Elaine McCague 2024

Elaine McCague
Development with the Shapeshifting Moth Dress
2 April to 8 April 2024

The residency at Uillinn will support a development stage of movement and performance for the performance work titled The Moth.

The residency will place particular focus on development of the artists’ individual physicality and dynamics of movement working on integrating an oversized dress with aerial dance. More specifically considering choreography and expressions out of form and pushing ideas for embodiments of characters that transform in front of the audience. Ultimately the aim within this time is to further develop ideas, before going forward to rehearsal stage, to refine the final quality of movement for the performance that will be presented in June at the Cork Midsummers Festival 2024.

A little about The Moth:
Amidst the embrace of a rural derelict house, a moth’s erratic movements disrupt stagnant air, stirring forgotten memories and igniting tension between past and present. Amidst restless recollections, the moth catalyzes introspection, prompting contemplation of personal identity and the ever-shifting notion of home. A journey where the moth’s enigmatic presence unveils both destruction and the potential for metamorphosis amidst the woman’s shadowed past.

The piece is part of a body of work under the title Detached, a multi-media project combining film, installation, live performance, projected imagery and soundscape.

Influenced by the discomfort of a derelict house, the work contains several layers exploring the complex relationship between personal identity and the impact of our surroundings on our sense of self.

It aims to be an ongoing creative lab seeking to experiment with a number of aspects: the circus body on film; the stripping away of traditional circus apparatus to physically use the structure of the domestic house and its contents; the psychological state of attachment and detachment from the home.

Elaine McCague is a multi-disciplinary artist interested in bending contemporary circus. Her ambitions are to construct unique site responsive works in the collaboration and experimentation of the physical, visual and audioscape. She strives to create the unbelievable, and an all-encompassing visceral experience by method of circus. As an aerialist, Elaine produces, devises, artistically directs and performs specialising in rope and reinventing traditional circus apparatus.

She co-founded Loosysmokes in late 2014, bringing an eclectic background of interest and skills, including years in film, writing and production work as well as an extensive history of training in traditional circus techniques, the aim was to create powerful and high-quality artistic productions that draw in audiences outside of traditional theatre goers.

In 2022 she began DetacheD, an ongoing creative lab to experiment with circus, installation and film.

Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland