EVENTS PROGRAMME
Mapping Spectral Traces V
Bodies – Space – Memory
In association with
Dancing Days Festival
International Conference, Art Exhibition and Dance Festival
Galway, Ireland - 19-21 April 2012
Venue: Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway
Black Box Theatre and on location
A joint initiative of
Ómós Áite, Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway,
Space&Place, Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth,
Arts Council Galway Dancer in Residence,
and the Mapping Spectral Traces International Network.
Conference Committee:
Tim Collins (Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway)
Nessa Cronin (Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway)
Ríonach Ní Néill (Galway Dancer in Residence)
Karen Till (Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth)
Conference Websites:
www.nuigalway.ie/research/centre_irish_studies/
www.geography.nuim.ie/research/space-place
www.ciotóg.ie
www.mappingspectraltraces.org
This joint initiative is kindly supported by:
The Arts Council; Ealaín na Gaeltachta; The Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social
Sciences; Ciotóg Dance Company; Parzival Productions; Vagabond Reviews; The Town Hall
Theatre; Galway City Council; Galway County Council
in association with
Ómós Áite, Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway; The College of Arts, Social Sciences and
Celtic Studies, NUI Galway; Community Knowledge Initiative, NUI Galway; Space&Place
Research Collaborative, NUI Maynooth; Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth; Mapping
Spectral Traces International Network; University of Dundee; PLaCE, University of West of
England, Bristol; College of Design, University of Minnesota.
Thursday 19 April 2012
ADD in LUNCH and Tea and Coffee Breaks and Rebecca’s body mapping on Friday
FIELDTRIP
14.00-16.00 Hosted by Vagabond Reviews, in association with the Sliabh Bán
Resident’s Association.
Venue: Sliabh Bán, Ballybane, Galway City.
(Fieldtrip limited to Sliabh Bán Residents and conference participants only)
LAUNCH
19.00 MSTV Conference, Art Exhibition and Dancing Days Festival
Programme launch by Tim Collins, Nessa Cronin, Ríonach Ní Néill and Karen
Till, followed by Wine Reception.
Venue: Black Box Theatre, Galway City.
BODIES-SPACE-MEMORY International Art Exhibition - featuring work
by Irish visual artists Ceara Conway, Seán Ó Flaithearta, Fearghus Ó Conchúir
and Rebecca Krinke (US), Mona Smith (Dakota artist), Mary Modeen (Scotland).
Venue: Foyer, Black Box Theatre, Galway City.
“FRAME”
20.00 World première at Dancing Days Festival
Venue: Black Box Theatre, Galway
Tickets €15/€10 www.tht.ie
‘We continue to say that we are going to do what we have not yet done:
we are going to build a house.’
Ríonach Ní Néill (Galway Dancer in Residence), multi award-winning architect
Michelle Fagan (FKL Architects), and film-maker Marek Bogaski in a 3dimensional dialogue on how we are shaped by the places we create. Exploring
the architectural imagination and creative process in a performance
encompassing dance, dialogue, and film. Produced by Richard Wakely.
‘The dancer Ríonach Ní Neill delivering a captivating performance […] with
such wonderful use of projections and imagination, it was a piece that would
wow anyone (and there are many) with a fear of modern dance.’
– The Irish Times
Friday 20 April 2012
All conference panels take place at St Anthony’s Lecture Theatre, NUI Galway except for
Corp_Real Symposium*, which will take place at the Black Box Theatre, Galway City.
PANEL 1:
9.00-10.30
Ómós Áite Panel: In Search of Place: Irish Visual Cultures,
Music and Poetry
Chair: Rebecca Krinke, Landscape Architecture, College of Design, University
of Minnesota
Discussant: Tony Tracy, Huston Film School & Digital Media, NUI Galway
 ‘No direction home?: Location and dislocation in Irish visual culture’, Conn
Holohan (Huston Film School & Digital Media, NUI Galway)
 ‘Reading Between the Notes: Uncovering Sense of Place in the Vernacular
Music Compositions of East Galway’, Tim Collins (Centre for Irish Studies,
NUI Galway)
 ‘Mediating Place in Recent Irish Poetry’, Anne Karhio (English, NUI
Galway)
PANEL 2
11.00-12.30
Choreographies of the Irish Body
Chair: David Smith, PLaCE, UWE-Bristol
Discussant: Victoria Walters, PLaCE, UWE-Bristol
 ‘The choreography of exile in Colum McCann’s shorter fiction’, Marie
Mianowski (Département d'études anglaises, University of Nantes)
 Gerry Kearns, ‘Catholic Body Memory’ (Department of Geography, NUI
Maynooth)
 ‘Holy Shows: public ritual, the crisis of memory and body technique in postindependence Ireland, 1922-32’, Lisa Godson (GradCAM , National College
of Art and Design, Dublin)
CORP_REAL 14.00 CORP_REAL Performance at Dancing Days Festival
*Note Change of Venue: Black Box Theatre, Galway City
Tickets €5 (includes free entry to Corp_Real Symposium) www.tht.ie
Live and film performances by internationally acclaimed and award winning
choreographers and dancers. Risk-takers, boundary breakers, their thoughtprovoking works are deeply affecting and powerfully beautiful.
Featuring:
Jenny Roche in Altered Copy - an adaptation of ‘Business of the Bloom’ by
award-winning US choreographer Jodi Melnick. Fearghus Ó Conchúir with Mo
Mhórchoir Féin - A Prayer - a timely reflection on the impact of the Church on
the formation of the Irish body. 3+1 for now - tough, quirky and unexpectedly
beautiful as Dublin itself, a cast of international dancers embody the spirit of a
city whose skyline changed everyday during Ireland’s economic boom.
And video works from Andrew Duggan & Cindy Cummings.
‘Ó Conchúir's artistic … strategy doesn’t just produce eloquent movement,
it creates powerful art.’ - The Irish Times
‘When Roche dances, the impetus seems to be from within, although her gaze
looks out far beyond the walls ... the tiniest shift of energy in one part of her body
causes movement in another.’ - The Irish Times
CORP_REAL 16.00-17.30
CORP_REAL SYMPOSIUM
*Note Change of Venue: Black Box Theatre, Galway City
Chair: Nessa Cronin, Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway
Discussant: Gerry Kearns, Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth, and
TBC - Úna Mullally (Arts Journalist and Broadcaster, The Irish Times)
Panelists:
 Philip Bernard, Research Neuroscientist (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences
Unit, Cambridge University)
 ‘Something of the Shape Remains in my Body: Tracing Movement
memories’, Jenny Roche (Dancer)
 ‘Building Bodies’, Fearghus Ó Conchúir (Dancer)
 ‘The Interaction of the body in space and in repeated ritual/ meanings/
exchanges in space’, Orla Murphy (UCD School of Architecture, Simon J
Kelly + Partners)
 ‘Fall, Fall again, Fall Better’, Andrew Duggan and Cindy Cummings
(Dancers)
BOOK LAUNCH
19.00 Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, Galway City
Irish Contemporary Landscapes in Literature and the Arts , edited by Marie Mianowksi. Palgrave
Macmillan Press, December 2011.
Introduced by Nessa Cronin (Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway) and launched by Conor
Newman (Archaeology and Centre for Landscape Studies, NUI Galway).
CONFERENCE and FESTIVAL DINNER
20.00 Nimmo’s/Ard Bia, The Spanish Arch
Saturday 21 April 2012
PANEL 4
9.00-10.30
the City
Space&Place Panel: Body Cartographies: Art, Memory and
Chair: Alan Mee, School of Architecture, University College Dublin
Discussant: Mary Modeen, Duncan of Jordanstown College of Art & Design,
University of Dundee
 ‘Mapping the Body in Bogota: Cartographic Quicksand’, Karen Till
(Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth)
 ‘New work: Body, Memory, Trauma, Healing’, Mona Smith (Dakota Artist)
 ‘The Body: Making, Mapping, and Performing’, Rebecca Krinke (Landscape
Architecture, College of Design, University of Minnesota)
PANEL 5
11.00-12.30
Visiting Publics: Explorations of Inherited Place through
Collaborative Practice
Chair: Mary Cawley, Geography, NUI Galway
Discussant: Tomás Hardiman, Parzival Productions
 ‘Re-Framing Landscape: Artists as Cultural Catalysts in Rural Localities’,
Deirdre O’Mahony (School of Creative Arts, Galway and Mayo Institute of
Technology, Galway)
 ‘St. John’s Eve: A Celebration of Rights of Way at the Royal Hospital
Kilmainham, Dublin’, Culturstruction, Jo Anne Butler and Tara Kennedy
 ‘Visiting Publics’, Lisa Moran, (Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin)
PANEL 6
13.30-15.00
Closing Discussion Panel
Artistic Practice as Research: Research as Creative Practice
Chair: Louis de Paor, Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway
Panel: Ailbhe Murphy (Vagabond Reviews), Ríonach Ní Néill (Galway Dancer
in Residence), Mona Smith (Dakota Artist), Nessa Cronin (Centre for Irish
Studies, NUI Galway), Tim Collins (Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway)
Discussants: Lillis O Laoire (Scoil na Gaeilge, Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh)
and Karen Till (Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth)
CUAIRTEOIREACHT: THE RAMBLING HOUSE – in association with Dancing Days
Meeting Point: Town Hall Theatre
Tickets: €20 including coach transfers
Location: To be announced on the night
www.tht.ie
Curated by Ríonach Ní Néill and Tim Collins
Make your own culture. Looking to a past and future in a place that doesn’t yet
have one, we revisit and reawaken the tradition of ag cuairteoireacht, with a
Rambling House situated in a Galway ghost estate. Traditional forms, including
Straw Boys, a house céili and sean-nós dance, meld with contemporary,
including site-specific specially commissioned dance works, installations and art
works, to create an exciting and inspiring night in which you, the audience, are a
vital player.
The centrepiece of the night is a reworking of Cindy Cummings & Andrew
Duggan’s 9.8 meters per second; the rate at which all things fall (in a vacuum;
social, economic or otherwise) is a series of dance performances, video works,
installations, projections sited in a ‘pre-lived’, unsold, vacant house. Originally
commissioned by Éigse 2009, the work preceded the housing crash in Ireland
and the ensuing media attention on Ireland’s ghost estates. Set in the aftermath of
the economic ‘fall’, the work shifts to examine the ‘now’; the present tense, the
social, economic and cultural context.