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Yes and Yes

NEW YORK TIMES 2023 CRITIC'S PICK

April 26th — July 31st, 2023
Commissioned by Solas Nua
USA & Ireland
Photo by Steve O' Connor

Photo by Steve O' Connor

"[Liz Roche] and her team, including the cast of four excellent dancers, have distilled the famously convoluted text into a poetic, beautifully wrought 70 minutes." [Yes and Yes is] a fluent expression of Roche’s lush and lyrical sensibility”.
New York Times 2023 Critic's Pick

About

To mark 100 years since the first publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, one of the most important works of modern literature, Solas Nua in Washington D.C in partnership with Cork Opera House, commissioned Liz Roche and her company to create a brand-new dance piece, Yes and Yes.

Yes and Yes takes its title from the final episode of the book which both begins and ends with a “yes”. “…yes I said yes I will Yes”; the famous last words of the book, exclaimed by Molly Bloom. The dance journeys through the episodes of Ulysses, exploring the sensuality, absurdity, release, and resignation of the book in movement with four extraordinary dancers and through film, sound, and design.

Over 70 minutes, the work maps the movement of the narrative through the streets of Dublin in 1904 and explores those same spaces and encounters today, with contemporary bodies revealing new and surprising connections.

Yes and Yes by Liz Roche was a co-production between Solas Nua in Washington DC and Liz Roche Company in partnership with Cork Opera House. Commissioned by Solas Nua. Kindly supported by Culture Ireland and The Arts Council/ An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Team

Created and Choreographed by Liz Roche
In collaboration with dancers Sarah Cerneaux, Mufutau Yusuf, Diarmuid Armstrong, Grace Cuny and Toon Theunissen
Music Ray Harman
Stage and Costume Design Katie Davenport
Lighting Design Davison Scandrett
Film and Videography José Miguel Jiménez
Dramaturgy Wayne Jordan
Costume Supervisor James Seaver

Trailer

Photos by Steve O' Connor

Image by Steve O' Connor

Photo by Steve O' Connor

Dates

April 26th, 2023

Cork Opera House

May 4th — 6th, 2023

The Irish Arts Centre, New York

May 10th, 2023

Spring Moves, Dance Festival, Wexford Opera House

May 12th, 2023

Hawk's Well Theatre, Sligo

May 17th, 2023

Town Hall Theatre, Galway

20th & 21st May, 2023

Dublin Dance Festival, Project Arts Centre, Dublin

July 12th, 2023

Earagail Arts Festival, An Grianan Theatre, Donegal

November 10th — 12th, 2022

Project Arts Centre, Dublin

9th & 10th September, 2022

Atlas Performing Arts Center, Washington, D.C.

September 13th, 2022

Mullen Center for the Performing Arts at Villanova University, Philadelphia

"Like Joyce did with words, Roche plays with the infinite choreographic possibilities of movement.......Crafting a wonderful, dreamlike experience.......Yes and Yes, an artistic delight, offering a multitude of perspectives for you to enjoy and discuss time and again"
Chris O' Rourke, The Arts Review
“Liz Roche Company bask[s] in the complexity of Joyce's multi-layered novel.... a sense of irreverence is never far from the surface....the novel, a conceptual scaffold for the impressive choreography. The dance, performed excellently by Mufutau Yusuf, Sarah Cerneaux, Grace Cuny and Diarmuid Armstrong, seems carried along by the energy of the writing.”
THE IRISH TIMES

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