Image credit - Maurice Gunning
An Interview with Liz Roche ahead of Alternately Terrific and Gentle at Light Moves Festival
October 17, 2023
Image credit - Maurice Gunning
Come get cozy with us this October with Alternately Terrific and Gentle, an intimate performance and film installation with two showings on the 10th of November at Limerick's Belltable Theatre.
Lightmoves Biennale festival features screenings, installations, talks and performances with some of the most respected figures in the field, as well as emerging talents in dance, film and new media. With a focus on promoting collaboration, nurturing creative communities and fostering opportunities for national and international artists, the festival promises an increasingly exciting program each year.
We are excited out of our boots for this unique opportunity to present this piece, developed during the pandemic which felt, at times, that it might never come to be.
Ahead of the show, we caught up with our Artistic Director Liz to get the inside edition on what promises to be a very unique performance:
Liz, tell us about the original idea for the piece:
Myself, Jenny and Jodi, wanted to dance together again. Because our schedules are busy and Jodi lives in America we thought that if we made a trio together and then passed the movement material to different dancers who we work with or admire, then that would be a way of being connected with each other over time through the work.
How did the challenges of the pandemic influence how the piece evolved?
The pandemic meant that we couldn’t be together at all, so we decided to work in the only way we could which was through film. We began to pass the material to another set of artist/dancer collaborators and ask them to make films with their collaborators in their countries in response to the movement material or the ideas that made that movement originally.
You have worked with multiple collaborators on this piece, how did you create a synergy between the various artists involved?
We talked a lot to our collaborating artists and when we could, travelled to work with them. There were a lot of zooms and updates to coordinate it all. But really, the films were all connected through the filmmaker José Miguel Jiménez, who contributed to all of the films either as the maker/director or editor, so José was the through-line.
You're usually at the helm as artistic director/choreographer and in this piece you'll also be performing. How does it feel to be back in front of an audience?
I’ll let you know how it feels when it happens! I’m dancing with my sister Jenny and our very dear close friend, so it feels good to be with them.
What can the audience expect from the piece?
The performance at Light Moves will be something between a film installation and a dance performance. When I see it in my head, it’s really more of a dancing record of the experience of making the works, and the strange time in which it was made. The texts, letters, visual art and songs that inspired the work back in the beginning all still have a huge affect on me - they are very grounding and comforting somehow - and I like being surrounded by them again as we get closer and closer to the show.
Alternately Terrific and Gentle will have two shows for one night only at Light Moves Festival
November 10th, 2023
6 + 8 PM, Belltable, Limerick
€18/€15
