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#3—




Julie MORRISSY
“Certain Individual
  Women” /
  WE, the PEOPLE 
         


PHONICA presented a unique and unusual opportunity to imagine and enact my poetry on a different and bigger scale. The open format gave me the freedom to experiment with new modes of delivery in my practice, which continue to develop and evolve. For PHONICA #9 in November 2018 I performed a 20-minute excerpt from my poetry project “CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL WOMEN,” which was accompanied by an animated video artwork of the same length. I collaborated with Annick COUNIHAN to produce this performance, and it was the first time I engaged with a multimedia element in my poetry. I developed a way of performing that involved my movement on and off the stage, taking up different positions depending on the perspective of the poem. This marked the beginning of an inclination to investigate that porous boundary between speaker and audience, and also for me to think more deeply about the ways in which my work can enlist its surroundings in order to deepen its context. For example, PHONICA #9 took place at SMOCK ALLEY THEATRE, a former Catholic church, and the history of that building reinforced the themes of “CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL WOMEN,” which explores gender inequality in Ireland over several generations. In effect, PHONICA prompted me to ‘stage’ this work for the first time. I wrote performance/stage directions for myself. I timed the delivery of the poems exactly to COUNIHAN’s animation, and I thought about creating a more immersive audience experience. Since PHONICA my practice has become increasingly collaborative, and I embrace a variety of platforms in the dissemination of my work. “CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL WOMEN” now includes an experimental pamphlet (designed by Emma CONWAY), live performance, a performance film (by Alisha DOODY), moving image, animation, and an exhibition in the TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2020, curated by Dr Sarah BROWNE.


Notes from a subsequent performance from “CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL WOMEN. COUNIHAN created a hand-drawn animation of my poem ‘We, the People’, which examines the language of the Preamble to the 1937 Constitution of Ireland/Bunreacht na hÉireann. My project considers how this founding document of the Irish State relates to current gender inequality in Ireland. For example, the notes refer to the very low percentage of women elected to Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament) in 2020. As COUNIHAN is based in Toronto and I am based in Dublin, most of our work was undertaken virtually and, at some point, coffee was spilled on these notes.




Image from debut performance from this project, at PHONICA #9, Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin. The photograph shows Counihan’s animated text, as it plays behind me on screen.











      

       
WE, THE PEOPLE”—An excerpt from my performance film, made by Alisha DOODY and debuted at the UCD Festival 2021. DOODY and I filmed in Theatre Q in the Newman Building of University College Dublin, which was the original site of this performance in the ‘What is Creativity?’ series in February 2020. The excerpt includes hand-drawn animation by COUNIHAN, produced for the event. The full film is 26-minutes and features COUNIHAN’s footage from Toronto, and my footage from Waterworks House, Ravensdale, Co. Louth, where my grandmother was reared. The project switches between poems about my grandmother, poems from perspective, and legal poems.

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Excerpt from my experimental pamphlet PERFORMANCES IN ALL DIRECTIONS , designed by Emma CONWAY, and published by Pizza, Poetry, Pub in 2020. Page 8 comprises two images from Counihan: one is a film still of a video footage at Lake Shore Boulevard in Toronto, the other is a still of an animation of moving rocks, also at Lake Shore.

                           
Title page of PERFORMANCES IN ALL DIRECTIONS. These pages include an image of the Gus Ryder Outdoor Pool at Sunnyside Beach, Toronto, where some of the research and filming for this project took place. The image appears courtesy of the City of Toronto.






Dr. Julie MORRISSY is a poet, lecturer, and critic. She is the inaugural John Pollard Newman Fellow in Creativity at University College Dublin, and the first Poet-in-Residence at the National Library of Ireland. Her debut collection WHERE, THE MILE END (2019) is published by Book*hug (Canada) and tall-lighthouse (UK). She is a recipient of the MAKE Theatre Award, and the Arts Council ‘Next Generation’ Award. Her most recent work includes an experimental pamphlet, a performance film, and an exhibition in the TULCA Festival of Visual Arts 2020. See www.juliemorrissy.com.




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