Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín, Mary Nunan Ceist Residency

Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín and Mary Nunan will work in the studio alone/together, side-by-side, each revisiting a previously choreographed and performed solo: Can I Have Your Best Move? and Slant respectively. The questions at the heart of each of these solos revolve around their curiosity about dance. They each come at these questions from different angles. Each of their solos are driven by a desire to look at dance straight between the eyes and ask: What/who are you? What moves you to move me/us? Is it the same thing? What is it that brings us together (the dancer and the dance) and can also keep us apart.

These weighty questions have lots of layers to them, it can be easy to get bogged down thinking about them.Siobhán and Mary found that dancing with, and through them, allowed the questions to breathe. It brought a welcome sense of playfulness into each of their works. As part of this residency they want to return to look more closely at how they each did this - especially how/why they each included text as a layer of the work - what does/doesn’t this do or could do better. They also want to look at how they each navigate the relationship between speaking and moving as a performer: to research some different ways of doing this, including tone, texture intonation, timing, and rhythm. At the end of the residency they will perform and speak about their ‘findings’.

Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín is a dance artist based in Cork, Ireland. Her primary focus is on place-based and site-specific work manifesting in film and live performance. She seeks to question how the human body engages with the Earth in a way that gives agency to both.

Siobhán enjoys collaborative and multi-disciplinary work and has created alongside poets, actors, singers, geologists, boat-builders and musicians. She has also worked with a range of community groups.

Mary Nunan is a dance artist based in Clare/Limerick. Markers of time passing include: choreographer, performer with Dublin Contemporary Dance Theatre (1981-86), Founder Artistic Director of Daghdha Dance Company (1988-1999), PhD Middlesex University awarded (2013), Course Director of the MA Contemporary Dance Performance, UL (1999-2016). 2016 – present, working as an independent artist and in collaboration with other artists.