“So we silence the tongue and let the whole body speak....”

Now is it coming together?

This question from Friel’s notes towards Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) was one of four archival fragments selected by dancer-choreographer Jessie Keenan when developing a live improvisation technique to generate new material during a Dance House residency in May 2019.

Related Manuscript

It doesn't matter if the rains come

This note was written by Brian Friel during the composition process for Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). Many of Friel’s notes explore the significance of the play’s various dances and what it is they might be expressing.

The Creative Process

So what is surfacing (Dublin Fringe Festival application)

This video is a compilation of different performances of Jessie Keenan’s live improvisation to audio she recorded in response to the question ‘So what is surfacing?’, adapted from a phrase written by Brian Friel during the composition process for Dancing at Lughnasa (1990).

The Creative Process

Robbie Blake's blue notebook, 8

In this page from Robbie Blake’s project notebooks, Robbie sets out the aims and methodology of a week of workshops and rehearsals at Dance House in August 2020. They also make a note to ask Zosia Kuczyńska to record some monologues from Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) as a tool for generating material.

“How do you archive the moving body?” – Zosia Kuczyńska

The Creative Process

Robbie Blake's blue notebook, 6

In these pages from Robbie Blake’s project notebooks, Robbie makes notes from a discussion with Jessie Keenan and Zosia Kuczyńska in which Zosia shares some of her research around theatrical space.