick/Light Moves (061) 400994 (086) 4054713 |emer@dancelimerick.ie
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