Tree Research Film Showing Helga Deasy

Resulting from her research into native Irish trees and their connection with Celtic mythology, Helga presents three short films created over the course of one year.

Following the seasons, Helga explored the interrelationship between sensory perceptions, somatic experiences and imagination arising from the natural landscape in a co-creative process with nature through deep, active and engaged reciprocity between the human body and the natural world. In the face of the climate emergency, she investigates how a practice of dance and embodied awareness can create new ways of knowing and bring about perceptual transformation in how we relate to and connect with nature.

In the research and making of the films, Helga collaborated with dancers Kanako Nakajima, Sara Hernandez, Kevin Hayes and Justine Cooper, film maker Eoin O hAnnrachain, visual artist Claire Hurley and composer Justin Grounds.

This work is kindly supported by Dance Cork Firkin Crane, Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, Greywood Arts Centre, Dance Limerick and an Arts Council Dance Bursary.

Helga Deasy (Ireland/Germany) is a choreographer, dance artist and dance facilitator. Exploring themes of identity, belonging, migration and care through the immediate expressive potential of the moving body, her practice encompasses performance making, cross-disciplinary collaboration and socially engaged dance. It is grounded in choreological studies and her research into somatic practices and empowerment. Supported by the Arts Council and Cork City and County Councils, she has created a body of work presented nationally and internationally including dance ensemble performance productions, choreography for theatre and site-specific works with a socially engaged focus. Helga was Dance Artist in Residence at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre 2017-2018 and at Dance Cork Firkin Crane 2021-2023. She feels passionate about the transformative potential of dance and works in arts and health settings, is a lead-facilitator on the Teacher Artist Partnership Programme and an early-years arts practitioner with Graffiti Theatre Company.

www.helgadeasydance.com

@helgadeasydance