| Year / Length: | 2017, 45’ (Italian premiere) |
|---|---|
| Concept and choreography: | Oona Doherty – O.D Works |
| Sound: | David Holmes |
| Light and set design: | Ciaran Bagnall |
| LX relight: | Lisa Mary Barry |
| Photo and film: | Luca Truffarelli |
| Stage manager: | Siobhan Barber |
| Producer: | Gabrielle Veyssiere – O.D Works |
| Funders: | British Council, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast International Arts Festival, Dublin Dance Festival |
| Originally produced by: | Prime Cut |
| Cast: | Oona Doherty (episodes 1 & 4), local girls from Venice (episode 2), John Scott, Sam Finnegan (episode 3) |
Dance
Oona Doherty - Hard to be soft. A Belfast Prayer
Description
With a dance that is informal in its themes and its modes, Oona Doherty, a new name in European dance and the Silver Lion recipient of this year’s Festival, brings to Venice Hard to be Soft – A Belfast Prayer. She has made the unorthodox choice to portray the cross-section of a community, her childhood community in Belfast with its horizons limited by cultural, social and religious constraints. Doherty captures the daily-life dimension of the working classes, which are virtually absent from the dance stage, their violence and vulnerability, their quirks, stereotypes and vices, as well as their courage, strength and energy.
“For Taoists, the body is like a miniature version of the universe. The parts of the body correspond to physical features in the universe. What if we took these aspects of Belfast. We heightened them to a holy place. An existential anthem? I want to create a dance theatre work that abstracts the broken memories of my youth of Northern Ireland into a neon bright prayer. Welcome to a bright white limbo.” (Oona Doherty)