Intersection was a work-in-progress performance developed during a month-long residency at A Little Room Theatre Development Centre at Garter Lane Arts Centre in Waterford.
During my residency, my intention was to explore the intersection between my two creative practices, which had existed separately until then. Pole dancing has undoubtedly informed my performance art practice; after almost 19 years of practice, it is an embodied movement methodology that I carry with me. In previous performances, such as The Sweets Of Sin and Dirty Little Fuckbird, feedback from audience members and curators have noted this embodied movement – this has prompted me to become curious about merging my Fine Art with my pole dancing practice.
My performance art practice investigates embodied experience and expressing the self within a performance art context. Merging this with my pole dancing practice, I wanted to create an exploratory performance as part of a larger body of ongoing research. Aiming to explore the space between past and present, personal and cultural, academic and embodied – asking can this create a space of becoming; a site for embodied expression and transformation.
When I first began pole dancing as an art school undergraduate 19 years ago; Since then, pole dancing has become an increasingly popular modality of embodied expression, as well as a methodology employed by other performance artists such as Eisa Jocson and Rowena Gander, who’s work I greatly admire and draw from conceptually.
This residency afforded me with the proper space and time to critically reflect, research and most importantly engage with playful experimentation. This has resulted in a 22-minute performance, which you can watch below.
The performance aims to form a starting point for further arts-based research on the use of pole dancing as a medium of self and identity expression within contemporary Irish culture, which will be the main focus of my PhD. I also feel that there is more that I can delve into when it comes to the expansion of my own practice within merging performance art and pole dance – there are many questions that I have unearthed and thread that I have woven during this residency that intend on following to see where they may lead me.
The audience present on the night was a mix of fellow artists, curators, previous students from my pole dancing classes in Waterford, and other folks who were curious to see pole dancing performance art. Feedback from this varied audience following this performance has given me some invaluable insights. Some audience members were deeply uncomfortable, resulting with ongoing giggle fits which you can hear throughout the performance (just off-camera you’ll get a sense of me sitting down in some unoccupied chairs to make one-on-one eye contact with these audience members in a playful exchange). Some audience members projected a great sadness onto me, whilst others projected strength and empowerment. One audience member read ‘an absence of joy’, whilst another read ‘…sensory seeking, but lovingly so, joyfully so’ as I played with the pole, moved my body and made noise.
I want to extend a massive thank you to A Little Room and Garter Lane Arts Centre for supporting my vision and giving me the opportunity to explore this idea through the residency, all the curators and artists that I met during my time there for making me feel so welcome and at home in the Waterford arts scene, my mentor Emma Brennan for her invaluable insights and encouragement, and all of the audience present on the evening of the performance for sharing their feedback and readings of my performance. I have a feeling that I will be back in Waterford again in the near future.
Up the Déise!
Supporting the arts:
If you enjoy this performance please show the love by tipping me the cost of a coffee. Thank you, you gorgeous being! I appreciate you immensely 🖤
