Some images from my performance of ‘cream of the crop’ at SOAK Live Art in Leadworks, Plymouth on January 25th. The night was very successful, with a large attentive and supportive audience. Thanks to Tamas Kovacs for the photos, and to Kerry Priest and Nuria Bonet Filella for coordinating the evening.
Tag: performance
‘cream of the crop’ for SOAK, Plymouth on 25th January
On January 25th I will present a new performance peice as part of the SOAK Live Art event at Leadworks in Plymouth. Organised by Sarah Blissett and Kerry Priest, SOAK is a bi-monthly live art series with a number of performers each time, bringing together live art, experimental performance, film, spoken word and music. For SOAK I will perform ‘cream of the crop’, a development of the research and testing I did on residency at Live Art Ireland in October 2023. Looking at grass and plant life, at rural life, at the impact of the dairy industry, the piece considers interaction of human and other-than-human systems. Simple actions with props and tasks are structured into a sequence, threaded through with spoken text. There are bin liners, a bucket, gloves, knee pads, a body, and words that slip between contexts of climate, sport, and agriculture.
Tickets etc via Eventbrite HERE
Screening: Three Games for Grass
Three Games for Grass: Hay Bale Circuiting, Grass Bucket Head Crawl and Bale Bouldering
Short videos screening as part of Alive & Kicking, Live Art Ireland, Saturday 9th December
While on the ‘grass’ residency in October 2023, I worked in the fields near Milford House, responding to the place, to the evidence of farming, to processes and materials used in the growth, harvesting, and storage of grass. Playing with buckets, fertilizer bags, hay and silage bales, I considered the grass as a crop, as fodder and as having economic value in the production of milk or beef. Close to the ground, walking through the fields each day, I was aware of plants as indicators of environmental damage, of ecological disruption, as impacted by human activity. The playing began to take shape as a set of new games or sports, drawing on the tradition of local sports in rural Ireland, from parish-level GAA to the Community Games to school sports days. There is also a sense of gamification expanding into all areas of life, the continued prioritising of growth models along with notions of progress, despite compelling evidence of climate crisis and environmental breakdown. The performer-player embodies an intersection of sport and agriculture, weaving his way among the abandoned hay bales, manoeuvring a bucket across a field, wrestling with plastic-wrapped silage bales. What is winning in these systems? How are conditions on the ground? Where is the benefit when the scores are totted up?
grass bucket head a
On the ‘grass’ residency at Live Art Ireland, Milford House, Tipperary. A still from a short test video, me with a bucket in the grass.
For the past week I have been trying out some moving, acting, sounding, and voicing. Working with props that connect to grass as part of the dairy industry, as a crop and as fodder and as having economic value within the production of milk. Also working with an awareness of plants as indicators of environmental damage, of ecological disruption, as impacted by human activity. I have used tasks as ways of developing movement, of generating sounds, of prompting actions, and of allowing focus to shift to doing in the moment. The grass rustles, the plastic sack crackles, the bucket clunks and rattles. Out in the front field at Milford House, I hear the busy road, I see various agricultural projects in the fields around me, I feel the grass wet, prickly, rough, soft, I smell the soil and in among the stems I see that activity of invertebrates, insects, spiders, worms carries on regardless of my daft action above them.
The video is up on Vimeo here: https://vimeo.com/872367421?share=copy
‘grass’ residency at Live Art Ireland
From October 1st I will be spending three weeks on a residency at Milford House, the home of Live Art Ireland. The theme for this year’s artist residencies is ‘grass’ and my proposal is to reflect on and develop some new performance material from my relationship with the dairy industry.
Proposal: Having grown up on a dairy farm in West Limerick and now living in Devon, I am familiar with landscapes prioritising a version of grassland, seeking an almost monoculture of grass species, driven by additives to deliver bulk. Dairy cows are exploited to maximise milk production, for consumer products seen as essential. Culturally this industry has been promoted by the Irish State, been part of the story we tell of ourselves to others. Can I find a chink within this edifice to account for the other-than-human, acknowledging species contributing to this landscape system of production and consumption. I want to look at the network of small creameries and cooperatives that developed in the early 20th Century across rural Ireland, and use these as a starting place. I want to look at language and rhythms of this industry, to consider my place within it, and develop text and actions in response.
Some work in progress images and text are up on the Live Art Ireland website now: https://www.live-art.ie/2023/10/05/mark-leahy/