COMMUNITY & COLLABORATION
TELL ME THIS NOW
In Tell Me This Now, Mountrath Youth Theatre and Mountrath Golden Years Club came together over many weekends. They were facilitated by Louise in different theatre games and exercises. This culminated in an afternoon of storytelling on stage in Dunamaise Arts Centre. You can see images here. We explored what we can all learn from each other and found playful ways to stage the group's experiences. The sharing asked: ‘What happens when we blur the generation gap with tea, biscuits, fizzy colas and our stories? You can read coverage of it in the Laois Nationalist here.
CREATIVITY PACKS
A collaboration with visual artist Clare Henderson. In early 2021, in response to COVID restrictions, we developed remote Creativity Packs for communities and groups. We’ve created an invitational, step-by-step process that uses poetry, story-telling and drawing exercises. Participants are posted a box with all the materials they need, as well as detailed instructions for six small tasks. These tasks are designed for participants who are new to creative activities as well as people with previous experience. Our first project took place in conjunction with Dunamaise Arts Centre, and The Cuisle Cancer Support Centre in Portlaoise. If you’d like to know more about these packs please get in touch. Click here for more images
RECOVERY COLLEGE & SILVER THREAD
I collaborated with Dr. Cathy Fowley of Silver Thread to offer students of The Recovery College an eight week exploration of life-stories through creative writing and drama. The Recovery College provides recovery education programmes with the support of the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health, DCU. It offers a pioneering approach to mental health recovery in Ireland. It is a space to learn about mental health and recovery in a community setting and create new knowledge. Silver Thread is an organisation that specialises in arts and health engagements through third level institutions and beyond. Their mission is to listen and encourage people to tell their stories, and to publish them as part of their legacy. ‘The Stories that Want to be Told’ was published and launched alongside a digital performance in May 2021.
BINGE BY BRIAN LOBEL
In July 2020, I performed BINGE, a one-to-one experience using TV binge watching to create a unique audience connection. BINGE was a collection of one-to-one performances developed and curated by artist Brian Lobel. It was presented by Cork Midsummer & La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego. Ten international performers connected with strangers across the globe through Zoom and shared the secrets of their favourite TV show to binge watch. We explored participants preoccupations, learned about their lives and prescribed an episode from our favourite show that might speak to a problem they were experiencing. My show was Real Housewives. Any city. I was there before Netflix people. Come at me!