Where I Am Now Curated by Helen Meany

Amanda Coogan is an internationally recognised and critically acclaimed artist working across the medias of live art, performance, sculpture and installation. The Irish Times have said, 'Coogan, whose work usually entails ritual, endurance and cultural iconography, is the leading practitioner of performance in the country'. Her extraordinary work is challenging, provocative and always visually stimulating. Using gesture and context she makes allegorical and poetic works that are multi-faceted, and challenge expected contexts. The body, as a site of resistance, is the centrality of Coogan's work.

Credits
Film footage: Bernard O’Rourke, The Ladder is Always There live at CIACLA
Image: Ballad of Now live at Kunstcomplex © Nicole Bardohl

Junk Ensemble was founded in Dublin in 2004 by twin sisters Megan and Jessica Kennedy. The company is committed to engaging diverse audiences through the creation and presentation of brave, imaginative and accessible work that sheds light on important human issues relevant to society today. Current Project Arts Centre Associate Artists & Dance Artists-in-Residence at Firkin Crane and previous Artists-in-Residence at The Tate, Junk Ensemble is a multi-award-winning company that has built a reputation as one of Ireland’s leading voices in dance.

Image © Ted Jones

Tom Creed is a theatre and opera director, festival director and independent producer based in Dublin. His productions have been all over Ireland and at prestigious venues and festivals on three continents. He has been Festival Director of Cork Midsummer Festival, Theatre and Dance Curator of Kilkenny Arts Festival and Associate Director of Rough Magic Theatre Company. He sits on the steering committee of the National Campaign for the Arts and the board of GAZE LGBT Film Festival.

Image © Ste Murray

Gina Moxley is a writer, actor and director. She recently contributed to the Abbey’s Dear Ireland series. Her play The Patient Gloria, co-produced by The Abbey Theatre, premiered at DTF 2018 and played Traverse Theatre at Edinburgh Fringe 2019 where it won a Fringe First and a Herald Angel. Recent performances include Pasolini’s Salò Redubbed for DTF 2019 and LIPPY at Wuzhen Festival, China. She directed Spliced by Timmy Creed; My Magnetic North by Gary Coyle; How to Keep an Alien by Sonya Kelly.

Credits
Video editor: Sean Lynch
Image © Damian McCann

Olwen Fouéré is a performer and creator whose extensive practice navigates live performance, film, the visual arts and music. Upcoming projects include The Last Season with the Sydney based company Force Majeure in January 2021. She created the internationally acclaimed riverrun co-produced by her company TheEmergencyRoom with Galway International Arts Festival and Cusack Projects Ltd. Feature films include Sea Fever, Mandy, Beast, The Survivalist, This Must be The Place.

Credits: Text and voice: Dispatches from the desert by Olwen Fouéré. Music: The Song of Separation and Waiting by Pandit Sultan Khan with Matthew Barley (cello) and Sukvinder ‘Pinky’ Singh (tabla). Image © by Luca Truffarelli

Liz Roche is Artistic Director of Liz Roche Company. Her choreographies for the company have been performed at festivals and venues throughout Ireland and internationally since 1999, including Baryshnikov Arts Centre New York, Brisbane Powerhouse and South Bank Centre, London. Her work, Bastard Amber commissioned by Dublin Dance Festival in 2015, premiered at the Abbey Theatre. This was the first time an Irish choreographer had been commissioned to make a full length work for the Abbey stage. She has also been commissioned to make new work for the Cork Opera House, National Ballet of China, Goethe-Institut Irland, National Gallery of Ireland, Scottish Dance Theatre, Maiden Voyage Dance and CoisCéim. She directed Embodied for DDF2016, commissioned by An Post for the 2016 Centenary Celebrations. She is a recipient of the Peter Darrell Choreographic Award, Bonnie Bird Award and selected for the European project - Modul Dance. She has also choreographed in opera and theatre, most notably for the Abbey and Gate theatres, Landmark Productions, Wexford Festival Opera, Rossini Opera Festival, Opernhaus Zurich and Irish National Opera.

Image © Alan Gilsenan

David Coonan's music has been performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Choir Ireland, the Choir of the Chapels Royal HM Tower of London, and at the Abbey Theatre. He has won numerous awards including the Irish Arts Council's Next Generation Award, the Jerome Hynes Composition Award (NCH, Dublin) and the IMRO Composition Award. He is currently collaborating with choreographer Liz Roche on a large-scale work for musicians and dancers.

Credits: words and music by David Coonan. Photo: Enda Rowan

Philip Connaughton is a choreographer and performer from Dublin. He trained at the Rambert School of Contemporary Dance in London. In 2013 he made his first piece, Mortuus Est Philippus for Dublin Dance Festival. In 2014, he formed Company Philip Connaughton and made Tardigrade which won best design in the Tiger Dublin Fringe Awards. In 2015 he created Whack!! which toured extensively throughout Ireland and France, was performed at MOMA NYC in September 2016. In 2017 he created Extraterrestrial Events, which previewed at Le Regard du Cygne, Paris before its premiere at DDF 2017. ASSISTED SOLO was made for Dublin Fringe Festival 2018. Following that Mamafesta Memorialising was created for the festival Question de Danse at KLAP Maison pour la danse in Marseille before its Irish premiere at Cork Opera House. He has also worked extensively in opera, theatre and musical theatre. Philip is a resident artist at Project Arts Centre.

Image © Enda Rowan