Multitudes
Multitudes is a series of works choreographed in 2022 all thematically focusing on the kitchen and our individual memories tied to the space. Currently there are three works in the series:
Multitudes: Vessel was commissioned by the Courthouse Arts Centre and premiered on 28th October 2022. The work is a walk-through immersive performance combining elements of dance, aerial circus and theatre to create an experience which brings the public right into the performers internal worlds.
Direction: Ali Clarke
Performance and collaboration: Sophia Herzog, Saoirse O’Kane, Emily Aoibheann and Alan Howley
Voice Talent: Brid Ni Chumhaill
Music: Michael Byrne
Thank you to the Wicklow Arts Council, Denise McGrath and Kieran O’Toole for their support in making this work.
Multitudes: Future Nostalgia is a solo performed by Ali Clarke. The work is an autobiographic look at kitchens past and present. It premiered at the Dancer from the Dance Festival and was later performed at the Irish Youth Dance Festival and at Dance Limerick’s What Next Festival.
Choreography and performance: Ali Clarke
Music: Michael Byrne
Dramaturgic support: Saoirse O’Kane
Multitudes: I Do This All The Time was commissioned for the final year students at Performance, a college for contemporary dance in Lisbon, Portugal. The work take a wild ride through the memories, real and imagined, of 10 dancers in their kitchens past and present.
Choreography: Ali Clarke
Performance: Second Year students at Performact
Music: Machinefabriek
‘I am large, I contain multitudes’ - Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
Together and Alone
by Saoirse Lambkin O’Kane
In our eclectic kitchen
Where everything was falling apart
Wires exposed in the ceiling,
Dirty dishes lining the countertops.
In our beloved kitchen
Filled with exuberance,
The table was decorated with tea and coffee pots,
Bottles of wine
And around it we shared everything.
Laughter
Memories
Milestones.
We celebrated,
We fell in love,
We cried,
We read eachother’s tarot cards.
We made this kitchen our own
We made it our home.
In the back of the car
On the road from Dublin to Belfast
Two and a half hours
And no phones to entertain.
I stared out the window
And the moving images blurred.
More and more
Until I didn’t see them.
Retreating into my head
Creating movies,
Extravagant stories.
Adults talked in the front
While I dove deeper into my dream world.
I could be the star of my own show or the architect of an elaborate fantasy realm.
This was my hiding place.
My comfort place.
Rarely grounded in reality,
Always away with the fairies.
