Mairéad Vaughan

Mairéad Vaughan: Uillinn West Cork Dance Artist in Residence 2019
The Art of Attuning: Inner  – Outer – Third Space(s)
January 2019 to November 2020

Mairéad Vaughan’s dance and choreographic research reflects on how our ‘inner’ sensed experience extends out to influence our ‘outer’ perception and our relationship with our environment. Her choreographic work explores ‘Third Space(s)’ – immersive spaces that elicit a felt, sensed, kinaesthetic or energetic response.

Mairead’s PhD research into the symbiotic interconnectedness of body, mind and environment, has led to the creation of a somatic movement, compositional and performance practice called ‘Attuning’. ‘Attuning’ is designed to cultivate sensory, kinaesthetic and energetic awareness. This practice is informed by principles from Release Contemporary Dance and Choreographic practice, Improvisation and Iyengar Yoga..
As part of her 2019 residency, Mairéad collaborated with local visual artist Tomasz Madajczak resulting in: inSkin, a live video, dance, art installation, created for the main gallery space at Uillinn, by dance artist Mairéad Vaughan (Ireland), visual artist Tomasz Madajczak (Poland), visual artist Helle Kvamme (Sweden) and dance artists Lilly Horgan and Charlie Dunne (UK). Mapping the Divide, a dance and art community project exploring the impact of technology on our body, mind, environment. The project resulted in a site-specific performance, as part of Skibbereen Arts Festival 2019.

As part of her 2020 residency, Mairéad will continue to work with Madajcazak to further develop the Mapping project bringing it to Bere Island. They will work in this remote region with a group of primary school children, exploring how the mediums of dance, art and video might reflect specific qualities of space(lessness), time(lessness) and energetic imprints inherent within the region. This project will inform a new dance video installation, to be premiered at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, as part of Skibereen Arts Festival, 29 July to 1 August, 2020. The installation aims to provide a window that opens up a third space – shedding light onto simple innocent qualities of our true nature, while transporting these qualities into a contemporary context. ​ The project is delivered in partnership with Cork County Council.

‘Open Attning’ workshops take place weekly on Fridays from 10:30am – 12:00 noon, starting February 28 2020 and are open to dancers, artists, performers, somatic therapists and anyone interested in developing new approaches to creating art, and living a more embodied life. Mairead will also facilitate an environmental dance workshop as part of the West Cork Islands Festival Sunday 24 May 2020 and a movement workshop for performers as part of the Fastnet Film Festival, Saturday 23 May 2020. Please book through the festival box office.

Mairead Vaughan graduated with a B.A. from Northern School of Contemporary Dance (UK), an M.A. and an Arts Practice PhD, IWAMD, University of Limerick. Now working as an independent artist, Mairéad co-founded Shakram Dance and Music Company (1999-2014) creating a body of thirteen original choreographic works supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. Her work is multi-disciplinary in nature exploring dance with live voice & sound, video dance, site-specific and installation performance. She is currently interested in creating installation environments that reflect immersive, ephemeral qualities of movement, space and time.

Images: Mairéad Vaughan working in the UCC and Bollinger Family Space, photograph by Kevin O’Farrell
InSkin, photograph by Tomasz Madajczak

Funded by Arts Council Dance Residency and Cork County Council

The UCC and Bollinger Family Space
Mairéad Vaughan: Creating Space
11 November – 11 December 2018

This residency supports dance artist Mairéad Vaughan, to prepare for her year-long dance residency at Uillinn in 2019. Her dance practice research revolves around cultivating an awareness of the body-mind-environment as one living organism, through her arts practice called ‘Attuning’. ‘Attuning’ is the result of her four-year Arts Practice PhD research into the symbiotic relationship between the body-mind and environment.

Mairead is interested in how our inner sensed and felt experience extends out to influence our relationship with the spaces we occupy. Her practice evolves around the following questions:

• How can we ‘attune’ to our environment as an extension of our body-mind through cultivating sensory and kinaesthetic awareness?
• How can we ‘attune’ to and cultivate awareness of our underlying energetic system to understand our inherent interconnectedness?

Ankor – Creating Space
In residence from 8 -18 January 2018.

This is a research residency supporting dance artist Mairéad Vaughan (based in Cork) to collaborate through peer sharing with artists Maria Kerin (Estonian-based Irish artist), Helle Kvamme (Swedish-based Norwegian visual artist) and Anna Lindvall (Öland-based Swedish artist). This artist’s collective form Ankor, a European inter-disciplinary collective committed to movement-based arts practice research.

During their collaboration, the artists each from diverse artistic backgrounds and cultures, will enter into an interdisciplinary research process they call Creating Space to investigate the intersection between contemporary dance, visual-art, improvisation, performance and installation.

Holding Space – Still Space – Receptive Space -Transient Space – Generative Space – Empty Space – Resonant Space – Third Space – Impermanent Space – Mediating Space – In-Between Space …

On Friday 12 January, 11.00am to 12.30pm Mairéad Vaughan will offer her daily practice of ‘Attuning’ as a free participatory event. This psychosomatic movement practice called ‘Attuning’ is a way of listening with open receptivity to inner bodily space, outer environmental space and a third space, through movement, stillness and exchange. It attunes to the kinaesthetic and energetic capacity of the body-mind and is applicable to any artist of any discipline interested in working with an embodied approach. It combines principles from Release-based Contemporary Dance Technique, Improvisation, Energy Yoga and Somatic Practices.

The artists collective will open their studio to the public Friday 12 January, 1pm to 2pm and Saturday 13 January, 1:30pm to 2:30pm: Space for stillness, Space for what might emerge in a moment within the immediacy of Creating Space. All welcome to the free events above, no booking necessary.

Mairéad Vaughan is a dance artist, choreographer, researcher and writer. As artistic director of Shakram Dance Company (1999 – 2004) she choreographed a large body of original work, performed nationally and internationally (UK, Norway, Greece, Sweden). She is committed to creating new work ranging from dance, theatre, video art, site-specific and installation performance. Mairead recently graduated with a practice-based PhD investigating the kinaesthetic and energetic relationship between the moving body-mind and environment.