Yes and Yes
NEW YORK TIMES 2023 CRITIC'S PICK
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”.
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.
| 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 |
Gallery
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"
“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.”
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