Dancing in the Street: Comparing Amy Conroy’s ‘Eternal Rising of the Sun’ and Jean Butler’s ‘Hurry’

It’s been a few weeks since I saw Eternal Rising of the Sun at Axis Ballymun, written and performed by Amy Conroy and directed by Veronica Coburn. Ever since then the performance has been going around in my head. I knew I wanted to write about it, but I couldn’t put my finger on what aspect of it. Class-integration using performance? Confidence and self-fulfilling prophecies? How an audience relates to a lone, sad, everyday character? Every topic seemed overdone and empty, and I was afraid that the fantastic performance I had witnessed would go unanalysed and undocumented. 

Amy Conroy as Gina Devine in Eternal Rising of the Sun

That is, until I saw Jean Butler’s Hurry at Project Arts Centre, choreographed under the direction of John Kinzel. Immersed in the piercing and abrasive soundtrack while Jean Butler (of Riverdance fame) danced the life of a city on a bare stage, I saw the two performances snap together, acting as each other’s secret foils. The character of awkward sassy/trashy trackie-wearing Gina Devine at first couldn’t seem further apart from the formidable grace and internationally-recognised talent of Jean Butler, but as Butler began the performance, stretching and pointing her body in an invisible angular cage, all I could hear in my head was the character of Gina Devine tensely exhaling ‘G…I…N…A….’. Both of these performances tell the story of a city, at street level, in seemingly opposite ways that come full circle to meet again, with talent and elegance crunching into the gravel of an urban scene. 

In Hurry, Butler becomes the city. She is the swaggering teenager, aggressively crossing your path; she is the sinuous lady in red you spot in a crowd, winding her way further away from you; she is a mass of barely-awake commuters on the Luas. She is exhaustion, sleeplessness, reluctance and caffeine-fueled energy, wrapped up in a quickly unravelling blanket of everyday routine. She sets the scene for Gina Devine: she is the city that envelops a coarse, exquisite rough diamond of a personality. While Butler conveys anonymity, flickering effortlessly between an urban landscape and representations of individual city-goers, Gina represents a fiercely individual personality that refuses to be part of that routine. 

Jean Butler in Hurry, Photo Credit: Ruby Washington

And then dance brings them together. Though Gina is awkward, showing flashes of passionate elegance through her ungainliness while Butler is clear-cut, technically sharp and always held in perfect balance, both allow the city to travel through tense muscles out onto the audience. Butler’s stage becomes every means of public transport, every pavement, every restless weeknight bedroom; Gina’s becomes every lonely moment in a pulsating nightclub, every minimum-wage job, and a room that exists in an uncomfortable state of a perpetual, claustrophobic weekend. 

Both these solo performances represent the soul of a city, and stories that live in wads of gum on the pavement, stubbed out cigarettes and fast-paced bodies grasping take-away coffees. After seeing both of these performances, I realise that their titles tie them together perfectly in representing the life of a city denizen: everyday we hurry to to meet the eternal rising of the sun. 

Hurry was performed at Project Arts Centre as part of the Dublin Dance Festival. 
Eternal Rising of the Sun was performed at Axis Ballymun, and is finishing it’s current HotForTheatre’s tour at Draioght Arts Centre on 24th May. It will return as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival in September.

“Don’t worry, you are being set free”: A review of “On Tender Hooks”

It was the faces of the people being suspended that got me. Not knowing a thing about suspension or that entire alternative community, I watched Kate Shenton’s documentary on human suspension, On Tender Hooks, and what drew me in were the faces of the suspended. It was that state of bliss, and a look of pure peace that made me want to see more. It’s a feeling we don’t experience as part of our everyday lives, and seeing such a multitude of them in the space of an hour made something twinge inside me. Perhaps it was a small amount of jealousy, a slight envy of that cathartic experience, because most of us inherently crave that nirvana, that peace. Being able to watch so many people experience that in one film was overwhelming.

 And what enabled people to reach that state was the access to human suspension, and the very warm and supportive community that it is made of. Shenton’s focus on community is an important aspect of the film, as it then goes far beyond a superficial freak-show kind of documentary that it could easily have been. It starts out as being very fly on the wall, but soon I realised that it goes much deeper. Her use of footage of herself being filmed, such as when a roomful of people cheer her on as she gets branded, and the documenting of her own suspension pulls the viewer in as they follow her path deeper into another world, a microcosm many of us don’t even know exists.

 What I found the most interesting is the way in which Shenton does not use captions. Though she covers events in the UK, Croatia and Norway, she allows the dialogue and the natural background of the film convey a sense of location, and this strategy allows the boundaries to be blurred between the events. Each event is populated by a variety of nationalities, and the combination of fluid filming between countries and interaction with an international community emphasises the idea that suspension creates a world and community of its own that obviously transcends borders. Hearing about the difficulty that many experienced when looking for suspension opportunities, and the prejudice that many experience, highlights this connection between people of different nationalities.

There are many powerful moments in this film, many of which take you through similar motions: pain, refusal, pain, tears and then sudden, open happiness. Watching the film-maker herself go through this in the film was a vital keystone which would make it much more appealing to people who are not part of an alternative community. As she stands there, scared and vulnerable in a flowery dress and saying “I don’t have any piercings…well I got my ears pieced when I was eleven”, we can relate to someone who isn’t used to physical pain that many experience with body modification. She acts as a perfect bridge between the two worlds, which proves that there is no reason why the two shouldn’t overlap.

 For the uninitiated like myself, my stomach was flipping over from the beginning, and I have heard that some seeing this film couldn’t stomach it at all. However I found that it very quickly focused on the individuals and the community they have created, and once I was desensitised to the imagery I was very easily lost in the story and emotions of the characters rather than fixated on the skin and blood. And even though for my own reasons I will not be suspended, the film forced me to think of what I do to create my own similar happiness. And even though for the people in the film it’s having flying around a room suspended by hooks through their skin, and for me it’s reading a good book in bed with a cup of tea, what I took from the film is that humans strive to find their moments of peace, and On Tender Hooks was a fascinating way to show how it can be done.  

All images are screenshots from the film.

On Tender Hooks was recently screened for the first time this month at the London Short Film Festival. For more information on the film, see the Facebook page and Kate Shenton’s website. 

I Fell in Love with a City

There’s nothing left for us here,
Let’s face it.
We’re losing sight of our dream
Let’s chase it.
Leave our mediocre lives behind.
Living Each Day Blind
I’m sick of struggling
Just to get through it.
The time for talking is over
Let’s do it.
Nothing you can say will change my mind.
 -The Darkness, “Living Each Day Blind”, Hot Cakes, 2012

I remember when I first read the email. It was the email that said that, due to a change in visa rules, I couldn’t stay in London anymore. After a few days of panic, it was final: England was done with me. Even worse, London was done with me. London was washing its hands off of me. London had packed up all my stuff while I was out, and when I got home, my bags were already at the door. I had just been dumped, not by a person, but by a country. And more importantly and heartbreakingly, I had been dumped by London.

I had been in a steady, stable relationship for two and a half years, and honestly had forgotten what heartbreak felt like. Suddenly, it all came flooding back. My boyfriend at the time found me in my bathrobe on the sofa, tears streaming down my face, wailing and viciously adding songs to my new playlist ‘England I love you but you’re bringing me down’. Yes, it was more about England and UK Border Control, but it didn’t feel that way. 

It had taken me about six months to originally fall in love with London in 2009. Unlike York or Dublin, where I just felt a natural, warm love for the city, London made me work for it. I was terrified and out of my comfort zone at first -  unfamiliar with the sheer vastness of the place. But after I moved to Zone 1, my love blossomed. But it was never a city that made me happy - my relationship with London was fairly abusive. London’s the kind of city that kicks you down the stairs, but you still will crawl back up them every day just to kiss its feet. During those three years, stress and anxiety ran through my veins. I was on edge all day, every day, worrying about jobs and sponsorships. And of course, it was even worse as a non-EU immigrant. No matter how much I gave to the city, it didn’t want me. In my last year in London, I noticed it becoming definitely more racist. Maybe it was always like that, or maybe I just noticed it more, but I was constantly being reminded that I simply Did Not Belong, and it was Time to Go Home…which doesn’t really work when you don’t have a home to go to. London was my home. It was my lover. It was the handsomely gaunt rock star boyfriend in skinny jeans that looked at you in pitying disdain when he realised that you have feelings for him. London was the high-maintenance pouty thrift-shop supermodel that had simply gotten bored of you. London was everything to me, and it broke my heart.

So why have I suddenly thought of all of this, a month and a half after I have moved my life to Dublin? I was happy the second I stepped off of the plane when I got here, and I have been happy ever since. Leaving London felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off of me. The constant sense of paranoia and anxiety had simply disappeared. I have heard police sirens maybe once a week here, occasionally more. There is no voice on public transport telling you to report suspicious baggage or incidents. People walk slower here. The accent is different, making the entire aural landscape slightly more languid and undulating. There isn’t that crushing sense of urgency that surrounds everything you do. I feel really, genuinely happy. So why did I wake up this morning feeling like I had a giant hole in my chest, with the sudden realisation that a month and a half ago I lost an entire life? 

It’s complicated having a relationship with a city. It’s not just a single human being (or even several) where you can put your finger down on specific events, points, flaws or issues. It’s a city. It envelopes you, swallows you, drowns you. You could never have such an all-emcompassing, totally immersive relationship with a human being. So how the hell do you break up with a city? And how do you get over it?  And when that city is London, how can you ever really get over it when the pollution from the London underground still coats the inside of your lungs, and your shoes still have the dusty streets of London kissing their soles?

But it’s always like this, isn’t it? The relationships where you get treated the worst are the ones you never really recover from. I love Dublin. Dublin has allowed me to do the things I have always wanted to do, to start being the person I’ve always wanted to be. It’s welcoming, and I feel wanted. I have dived headfirst into the literary and cultural event scene, and I feel at home there. I used a real microphone for the first time and made a room of 150 people laugh as I poured my heart out to them. I write weekly for a publication I have pretty much worshipped for years. My degree course is nurturing and better than my other two degrees (in the academic sense). I’ve made great friends, and I’m having the time of my life. And until this morning, I’ve never looked back after leaving London. But now and then, when some little thing triggers it, I’ll remember that I used to love a city with a ferocity that can never be replicated; a city that never really loved me back. 

Photo of London from my 9th-floor flat on Old Kent Road in 2011

Love, music, books and British boys Pt 2: Terry

In March 2011, I had been with my boyfriend for almost a year, and was about to move away from London and in with him to the middle of nowhere known as Leighton Buzzard. I was having a tough summer in general, and was looking for things to read that would help or distract me. Since he loves sci-fi and fantasy fiction as much as I do, and has every book written by Terry Pratchett, he lent me “The Colour of Magic”.

14 months later I have read all 30 books in the Discworld series, Nation, as well as the four-part Tiffany Aching series and two books co-written by him. That’s 37 Terry Pratchett books in 14 months. That’s 2.6 books per month, in addition to other books that I was reading at the time. I don’t think I have ever read as prolifically as I have done this year, and it has pretty much changed my life. Reading Nation inspired me to start this blog in the first place, and was my first review. 

So…why the Discworld? Why Terry? And why is it more than just a good read? Why is it love?

I think it all boils down to the characters. Pratchett has a way of nailing humanity down, in all its imperfections. He somehow understands the way we think, and the way we work. He gets the mob, and he gets the individual. And he makes us laugh at - and with - all of them. He makes us laugh at ourselves, and I think that in a strange way he makes us understand ourselves. And he also forces us to see what we might want to be, and what we never want to become.

Some characters have had more of an effect on me than others. When Captain Carrot of the Nightwatch said “personal is not the same as important”, his character became real. I felt that if he could make himself believe that, so could I. It’s a strong, gut-wrenching message. The daily plights and adventures of Tiffany Aching couldn’t have been read at a more appropriate time, as I was spending nights with my mother in hospital. Tiffany had so much more on her plate than I did, and she was 13! I could handle my life, if she could deal with hers. Yes, she is fictional. But when Pratchett puts her on paper, she is real, and I could genuinely relate to her. For some reason, she gave me more strength than any other non-fictional character has been able to. Reading Night Watch inspired me to write yet another blog post about his insightful dissection of a riot, and it made me understand my world more, and perhaps gave me a little glimpse behind why things like the London riots happen, and why good people do bad things. 

Those are only a few tiny examples of how his characters and narratives have crossed over into my reality. And the truth is, his reality is my reality. The Discworld is really just you, me, our families, our friends, our cities, and our problems and our prejudices. I can’t even describe it as a parallel world; it’s more than that. It’s like a layer on top of our world, a fine filter with a sprinkling of magic in it that acts like a lens, zooming in to our everyday lives. 

Oh yes, the magic. In the magic I find the escapism, but at the same time in it I find myself. In the magic of the witches I understand more about strength, choices and selflessness. In the magic of the wizards I understand fear, and the academic desire to learn more (a desire displayed mainly by Ponder Stibbons, that is). In the dungeon dimensions I find the monsters under the bed. And in Vimes’ head, I find the darker magic that constantly temps the soul, and tries to release the beast that lives inside all of us. 

And so, a year later, I have come to the end of the Discworld and the end of a relationship. My boyfriend gave me not only the gift of Terry Pratchett, but similar books in the same genre which I have fallen in love with as well. He gave me books that have lived in my handbag all year, that made me feel happier just knowing they were within reach. He gave me those moment of pure joy, reading in a park during a lunchbreak. He helped me tolerate those half-hour train rides to and from Leighton Buzzard. He gave me some of the most precious things a friend can give to another friend: his love, and his books.

He gave me Terry. 

This is what happiness looks like.

Love, music, books and British boys Pt 1: Someone Great

I remember what I did when I first got LCD Soundsystem’s latest album, This is Happening. I plugged my computer into the speakers, I turned off the lights, I plugged in some mood lighting, and I lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. The first track, ‘Dance Yrself Clean’, began to play. It sounded very quiet, so I got back up and turned the volume way up. I lay back down again.

Walking up to me expecting, walking up to me expecting words, happens all the time,
Present company accepted, present company except the worst, it happens every night… 

Then 3:06 happened.

 It felt like the walls of my room had imploded. The beat dropped and my speakers could barely handle it. My eyes flew open. I felt like I had been dunked into ice-water. James Murphy started to really wail. And I knew I had found a soulmate in that song.

About three years earlier, I was first introduced to LCD Soundsystem by my first British boyfriend. We had gotten together in Fresher’s Week and stayed together for the whole of my first year. His music knowledge was so enormous is was intimidating, and I felt myself scrabbling to keep up with him. I didn’t know much about current music, I have always lived in a 70’s household, then I lived in Sweden where it was all about the hip hop, then Turkey where I was taken back to the 70’s and was introduced to some serious 80’s music. But in England, the world of contemporary music opened up to me. I found electro. I found indie. Or rather, they found me. Things were current, and new, and exciting. And in the middle of it all was James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem and DFA records, making magic. 

I loved their self-titled album - he gave it to me as a present. I loved it so much that I had to go see them live. We went to see them at the Cockpit in Leeds. There was James Murphy, looking like a drunk builder. He was unshaven, a bit chubby and he looked a mess. In the middle of the show he unbuckled his belt and just left it half-hanging from his jeans. But then this hobo-like man grabbed the microphone with both hands, closed his eyes, and gave us all he had. 

Photo from the gig in Leeds, March 2007

So, why DO I love them so much? 

The word that keeps coming back to me is ‘resonates’. Their music resonates with me. Their songs apply to every moment in my life. I can be in a perfectly good mood on the bus to work listening to LCD Soundsystem and suddenly burst into tears listening to ‘Home’. I can be feeling awful about something stupid I’ve done, but then I listen to ‘One Touch’ and realise hell, to err is human, and at least I have a good soundtrack to err to. I think of my own funeral, where I would like ‘The Great Release’ to be played, because of its simple, elongated beauty and lyrics like “It feels like I’m coming home…and it feels like it’s full of love…something dying will be a great release”. ‘Losing my Edge’ is the song of the quarter-life crisis, the mid-life crisis, and generally feeling past it. No breakup is complete without listening to ‘Someone Great’ (which I have aptly named this post after). ‘All My Friends’ is what I have titled my going-away party, because it says everything about youth, and friendship, and moving on, and looking back, and there is never a moment in your life where you can hear the lyrics “if I could see all my friends tonight” and not feel something deep inside. And then of course, there’s LCD Soundsystem’s classic show-closer, ‘New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down’ (which I mentally replace with ‘London I Love you’) which reminds me that I have fallen in love with a city, and that city is changing and so am I. Their lyrics are funny, meaningful, real, clever and can make you laugh, dance and cry. Their music is electro disco punk rock synthy magic, with just the right amount of cowbell. It’s perfect.

I saw them play live two more times with that same boyfriend who started it all: at O2 Wireless Festival in Leeds in 2007, a few acts before Daft Punk, and on their very last tour last year, at Alexandra Palace in London. Knowing that they were breaking up, and there wasn’t going to be anymore LCD Soundsystem, was a shock. I saw them together for the last time, and never again. But then the wonderful thing about music is that it lives on, and it’s us fans that will forever keep it alive. 

It seems that it’s not only me who want to keep talking about them. This blog post happens to be quite timely, a week before SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS starts showing in cinemas in the US, a documentary about LCD Soundsystem before and after their very last show. I watched a clip of it today, and I see that I share this experience with many, many people. I’m hoping it comes to London or Dublin soon, so that I can sit in a room filled with people who love them like I do.

And I know who will be sitting right next to me. 

Last song, last tour, for the last time. Taken during “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” by LCD Soundsystem at Alexandra Palace, 10th November 2011

At the moment SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS is only touring in American cities, and will be released globally later this summer. Follow them at @LCD_SUAPTH, and to demand a showing where you are, click here.

Love, music, books and British Boys: A Two Part Series

When I was sixteen I had my very first boyfriend, and closely following that, my very first break-up. During that long and heartbroken summer, alone in Washington, D.C. with only books and my father for company, reading Ayn Rand and writing bad poetry, I wrote my definition of what True Love really is. Funnily enough, that definition has stuck with me till today. 

“What is True Love? Is it the heatless warmth that spreads through me when looking at a truly great painting; when watching a true drummer play with all their heart; when writing a truly great story or poem; when the bass at a concert shudders through me and fills completely with a silent joy, and unconsciously pulls up the ends of my mouth. It is true, pure and uncomplicated, pulling those close into its vortex with me.”
-Me, 30 June 2004 

I realized back then that yes, I will go through life being in love with people, but my true loves will always be art, writing and music. They are the gifts that keep on giving, that have given me positive experiences that will remain with me forever. 

Eight years later, I am having a conversation with my boyfriend about what good things people take away from relationships, and I am reminded of my teenage theory. In just over a month I will be permanently leaving the UK, where I have lived, loved, and grown into a Real Person during the last six years. Thinking about this conversation, I realise what my boyfriend has given me: he has introduced me to the writing of Terry Pratchett, who is now my favourite author. 

A week later, I spent an evening with my good friend and first British boyfriend watching 3-hour-long footage of my favourite band’s final concert, a band he introduced me to in my first few weeks in the UK. I think of the same question and realise that he has given me the music of that band, LCD Soundsystem. From these two romantic loves have sprouted two True Loves, an author and a musician that has changed my life. Terry Pratchett and LCD Soundsystem may not be the best writer and band that ever lived - some would say far from it - but they have created things that have truly resonated with me, and I love them with all my heart. 

In the coming weeks I will post a two-part series dedicated to these two wonderful people who symbolize the beginning and the end of my six years in the UK and the gifts they have given me, two True Loves that will remain with me for the rest of my life. 

James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and Terry Pratchett

‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ by Erich Maria Remarque

I have never really been able to come to terms with war. There has always been something that terrifies me about how a government can order a group of men and women to murder other men and women just like them, but from a different place or for a different cause. Now I have absolutely nothing against the soldiers themselves: I just feel very uncomfortable with the idea of human beings being used as pawns in the great game of chess that is politics. 

Reading Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ both reaffirmed my feelings, but also made me understand wartime on a much deeper level. His writing is lyrical but concise, starkly outlining friendships and feuds in both an emotional and indifferent way. This writing style is extremely effective as it exactly mirrors the mental state of our narrator, nineteen-year-old Paul Baumer. Your thoughts become his thoughts, and his eyes are yours. Reading this book, I feel that this is the closest to war I will hopefully ever get, but I truly felt in it. His thoughts and reflections give the reader a true insight into the mind of a soldier during WW1, with all the hopelessness, companionship, and questions that they don’t want to ask themselves. 

I have never truly understood how a schoolkid or a postman or an accountant can become a killing machine, but Remarque explains it with such basic purity that I begin to comprehend it. 

We have lost all feelings for others, we barely recognize each other…We are dead men with no feelings, who are able by some trick, some dangerous magic, so keep on running and keep on killing.

(Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, p80)

Baumer often refers to the soldiers, during an attack, as ‘animals’. Their instincts melt down to kill or be killed, and he often mentions that they are no longer ‘human’ many times. 

There is only one time in the book when the soldiers actually discuss the cause of the war, and the question ‘why?’ does not hang in the air, but is asked, justified, and put aside. “Were out here defending our homeland” says Kropp, another solder. “And yet the French are out there defending their homeland as well. Which of us is right?”. The conversation continues:

“…we are almost all ordinary workers, aren’t we? And in France the majority are workers too….why on earth should a French locksmith or a French shoemaker attack us? No it’s just the governments.”

“So why is there a war at all?” asks Tjaden.

Kat shrugs. “There must be some people who find the war worthwhile.”

“And I bet there are other people behind it all who are making a profit out of the war,” grumbles Detering.

“I think it’s more a kind of fever,” says Albert. ‘Nobody really wants it, but all of a sudden, there it is. We didn’t want to war, they say the same thing on the other side – and in spite of that half the world is at it hammer and tongs.”

…”It’s better not to talk about the whole damn thing.”

“Doesn’t change anything, anyway,” agrees Kat.

(Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, p141-42)

The other side of wartime that is described is the process of taking leave and going home, and attempting to assimilate back into life before being a soldier. Thinking of the many wars that are occurring in the world at the moment, I wonder if those soldiers are going through the same process. How does one ease back into the banality of life, a life without death at your side? How do you begin to tolerate other people, full of the wonderful triviality of everyday life, when you have seen your friends without heads, limbs, guts, faces? How do you turn the killing switch off forever? 

We are no longer young men. We’ve lost any desire to conquer the world. We are refugees. We are fleeing from ourselves. From our lives. We were eighteen years old, and we had just begun to love the world and to love being in it; but we had to shoot at it. The first shell to land went straight for our hearts. We’ve been cut off from real action, from getting on, from progress. We don’t believe in those things anymore; we believe in the war.

(Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, p61)

There are not many deductions I have gained from this book; rather, I have gained an insight, a brief window of understanding into a world that is not mine, and world that surrounds us on a daily basis that we can push into the category of Over There, a world that defines our history, created by schoolkids, postmen and accountants, who have been taught how to kill. The book does not judge, complain, glorify or demonize: it simply states what the soldiers do, say and think. Through this book I have also learnt not to blindly judge those who go to war. The young men in this book were encouraged to enlist by a schoolteacher who glorified the war. Later in the book, they boys, now men, take their revenge on the teacher for because of one man, many of them died before their time. I am afraid that there must be many young people who join the army not knowing the full horror of what lies ahead, who are full of patriotism, good intentions, and the myth of ‘liberation’. I would encourage those people to read All Quiet on the Western Front, not to discourage them, but for them to at least be prepared for war, and to understand it like I feel I can understand it now. As young Albert says, “the war has ruined us for everything”, and it is important to know that if you go to war, you may not ever really return.

Note: I would like to thank World Book Night for giving out copies of this book in 2011. I have never been drawn to reading ‘war books’, but when I received a copy of this I decided to give it a go. It is a powerful story that will never leave me, and I owe this experience to you.