Journeying across the climbs of Donegal in search of the holy rock, a ritual, a search, a quest for the source which in turn becomes a quest to learn landscape and self. This reflective film explores a ritual endurance dance, seeking to learn the colour blue, measure a wave, and learn from a cormorant.
How can water teach us about movement, how can watching the breath of waves develop a fluidity in our blood and bones that has stagnated and paused?
Drawing from core principles of PaR within ecopsychology, working alone over a durational period film explores somatic work which develops the concept of learning and receiving directly from water as stimulus and the body as a reactant.
How can the body embody the quality of the sea and take such vocabulary to the highest point of the mountain? How can we carry the sea within each step?
Traversing terrain and disciplines, between dance, long-distance walking, personal pilgrimage and environmental reactionary practice; this film work documents the sensitive and poignant synergy between water and the body.
The score for this film has been made by Dowd Dónall Gillespie and the Dingwall Community Choir.
Dr Beatrice Jarvis ( 1987) is a creative facilitator, choreographer and researcher, and founder of the Urban Research Forum and The Living Collective. She is currently a full-time lecturer in Dance at Kingston University, London. She holds a practice-based PhD from The University of Ulster and the University of Kingston exploring dance as a medium to explore spatial and social conflict. For more information see http://beatricejarvis.net/
Dowd Dónall Gillespie (1986) is based between Donegal and London where his practice explores long distance walking as method of landscape dialog. As a musician, painter and writer, Dowd has worked extensively with the landscape of An tSrúibh from childhood, learning paths as songs and drawings, making maps through canvas and subtle landscape intervention. With diligence and care, his practice seeks to harmonize, blend and nurture the beauty, ferocity and awe such paths evoke. His current work [aimsir] is a collection of works made in conversation with the landscape in which he finds solace and home. For more information please see https://aimsirsite.wordpress.com or email Dowd at siphonandreservoir@hotmail.co.uk
