BUILDING THE BOAT performs the creation of a Dunfanaghy curach from the Meitheal Mara boatyard, Cork, in poetry, contemporary dance and soundscape. It celebrates the community of the meitheal, the language associated with craft, and its connection with curach builders stretching back generations. Bere Island, home of traditional boats, lends itself to a transformative performance, placing the audience at the centre of the experience for a meaningful and lasting exchange.
Ruskin observed that some of our most beautiful and effective creations are not designed as such but evolve to fulfil their task according to their place. The Dunfanaghy curach, today built in Meitheal Mara boatyard on Crosse’s Green, still carries in its name the place of its birth, holds within its hazel rods and timber gunwales the long tradition of skin boat building on this island, reflected in the gold of the Broighter Horde, back to St. Brendan and further back to the shores of memory we can only imagine.
But this is a boat that cannot be built alone. Sound travels across the water, echoing in the deepest niches of our inner ear, holding within it the rhythm that carries us onwards. Music, dance and poetry are held in the body of the boat inside which the whole community pulls together:
‘When we flex together and haul as one each wave will slide under harmlessly and we’ll row free.’
And community is like the curach; a well-built and flexible vessel that can carry us to safety on the rising tides and ensure we all make a home of where we find ourselves, here together, le chéile.
BUILDING THE BOAT performs the creation of a Dunfanaghy curach from the Meitheal Mara boatyard, Cork, in poetry, contemporary dance and soundscape. It celebrates the community of the meitheal, the language associated with craft, and its connection with curach builders stretching back generations. Bere Island, home of traditional boats, lends itself to a transformative performance, placing the audience at the centre of the experience for a meaningful and lasting exchange.
BUILDING THE BOAT ensures the survival and diversification of a native tradition in a space where everything is possible.
BUILDING THE BOAT is poet Keith Payne, contemporary dancer Inma Pavon and sound artist Mick O’Shea. Artist bios below.
Tickets €10 + booking fee. Click HERE to book your space.
Mick O’Shea lives and works in Cork city and is a founder-member of Gaitkrash Theatre Company. He is director of the Cork Artists Collective and The Guesthouse, and has been instrumental in establishing a vibrant and growing sound art scene in Cork city. He has exhibited in UK, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Tasmania, USA, China and Japan. All of his works spring from his essential experience in drawing. His medium includes sculpture, drawing, sound and cooking. He works with various sound artists and composers both national and international. In 2006 he formed The Quiet Club with sound artist Danny McCarthy to promote and showcase improvised music and soundworks. These include improvised collaborations with other sound artists as well as improvised and structured contemporary music events working with performers and composers such as Rhodri Davies, Stephen Vitiello, Steve Roden, David Toop, Rajesh Meta, Jennifer Walshe and Damo Suzuki.
http://gaitkrash.com/mick-oshea/
Inma Pavon is a Spanish multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, and teacher based in Cork. She holds a BA (Physical Education for Primary School, Granada), an MA (Contemporary Dance Performance, UL) and an MPhil (Creative Dance/Art Practice, UCC). She is a dance member at the International Dance Council UNESCO and a Contemporary Affiliate Dance Teacher Member of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance (UK). She is the director of InmaPavonDanceCo (adults Contemporary Dance classes/workshops) and a lecturer with id+Project and Theatre Studies (UCC). She was the ‘Creative Dance Artist in Residence’ with The Rory Gallagher Music Library Cork in 2023. She was commissioned to choreograph a new piece by the Glucksman Gallery UCC, Art Movements, which has been included in the UCC Arts Collection (https://www.glucksman.org/collection/artworks/artmovements) and has worked with, among others, renowned Irish performance artist Amanda Coogan at the RHA (Dublin) and at UILLINN West Cork Arts Centre. She was guest choreographer for the national youth dance project ‘Resilience’ by Dublin Youth Dance Company.
https://inmapavon.wordpress.com/
Keith Payne is an award-winning poet, translator and editor with over a dozen titles to his name. He recently co-edited A Different Eden: Ecopoetry from Ireland and Galicia (Dedalus, 2021), and forthcoming from Skein Press is Whales and Whales, from the Galician of Luisa Castro. He was Red Line Book Festival Writer in Residence 2020, John Broderick Writer in Residence 2021, Poet in Residence Cork City Libraries 2022/23, was awarded an Artist in the Community Award 2021, funded by the Arts Council Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts and an Arts Council Bursary for Literature 2022. He us curator of the Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Poetry Exchange between Galicia and Ireland and shares his time between Vigo and Dublin.