RSVP theatre film events workshops.

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34. The Gathering-RSVP

Irish heARTs resulted in a promenade theatre

performance that took us to installation venues throughout Kinsale town.

Our comic characters Chuck and Susie guided the audience, and connected the variety of art-forms in this cross disciplinary performance.

Many thanks to An Griannán the Kinsale Health Food Shop on Market Street, and Mylie Murphy's the everything else shop on Pearse Street, Kinsale. Our box-offices for Irish HeARTS.

Yvonne in the Regatta office 2013. Many thanks to Victoria Murphy.

The Gathering-RSVP presents Irish HeARTS.

In the theatrical presentation actors Marie O Donovan and Mark Cosgrave introduce you, the audience, to our stereotypical American tourists Chuck and Susie, comically written by award winning American playwright Mark Harvey Levine, and these characters lead you through the project installations.

Foreground Yvonne Coughlan.

Marie O Donovan and Mark Cosgrave.

Pic John Allen.

Irish HeARTS Installations:

1. We all Mourn. Contemporary dance. Interactive live performance. Film Documentary.

2. Sorted like. Comedy-short film.

3. Harmony. Music Video. Workshop

4. The Hidden World of Poetry. Workshops and Live. Readings

5. Tír na n'Óg. Visual Art.

6. Mamukko. Craft. Irish HeARTS Bags.

RSVP gathered and created links around the world for this new project, with many talented artists we had worked with previously, as well as, new associates. We are grateful to the many artists who responded with their art, and took ownership of this project.

A live theatre and multidisciplinary arts project entitled The Gathering-RSVP (Facebook group link.)

The project looks at what it means to be Irish, in terms of history, heritage and culture, and invited artists of all nationalities, from around the world, to participate.

Feedback was invited on a weekly magazine radio show on Irish Radio International, broadcasting every Thursday 8-9pm with presenters Denis Collins and Yvonne Coughlan. Click here for the radio facebook page /TheGatheringRSVP to see some posts about what happened during these 23 documentation hours of broadcast.

Band The Reverse play on
The Gathering-RSVP

Questionable Taste

Questionable Taste is the film club we ran every 1st and 3rd Tuesday during the project, in Glen Studios, Kinsale. This was inspired by the work of Helen Cuinn, who sent us a rough cut from Glasgow, for discussion. We invited other film-makers to enter a short film for screening. This was free entry/donation based.

Helen Cuinn

Martin A. David aka Mardav with Diane Black.

HARMONY

HARMONY 12th July, Crane Lane Theatre, Phoenix St. Cork. 7.30-10.30pm, this song creation installation is lead by Caz Jeffreys and recorded by Lionheart Production's Rik Appleby. It is presented as a music video, documentary style, filmed and edited by Moira O'Brien. Friendly Ghost Productions. Amazing what can be done in 2 hours with a group of newly introduced participants. Book this workshop for your community/festival/event try increasing it to a full day, or a week, now that could be spectacular!

RSVP WORKSHOPS!

Caz Jeffreys. Harmony.

The Hidden world
Here are samples of work:

Created during The Hidden World of poetry workshops facilitated by Adam Wyeth. July 2013

Occupants

Author Terry Adams

I wrote a poem Buy you the Moon

A point of turning on my bumpy journey

It talked of childhood in Cormac Street

When Danny sang Seth Davey and

Drank whiskey on a Sunday

Up the road my Aunt made tea

For my Mammy and me

In the house beside the jail where

Dad lost his right arm in a reckless climb

The houses remains, their occupants gone

Memories resurrected in snatches of song

Wandering Aengus or Gort na Saileán

Note portrait sketches of people not forgotten

Gaeilge/Irish

Bearla/English

Gort na Sailéan Sally Gardens

Adam Wyeth facilitator of

The Hidden World of Poetry Workshops.

Is ainm dom

By Yvonne Coughlan, producer/director of RSVP, created during The Hidden World of poetry workshops facilitated by Adam Wyeth. July 2013

Yvonne

A French name for an Irish girl

Yvonne Ní Chochláin

Pure Irish

Unlike the African woman who inspired the title in a London meeting with Mum

No saints here, a French name, so difficult on the Irish tongue

Wivony

As the joke is often told

Ivan if you require a bold

Germanic interpretation

Vawn as my Dad directed

A pet name

From the velvet textures and exotic colours of the promises and depths of all this names origins

Von glan

The name we made in school days from the youth filled game of letter play

It stuck

'Call in' my surname invites you

Any day

No strutting cocks in this house

Call in

Like the hen

Boiled egg?

Cup of tea?

We'll have to call the Coughlans for a gathering

Then we'll see

If we be not blind

To our own history.

Grace O'Leary on The Gathering-RSVP

Mamukko

Mamukko provided our audiences with an opportunity to purchase a handcrafted response to the project in the form of their eco-friendly designer products from upcycled materials; The Irish HeARTS bag.

Atilla and Levi of Mamukko.

We all Mourn. Pic. John Allen.

Clare Cullen. Sorted Like.

"I loved working on Sorted Like. It was a whole different world to shooting YouTube videos in my bedroom. All the cast got on so well and the atmosphere was brilliant- I can't wait to see the finished product!

YouTube.com/Clisare

Adam O'Donovan. Sorted Like.

Martina Igore. RSVP intern.

Mikey Linehan GENE in Sorted Like.

Inset-Julie Tress. Dharminder Singh. Questionable taste screening in The Glen Studios. Mr. Singh screened his own work for audience feedback.

Rik Appleby. Lionheart studios. Harmony.

Maurice Supple. Pic. John Allen.

Moira O'Brien

(Documentation camera)

Founder Moving Image Cork.

Seán Maguire. Out of the bag. Live Poetry Readings.

Irish HeARTs 2013-14

Video Documentary 'We all Mourn.'

We all Mourn. Contemporary Dance Installation. Documentary. 16.33 mins. Choreographer Martin A. David. Producer Yvonne Coughlan.
DOP/Edit Maurice Supple.

We all Mourn choreographed by Martin A. David is the part of Irish HeARTs that we feel took us on the greatest and grandest journey. Video Documentary. 16mins. DOP/Edit Maurice Supple. We all mourn. Irish HeARTS; The Gathering-RSVP. Aug 2013.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s 1969 book, On Death and Dying, and the five stages of grief outlined-denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance- was part of the research for construction of this contemporary dance installation. Live performances were programmed in Cork and Kinsale.

We set sail November 2013 calling all artists, writers, performers, and community groups. The project left the creative womb with the PREMIER of Irish HeARTS August bank holiday weekend 2014, so a Kinsale audience were the first to behold our bundle of joy. Like all newborns it caused many sleepless nights. Inspired by The Gathering Ireland, a national tourism initiative, which asks 'How do we bring more people 'home' to Ireland?'

RSVP asks- What are we bringing them 'home' to?

Our project explores Irish identity. What is Irish culture?

What does it mean to be Irish today?

WE ALL MOURN; June 23rd. Choreographer Martin A. David and our 6 dancers Sarah Cwojdzinski, Shirley Deane, Katherine Crowley, Yvonne Coughlan, Maria O'Donovan and Helga Deasy rehearsed, performed and filmed the installation with RSVP and Blue Shed Productions on Cork and Kinsale streets, then finally on The Dock Beach (Castlepark) on Supermoon Sunday.

Musician John Baker played for the performance at The Dock Beach, Kinsale. Pic. John Allen.

We all Mourn. The Dock Beach. Inset Yvonne Coughlan. Pic. John Allen

Martin A. David

Thanks to all at Sample Studios.

Especially project co-ordinator Siobhán Ní Dhuinnín, and Project Liaison Katrina Foley.

We all mourn. Some moments from the finale. Video by Moira O'Brien.

Chuck and Susie in sunshiny Kinsale. Pic. John Allen.
Marie O'Donovan and Mark Cosgrave, braving the elements.

Questionable Taste centres around Mimi, Donna, Derek and Catherine, taking place at a catch up dinner of these four old school friends. As with these long standing friendships that are perhaps slightly past their best, the conversation is peppered with old anecdotes, shared in-jokes and more than a pinch of gossip about the other people in their friends lives. This particular bunch, 40 something 'Trendy West-Endies' (a particular breed of aspirational adult who live in the traditionally posh West End of Glasgow,fully embrace the feeling that to live outside of the world of independent bars, coffee shops and boutiques would be unthinkable, laughable even) are recognisable characters - I feel we all know someone like them (although, it is prudent to mention they are fictional characters and only very loosely based on life)

So over roast beef, masses of crispy roast potatoes and oceans of heavy red wine, the conversation meanders through intercrossing social and work lives - the gossip that Catherine's rogue husband Dougie McGuigan is returning to Glasgow is the subject of mixed feelings at the dinner table. We really get a sense of the shared history as they laugh away at the old times and exchange bitchy little biting comments about the state of each others lives. And so, the subject turns to Dougie's replacement in the day centre where Catherine and Donna both work: Kellie, a girl of 'Questionable Taste'.

A documentation of the 'rough cut' response night.

Addressing issues of stereotyping, ageism, and prejudice (including homophobia), I hope watching these slightly grotesque characters, hearing their opinions and deducing their values will cause us to ask questions about our own preconceived views of the people around us. It is to be hoped that the audience of this film will be in some doubt as to whom it is that is displaying 'questionable taste' and I am interested to see reactions for and against these characters. I'm really curious to see if this film translates to an Irish audience, and whether the characters and the situation is something that is recognisable in Irish life too. I have deliberately written in Glasgweigan vernacular, but am curious to see if this translates into another celtic culture.

SORTED LIKE; short film.
Director Stephen Broekhuizen.
DOP/Editor Ross Carey.
Producers Adam McCarthy and Yvonne Coughlan.
Casting Director Yvonne Coughlan.

Sorted Like rehearsal and production.

Harmony. Music Video. (Workshop) DOP/ Edit Moira O'Brien.
Friendly Ghost Films.

The Hidden world

The Hidden world-Performance poet Seán Maguire live, and also readings from The Hidden World of Poetry Workshops facilitated by Adam Wyeth, as part of The Gathering-RSVP

Live poetry reading installation.

T'ír na Nóg

T'ir na Nog, a conversation about Value, by Elaine Garde. You may choose to buy into this artist created currency. Earth Bonds; art or money. http://futureorchardcork.com/

A mixed media Art piece by Artist Elaine Garde entitled 'Portal go dtÍ Tír na n'Óg' the conceptual piece is a limited edition of small packages containing maps, coins and currency notes.

It is a challenge to understand what it is all about, 'but' says Elaine ' it is the mystery itself that creates the conversation, and that is what the work is about, a conversation about value in the world today.

Elaine suggests we look at things from a fresh perspective. It has been inspired by the international financial crisis and how this has impacted not only on our small national economy but on the reality of our personal lives. In the Irish psyche there exists a land of plenty, our very own Tír na n'Óg. The project is about finding our own way to this abundant place and the 'small package' provides the toolkit.