15 - 17 October - Rights on the Rooftop
PURCHASE TICKETS BY CLICKING ON THE DATES AND TIMES BELOW:
Time: Friday, October 15 – Sunday, 17 October, 3:00 - 4:00 PM
Venue: Rooftop Garden, Chester Beatty Library
Tickets: €15
Rights on the Rooftop is a live performance showcasing theatre, poetry, song and dance and is a poetic reflection on equality and rights drawing inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The performance is presented on the roof garden of the Chester Beatty and has been created by
emerging and established artists who have taken part in State of the Art: The Nation State as both Violator and Protector of Human Rights, a year-long project implemented by a range of partners with support from The Arts Council.
The roof garden of the Chester Beatty is divided into a series of different surfaces: stone, hardwood, gravel and ornamental grasses with timber trellises situated around the garden’s perimeter. These lead from the door of the garden to a high point where a large silver birch becomes the focal point. Rights on the Rooftop is a poetical installation brought to life in the rooftop garden creating a dance between the human body and soul intersecting with fundamental desires for freedom and equality.
The performance is an interdisciplinary installation created by artists Mary Moynihan, Geraldine McAlinden and Michael McCabe based on theatrical writings and poetry by writers Féilim James, Geraldine McAlinden and Mary Moynihan with choreography by Michael McCabe. A key element of the performance is an extract from John Scott’ acclaimed dance, Cloud Study, created by John Scott, Artistic Director and Choreographer with Irish modern Dance Theatre.
Cloud Study is part dance, part dream, part theatre, part athletics. Two compelling dancers, Favour Odusola and Vitor Bassi, attempt to run 1,000 kilometres in circles and lines through the space, chasing dreams, memories, and home. This performance is a wild explosive running dance: running away, running in circles, which become turns and then falls. Each fall and run generates beautiful, frantic wild movements, lifts, wild shapes in the air. The specially created score by Northern Irish award-winning composer Ryan Vail features everyday sounds blended with voice and electronics culminating in huge orchestral textures, then dissolving into sparse piano. Cloud Study premiered at Galway International Arts Festival in July 2018, then ran at Smock Alley Theatre Dublin in November 2018 and at Dance Limerick in December 2018. Cloud Study is an Irish Modern Dance Theatre production directed by John Scott, Artistic Director and Choreographer.
This is an outdoor performance, warm clothing is recommended.
Artists
Favour Odusola
Favour Odusola (Proud African King) is a thespian, a dedicated and passionate individual and a face that portrays the average African dancer with the zeal to learn and explore. Originally from Lagos, Nigeria, Favour is currently based in Dublin, Ireland. Favour is very adventurous, looking for new ways to use dance as a tool to be of relevance. Learn to live and be free while doing so. Say no to back talk, improve love and enjoy life one at a time. Favour believes that dance is a tool for social integration, education, proper implementation and love but only if used right. This is his plan. To use dance to make others understand even when they don’t want to. Teaching without really lecturing. Favour is everything in a dancer and more. Educated, zealous, a thinker, playful, genius, dangerous and unpredictable. Looking for new ways to innovate at the same time create a platform and structure for both the young, experienced and inexperienced so they understand how important dance as a tool and career is and should not be taken for granted.
Vitor Bassi
Contemporary dancer and actor graduated at School of Drama Escola de Arte Dramática EAD/ECA/USP, SP, Brazil (considered one of the best drama college in Brazil inside University of São Paulo), where has worked with the professionals such as Dagoberto Feliz, Cláudia Schapira, Iacov Hillel, Carlos Bauzys, Isabel Setti, Cristiane Paoli-Quito, among others. Has studied with the cinema professionals Luciana Canton, Fernando Leal and Luiz Mario Vicente. Had been working with Irish Modern Dance Theatre directed by John Scott. Had worked for 9 years with Cia. Repentistas do Corpo (which uses body percussion, dance, live music and acting) directed by Sérgio Rocha. Was part of the cast at Selo Homens de COR (a performing company) directed by Sidney Santiago Kuanza. Had also worked as an actor with Luciana Ramanzini and Eduardo Leão at show called Bento Batuca, with Cia. Teatro do Bardo directed by Fernanda Maia, with Ricardo Ripa at another show called Corcunda Quaquá,, with Núcleo Experimental direct by Zé Henrique de Paula, Cia. Os Crespos directed by Lucélia Sergio and Sidney Santiago Kuanza, and Cia. Ouroboros directed by Luanda Eliza. The experience in dance goes through different independent dance companies such as Núcleo OMSTRAB directed by Fernando Lee, Cia. 3 de Paus directed by Aguinaldo Bueno, Sérgio Rocha and Ricardo Iazetta, Um Trilha para sua História directed by Gustavo Kurlat with choreographies from Dafne Michellepis and Marina Caron, Jorge Garcia cia de dança directed by himselfand GRUA – Gentleman de Rua directed by Osmar Zampieri, Jorge Garcia and Willy Helm.
State of the Art: Nation State as Both Violator and Protector of Human Rights
Events at Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival
15 – 24 October 2021
State of the Art: The Nation State as both Violator and Protector of Human Rights is a year-long project curated by Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality with a range of artists and partners, funded by The Arts Council of Ireland.
The State of the Art project brings together fourteen diverse artists through six collaborative artist exchanges and ongoing artistic engagement. Artists come together over one year, January to December 2021, to explore, share and engage in creative arts practice for human rights and to create a showcase of new work to be presented to a public audience. The artists include visual artists, theatre and film makers, dance artists, poets, writers, multi-disciplinary artists, musicians and singer-songwriters. Artists share, support and inspire each other in creative arts practice for human rights, equality and diversity –promoting experiential professional development and creativity.
The artists have engaged in research on national and international best practice examples of arts and human rights from across Europe linked to sociological and anthropological standpoints and a study of ‘art as activism’ from the personal to the political. Through the collaborative exchanges, artists have
engaged in a variety of activities as well as giving presentations on their own work, on work that inspires them, and meeting with representatives of a variety of human rights organisations and government officials, including Front Line Defenders, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), the Irish Network Against Racism (INAR), former Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu and Cllr Carly Bailey.
The artists are:
Mary Moynihan, writer, director, theatre and film maker, Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality
Pamela McQueen, dramaturg
Carla Ryan, actor, singer-songwriter
Noelle McAlinden, Visual Artist, Creative Advisor, Mental Health Campaigner, Curator and Cultural Broker
Áine O’Hara, visual artist, theatre maker
Geraldine McAlinden, writer, actor, director
Hina Khan, visual artist
Michael McCabe, actor, director, drama facilitator
Féilim James, writer
Amna Walayat, visual artist
Michelle Costello, actor, visual artist
Sinead McCann, visual artist
John Scott, dancer, choreographer, Artistic Director of Irish Modern Dance Theatre
Ellen O’Mahony, singer-songwriter
Read the artists biogs here
Artistic Creation
As part of State of the Art, the artists have created a series of showcase artworks to be presented for the 2021 Dublin Arts and Human Rights festival both live – at the Chester Beatty and dlr Mill Theatre Dundrum – and virtually as part of a visual art exhibition and film installation screened via the new Smashing Times Virtual Art gallery. The artworks are inspired by the theme State of the Art: The Nation State as both Violator and Protector of Human Rights and by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, intersecting with equality, human rights and diversity and created under the framework of ‘Art as a Place of Performative Remembrance’ and ‘Art as Activism and Transformation’.
