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Oona Doherty

Specky Clark
  • Thu 06.02
    20:00 - 22:00
    De Vooruit, Gent
    THEATERZAAL
    Tickets
  • Fri 07.02
    14:00 - 16:00
    De Vooruit, Gent
    THEATERZAAL
    Tickets

Mixing personal history with Irish mythology

Part fiction, part biographical, all elements are overlapping, and it will become difficult to determine what's myth and what's reality. 

It goes back to a time when families worked in the abattoirs of Belfast. Pigs in the garden of New lodge.

There's something in the meat of me, bloodline, there is a pink fleshy vulnerability to me, to dancing, there is a violence in me.

This new show will follow the story of Oona’s Great Great Grandfather Specky Clark and his arrival in Belfast.

For this piece which will be unfolding in a series of theatrical images, Oona Doherty will collaborate with many faithful and new partners. The production features music from Irish band Lankum, Gavino Murgia and David Holmes & Raven Violet. Maxime Jerry Fraisse is sound designer, Irish playwright Enda Walsh is dramaturg, Sabine Dargent is set designer, Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust is costume designer and long-time collaborator John Gunning is lighting designer. The piece will be performed by an international cast of 9 dancers.

Part of

“My own personal myth. A dark and primal sound drags us kicking and screaming into an alternative reality, A place the mind can only reach through grief. Held in the arms of Ireland. Inspirations from Pat McCabes the Butcher Boy, Billy Elliot, Francis Bacon, Animal Farm, my father in the Abattoir, my grandfather in the butchers, my great great grandfather on the boat, A young boy dancing in a Francis Bacon painting.
On this Halloween night the veil has been lifted to worlds and parts of us we didn't know possible. It’s from a pain in the heart where you build a hard man. Walls are built from loss."

Oona Doherty

choreography, writing, direction: Oona Doherty - music: Lankum / Cantu Tenore Gavino Murgia / featuring David Holmes & Raven Violet - composition & sound design: Maxime Fraisse - lighting design: John Gunning - set design: Sabine Dargent - costume design: Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust in collaboration with Constance Tabourga, assisted by Aela Bristiel, Lena Manin, Paul Escamez, Ambre Beylier, Meryl Degez et Christina Clerisse - dramaturgy: Enda Walsh - rehearsal director: Solene Weinachter - audio cast: Louise Conaghan, Janie Doherty, Sam Finnegan, Stephen Rae, Garry Rowntree - engineers: Juliette Pierangelo + Jessie Chalumeau - film & photo: Luca Truffarelli - cast: Diarmuid Amstrong, Maëva Berthelot, Malick Cissé, Gerard Headley, Clay Koonar, Gennaro Lauro, Michael McEvoy, Erin O’Reilly, Faith Pendergast - special thanks to: Jen Malarkey

production: OD Works - coproduction: Dublin Dance Festival & The Abbey Theater (IE), Sadler’s Wells London (UK), Ballet Preljocaj dans le cadre de l’accueil studio, Kampnagel Hambourg (DE), Festspielhaus St. Pölten (AU), Théâtre de la Ville Paris (FR), Tanz Köln (DE), Inter Dance Festival of Ireland, CCN-Ballet national de Marseille dans le cadre de l’accueil studio/Ministère de la Culture - accueils en résidences: KLAP-Maison pour la Danse Marseille, Ballet Preljocaj dans le cadre de l’accueil studio, CCN-Ballet national de Marseille dans le cadre de l’accueil studio/Ministère de la Culture