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Practice-inclusive research in the arts takes centre stage
Led by Professor Yvon Bonenfant, UCC artist and director of the Future Humanities Institute, The Opposite of Queer Trauma theatre performance performed two sold out shows last weekend (June 14/15) as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival.
Supported by The Arts Council, the community integrated performance The Opposite of Queer Trauma is part of a longer programme of work that asks the question: is there an event, an experience, that can mark the body and mind as positively as traumatic events do negatively? What might this be? The performance is the creation of a mutual experience that might mark people positively from a Queer perspective in a transformative manner.
"This work brings together elements of theory and practice from theatre, experimental music, live art, interdisciplinary voice studies, to create an experience that unites professionals and community members in a singular artistic goal," said Professor Bonenfant.
The performances at the sold-out Dance Cork Firkin Crane included a wide array of artistic, technical, producing and inclusion collaborators - four experienced and professional LGBTQI+++ performers, each with quite different backgrounds, and eight LGBTQI+++ community members, to make this voice-movement show.
The performers explore the expressive power of their voices and bodies in ways that they might have not done before: ways that allowed the wisdom of existing outside the norm - to surge forth. Each member of the ensemble found sounds and movements that they gave themselves as gifts: gifts that they worked to radiate outward vocally and physically. A series of moments of gifting form the backbone of this unusual, choral, semi-theatrical, slightly danced, show, as these gifts are turned outward to become gifts to you.
"In my view, this is a strong example of where practice-inclusive research in the arts can really make a difference not just to what we do as artists but to how we do things, and how striving for aesthetic inclusion can challenge us to re-think our cultural value systems. It could seem impossible to generate an ‘Opposite of Queer Trauma’ – but we in the Queer community face the impossible regularly – we have the expertise!"
Going forward, Professor Bonenfant will be creating walks (promenades) and a public-friendly ‘Zine, sharing how to find one’s own Opposite of Queer Trauma, made by the ensemble.