Three dolls in a hoop...

"Creativity lives in paradox: serious art is born from serious play" 

Julia Cameron 

After months of *hefty* physical training, PaperDolls (myself, Karen and Elaine) have finally  enjoyed some creative time to develop a new piece. Here are some stills taken from rehearsal videos of us exploring our ideas. Playtime is a wonderful tonic for the head and the heart, and the more I play, the more effectively I work. Our new trio hoop act will be debuted at a private cabaret event in Belfast Circus School on the 11th of February and performed as part of 'Picturing the Soul', a multi-disciplinary performance and exhibition, in the Back Loft (Dublin) on the 18th and 19th of February (see previous post). The piece itself is a conscious work in progress which we hope to develop over a longer period of time and through a variety of performance contexts, giving us an opportunity to learn from live situations and repeated presentations - the polar opposite to how PaperDolls have come to produce in our first year of existence with big ideas and short timescales; which of course, has benefits too.

In the spirit of originality and resourcefulness, we have decided to use music by Cixous Ghost, my solo music project, and I am busy working on a new composition especially. I also hope to collaborate with a certain young Irish experimental musician as we develop the content. In the meantime, here's a snippet of the as yet unfinished music:

   Cixous Ghost: sleeping beauty clip by Emily Aoibheann

www.paperdollsperformance.com

Cixous Ghost: Yan Bourke

Photographer and music enthusiast Yan Bourke was among the slightly bemused audience to which Cixous Ghost played last Friday for the Darklight Film Festival at The Grand Social (formerly Pravda). We were under-prepared and the energy was way high! As per recent Cixous tradition I failed to get my visuals prepared in time, which was a gaping whole in my sense of satisfaction post-gig. It was technical mostly, so I shouldn't feel too guilty, I had worked hard. But I think I'm giving you the wrong impression - I loved every moment of playing my music and performing with JK and JD who accompany me in Cixous, and I felt determined to own it as much as I could, despite currently feeling slightly under pressure to be 'entertaining', which is of course Boring!

I'm not feeling well in my music persona. It isn't fitting neatly. I think I know why this is - I'm not giving it enough time. Time. Time. Time. I want to spend more time on my music. I am hugely grateful of the support Skinny Wolves have shown Cixous thus far, especially being invited to play at the Darklight event with Xiu Xiu; it activated me and provided some Cixous fuel. I hope to start developing the music and exploring what IT IS (what is it?) as a creative project. A friend recently admitted that he 'didn't get' Cixous. This friend knows me as a drummer, he is a Emily Drum Fan (the few that there are, are hard core), and is into his electro-pop more than most. I know what he means, but at the same time, there is something worthwhile there and playing this gig has invoked a curiosity in me to discover what that is. To take the time and put in the energy to seek that meaning out.

The night itself was terrific - I felt huge with goodness, passion and support. There were so many cool people around and nice interactions and the peeps who did like the music shared their compliments and thoughts on how it made them feel which I always find fascinating in extremes. Yan was one of these people. It's bizarre how one's perception of one's own creations can differ so radically from the perception of others. Recently, a film maker Donal Foreman contacted me about collaborating together. He saw me perform at Transversal in Block T, playing improvised music with contact improv dancers. The experience of working in this way, with dancers especially, had been enormously liberating with gorgeous processes, but unfortunately, I was awfully sick on the evening of the show and had in my mindlessness, forgotten some of my most vital equipment. As a result, the music was very pared back and the experience was personally unpleasant. Then, over a month later, Donal wrote to me and said how inspired he had been by the music I played. So much so, that he sought contact! That is the amazing thing about being a creative and a performer - making connections, starting collaborations, being part of other people's creative and emotional energies.

Here are some of the photos Yan took of the set, it's mostly me, one of JK and none of JD (aww)! But I really like the photos he took of me. They are unlike a lot of the images I now see of myself which are largely fabricated, posed, in performance or character or somehow alien to how I feel internally. These images reflect me in a way that I feel is closer to what my internal state is. I won't use the word authentic, as I believe we have many authentic selves and anyone who reads this blog will know that I am both fragmented and chameleonic. Fabricated and posed or planned or performative photos are still awesome, but I like when my visual landscape is interrupted, especially in portraiture - when you get to see yourself afresh or unawares.

Cixous for Darklight

FRIDAY 29th OCTOBER, The Grand Social

Cixous has been forced into action by yet another invitation from Skinny Wolves (they are like, our only fans) to play support for the astounding Xiu Xiu and Former Ghosts as part of this years Darklight Film Festival. Wanting to develop the visual element of my Cixous experiments, this is the encouragement I need. I have a few ideas about what I am going to do on the night.

I have been working on a video for Your Our Narcissus (It's a play, it's a blog, it's a song but it's 'your' in this case and the song came first): a funfair as captured on a crap camera.

As a teenager, I had very particular associations with and adoration for the carnival; the suburban carnival that is, the fun fair. I was envious of the carnies, their crusty appearance and their nomadic lifestyle. To rival any giddy teenage fit, I had ecstatic bouts of laughter on the waltzers, they were my favourite. My best friend and I would go to the fun fair everyday after school to have one go on the waltzers. We'd fish for lost coins under the seats before the ride began and then, our faces pressed against the back of the cart as the relatively ugly but somehow appealing boy-carnie spun us around and around, we'd laughing to the point of pain and occasionally to the point of pissing our pants.

The carnival was important because our suburban school girl lives were tediously boring. The music I make with Cixous is a reflection of that time in many respects; the excitement of dance music, the release of dancing, the sensation of spinning round and round on a big machine and the unfamiliarity that it injected into our otherwise frustratingly unstimulating surroundings. Just as we found escape in the local disco or under our hoods or covers, in the darkness of our bedrooms with our head phones in and the music up loud, so too did we relish the moments of physical elation provided by the fair ground.

Unfortunately I have been musically cold recently and feeling quite detached from that mode of production, but last night, after working on my video for awhile, I stayed up real late, listened to some unfinished tracks and started writing something new, the first thing I have written in ages that I am actually pleased with. Now my natural inclination towards musical work calls me for more attention.

Here's to it!

Quote of the day.

"One night I saw a dog in my apartment.
It was a big dog, tall and black and lean, with pointy ears and long taut slender legs. It had black eyes and auburn tips on its face and feet and it didn't move at all. I was afraid and held my breath and the dog did too."

Rebecca Brown, The Dogs: A Modern Bestiary

Cixous is inspired.

Final Shemped.

Some silliness from the second last hair cut I had (I find hair cuts more contextually and temporally informing than dates), produced online from a night of insomnia. As was the last post.

Final Shemp (www.myspace.com/finalshemp) who lives in San Fransisco likes to chop up my Cixous Ghost music and make them, well, Shemped. We have an ongoing collaboration.

This video is a clip of the first few secs of my hearing a Final Shemp Cixous Ghost remix for the first time and my reaction to it. I have subsequently sampled it for a new song. Also, I should note that the entire remix is 9:58 secs long and that I have no idea which Cixous Ghost track it is.

www.myspace.com/ghostchips
www.myspace.com/finalshemp

Expect a split release in the future.

Cixous Ghost w/ Silk Flowers and Twinkranes

I've been filming dogs, cats and humans in Ormond Quay studios all day for Friday's human-animal hybrid HEFT! (UPDATE: Unfortunately, Father Time wagged his pristine-finger at my ambitious project and so I shan't be displaying these images tonight, but I have dug in my doggy-archive and have selected some beauty shots of a dog-in-the-snow, which should help us channel the dark Lupine energy of Carter's imaginings)

John Dermody from the Jimmy Cake, Jon Kelly of Aardvark and Beth of NZ's Duckling Monster and The Futurians will be performing with me on the night. UPDATE: Another name for the bill, the Red Menace herself, Roisin Kiberd, the smallest and loudest woman in Dublin shall be contributing to our vulgar, wolf gang. YUSS! 

http://www.myspace.com/thejimmycake
http://www.myspace.com/askanaardvark
http://www.myspace.com/futurians

It's going to rock like Carter's Bloody Chamber.

Cixous Ghost: GIG

A new project of mine, Cixous Ghost, is playing tomorrow night (27th Feb) in Thomas House on Thomas Street. I am the first of a great line up hosted by Skinny Wolves, including School Tour, Younger Colours and the gloriously atmospheric and weird U.S. Girls, who uses drums just the way I like.



27th February 2010, Thomas House, 8e, 8pm (to hazard a guess) sharp!

Cixous is still finding her sound, so my set will only be 15 minutes or so and I am first on.

I have collected a few slowly moving images of two interesting girls to accompany my audio experiment, entitled "CATWAT":