Bounce! Disability and Deaf Arts Festival gives Northern Ireland audiences the opportunity to enjoy Ménage á Trois, a hauntingly beautiful new piece of dance theatre by award-winning performer and choreographer Claire Cunningham at the MAC on August 31.
The disabled dancer and choreographer, who has worked with some of the world’s leading choreographers, uses crutches as an integral part of her mesmerisingly beautiful performance.
The much anticipated performance combines animation and projections by Gail Sneddon, a choreographer and installation artist, who has collaborated with Claire to create the video design for the production. Visually poetic and witty, the design creates an immersive and animated environment which brings a magical dimension to the production, enveloping Claire in the world of her imagination.
Claire last performed in Belfast two years ago at the Baby Grand as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. The show was a sell out and she is really looking forward to returning with her latest work.
She said: “That was my solo show ME(Mobile/evolution) that I brought the last time and even though it was a relatively small scale piece we had a little trouble fitting it on the Opera Studio floor – I nearly ended up in the audience’s laps that night!
“This new show however is the absolute opposite of that. It is big and spectacular and there’s gauze over the front of the stage for the stunning animations – although now I think perhaps it’s also to stop me running into the audience!”
Ménage á Trois tells the powerful story of a lonely woman, who crafts her perfect man out of the only thing she knows, her crutches.
Exploring Claire’s 20 year relationship with her crutches, this darkly humorous and deeply personal portrait asks if it is possible to find love when there are already three of you in the relationship. She will be joined live on stage by Chris Owen from Candoco Dance Company.
She added: “It’s really based on a growing and changing realisation over the last few years that the crutches truly are with me for life like a partner, that I have a very different relationship with them, having gone from hating them to loving them. It’s also about me trying to explore whether the crutches or my impairment might have stopped potential partners from being interested in me, but also whether I use them as an excuse, or a defence mechanism from meeting that potential new boyfriend.
“It is essentially a story about love, about the search for love, escaping into the fantasies we all have of what love should be and the hard realities we have to face if we really are going to let someone into our heart. As a disabled person it’s also about that long journey towards accepting yourself, and at the risk of sounding clichéd, how necessary that is before you can expect someone else to be able to truly accept you.”
The show, which was devised in partnership with the National Theatre of Scotland, will be performed at the MAC on at 7.30pm on Friday, August 31, just seven days after it premieres at the Tramway Theatre in Glasgow.
For more information contact the ADF on 02890239450, email Chris Ledger at chris@adf.ie or visit the website www.adf.ie. For tickets to Ménage á Trois contact the MAC Box Office on 028 90235053 or visit www.themaclive.com
To see the National Theatre of Scotland trailer of Ménage a Trois visit http://vimeo.com/41769886
