A new multimedia performance by Croí Glan Integrated Dance Company Unseen, created by choreographer Tara Brandel and abstract painter Stacey White, premiered in October at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen as part of the Uillinn Dance Season 2023.

Unseen shakes our perceptions of the stereotypical body, drawing the audience out of the comfort zone of how and when we can move, addressing the limitations we hold in our heads about what is easy, what is fluid, and how seeming flaws of our bodies enable new creativity and new experiences.

In 2019, Stacey began developing microscopic images of plankton: these have been used to create an extensive body of abstract paintings which are seen, silent yet living, throughout the performance and Tara, experiencing physical changes herself, began developing this work. Movement slowed for everyone in 2020 due to Covid, creating a hiatus in Unseen’s development: reflecting in itself the changing anatomy of physicality.

Croí Glan’s skill has always lain in reflecting the value of diverse bodies: in this performance, hidden disability becomes the impetus for unfolding a new way of seeing, a new way of breathing. The audience is spellbound, silent as the waves of change wash over us.

Fluid and slow, the performance unfolds. Before a backdrop of video by Luca Truffarelli with sound by Niall O’Carroll, we are invited to breathe, to inhale the slow pace and mighty oxygen of plankton, and release our preconceptions about how and when our anatomies respond to life, to living with our hidden abilities and disabilities. The forces of nature, in all their benevolence and malice, become encapsulated in the slow emergence of movement.

 

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In the performance’s opening silence, we hear our own breathing; we hear our own bodies.

The slow movement of plankton, the slow curve of the body in celebratory dance brings us back to the beginning, when movement was simple, and arcs into the possibility of beauty in change, the renewal of force and the recreation of mighty beauty.

In Unseen, we find reflections of the ecosystem of humanity, from the minutiae of plankton to the muscle that pulls us up from the sea, into the world. From the miniature to the immense, this radical practice of accepting difference and sculpting art within, and without, the body. Tara’s movements, slowly unfolding, reflect the growth of plants into the sun, and as Stacey paints, patient and silent, the performers gradually move closer, to finally lean against each other, supporting each other in mutual frailty and separating again, to move in the world.

Plankton produces half of the world’s oxygen: this mutuality and support is gracefully and lovingly rendered throughout the performance. The slow balance of body and world; each movement changes the world forever. Emerging crab-like into the light, the drama and endurance of life emerge in a regeneration of strength, mutuality and support, in curve and step, in shade and light.

The endurance of strength in the body illustrates the endurance of ecosystems, and our need, our wish, to support that endurance in all its forms. This performance enables us to look again at our expectations of the body, and our expectations of the world we inhabit.

Croí Glan is currently Arts Council Company in Residence at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre: in his introduction, Curator and Dance Artist in residence Luke Murphy recognised the importance of Tara’s work, both as a local artist and as Artistic Director of Croí Glan, noting the value of bringing arts to rural areas and reflecting that Tara Brandel has been a powerful force in making this happen.

Unseen will tour in 2024, with confirmed dates at Dance Cork in Firkin Crane on May 10 and 11, and Mermaid Theatre, Bray on June 19.