Short and Sweet street show: PaperDolls at the Festival of Fools 2012

When & Where…

Saturday 5 May
Rosemary Street: 1pm
Sunday 6 May
Rosemary Street: 2pm
Monday 7 May
City Hall: 12pm

Over the past 8 months, 20 dedicated students in the art of circus have been locked away in the Belfast Community Circus School quietly honing their craft.  They graduate on 30th June in the Land of Giants Spectacle www.landofgiants.info – the biggest outdoor arts show ever to hit Northern Ireland.
Before then, they have been allowed out onto the streets to play. Come along and see the next wave of circus and street talent in a series of short pieces which will turn into the shows of the future.

 PaperDolls are currently developing their first ever street show which is going to ROCK! It's a new exciting challenge for us and will be a new string to our very diverse bow. I love us.

www.paperdollsperformance.com

Belfast: I'm in it.

PaperDolls in the Dubliner magazine.

Interview with Paul Flood from the Dubliner Magazine on Irish circus practitioners (published April 12th) featuring a contribution from me and a wonderful photo of Karen Anderson of PaperDolls by Malcolm McGettigan (who took this photo during our shoot for The Stripe magazine in the Sugar Club last August, posted here and here). 

Less Talk More Action

Frog and Toad's 'Less Talk More Action', the creation of Belfast Circus School's 24 hour cabaret task was set on Wednesday evening, created on Thursday and performed on Friday by randomly selected partners trust together from a lucky dip of names plucked from the school's disused tombola. 

Aaltje and I played with the common vocabulary we had - acrobalance, quickly disregarding the juggling equipment we intended to use. Aaltje is an amazing base, and although I need some work on the flying front, I thoroughly enjoyed scrambling around Aaltje and found the challenge extremely refreshing and inspiring. We took a playful approach by adapting some of the acro-moves we have learned over the last few months, and stumbled upon the frog and toad idea through some of our exploration of movement. Our play and appearances kind of reminded me of the Frog and Toad stories of my childhood (previously posted about here). I'm thinking this frog thing will be further explored in the near future :)

Quote of the day.

"If you do the essential thing, everything else will be one hundred times easier".

Flea said, while teaching acrobatic technique - although I think it's good advise to bear in mind for life in general. 

For Ever Love: Video piece with Laura Sheeran

Yesterday was spent helping Laura Sheeran finish the edits on our video collaboration for 'For Ever Love', the single from her upcoming album, What the World Knows, due for release on good Friday, 6th April. We shot the video a few months ago in the Sugar Club, Dublin (Thanks to Oisín!) which I previous posted about here. As previously blogged: "For Ever Love was originally featured in 'Paperdolls' as my solo music for aerial silks, complementing the feminine and sexy qualities of the fabric". Featuring the glittery visuals of Susan Walsh and Jacinta Jardine and also the costume made by Jacinta Jardine for the PaperDolls production, we also incorporated footage from the live show filmed by Bob Gallagher in the Complex during our run of "Paperdolls" at ABSOLUT Fringe 2011. The result is a spectacular culmination of an ongoing cross-disciplinary collaboration, the documentation of a previously live event, the creation of something new from that initial production and a collection of really precious personal memories of a wonderful experience and time in my life. I hope you enjoy it too!

Filmed by

Murray Cummings

Conor McCague

My friend and fellow collaborator Donal Foreman

Live footage by Bob Gallagher

The single, which originally featured in PaperDolls show last September, is now available for free download:

Laura Sheeran - Forever Love (FREE download) by L A U R A S H E E R A N

PaperDolls Process: Soul Juncture

A little montage I enjoyed putting together of all our rehearsal videos during the development of our new piece Soul Juncture which we performed at Belfast Circus School as part of 'Fancy, A Cabaret' and Picturing the Soul at the Back Loft in Dublin last month. Fun fun fuh-un!

EA / DA (2011)

"Here is a little film I made over a year ago with the wonderful Emily Aoibheann - the first, spontaneous experiment in an ongoing collaboration..." 

Donal Foreman, film maker and awesome person! Featuring music by one night only band The Boom Boom Parade, which I was part of.  

The video auto-plays so I took it down, but you can watch it here: http://vimeo.com/36572574

Soul Juncture by PaperDolls

Soul Juncture
PaperDolls

A cross-roads, a juncture, a meeting point - PaperDolls' fantastical glimpse of the soul revealed through play, ideas, vision and music. 'Soul' emerges through interruptions of consciousness and in synchronous moments when we are open to the abundance of the universe. It bubbles up from the unknown, sometimes coaxed, sometimes sudden, but a constant nonetheless. Feelings of connectivity are fundamental here. Those who are witness to the Soul Juncture are lulled into a calm and meditative space through the mesmeric elements of sound and movement of visuals. Here, we offer a space of openness and feelings of connectivity to evoke sensations of 'soulness'.

Photos by Simon Crawford photography

 Soul Juncture by PaperDolls

As part of Picturing the Soul

The Back Loft, La Cathedral Studios

Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th February 

€10 tickets on the door

https://picturingthesoul.wordpress.com/

http://paperdollsperformance.com/

In knots.

What can I say really? I like to climb ropes, I also like to wrap people up with them... I've been learning the techniques of Shibari, or Japanese Rope Bondage - and this is my friend Jennifer Evans. Jennifer is a musical enigma with a voice as deep, dark and ancient as the ocean. And like the ocean, she embodies a generous, wise and powerful soul, qualities which abound in her music. She has just finished her new (debut) album which she hopes to release some time this year. I was lucky enough to hear one of the tracks and oddly, it was so overwhelming and wonderful that I started to cry. Her music has a profound effect on me - and she makes a beautiful rope model. Expect to see more of this and her.

 

Colours of Bruises (by Jennifer Evans)

Get along, sometimes, I'm right on the edge of my own design
A sad dream too early in the morning.
Times decanting, nursing a yearning, learning tricks birch wood burning.
The colours I'm using beats colours of bruising
I should be your accessory.
All the pain I never felt I'm feeling it now
If I could I would sleep and never come around.
This place gets hotter one day to another
Anyone else feel hopeless undercover?
Being self contained, arachnid, talking distant, infinite, romantic
The language you used it's edge fared dull the language you used
It's edge fared dull got me into trouble.
Through my mind the filth worked it's way all around
How I missed you, I couldn't sleep it was fantastic.
The colours I'm using beats colours of bruising
I didn't find it bad though.
I lost my motive. Don't know where I can find it. When I get lazy I get
Stuck in the mud, pushed with the shove, sucking my thumb, blowing my trumpet.
Heading down to that part of my darling, feeling isolated and numb,
Heading down to that part of my darling.
You have called me like a dog and I answered to it too
I wasn't there I left my body of service to you.

http://jenniferevans.ie/