Triple Spiral

Dance and music concert by Justin Grounds, with Chloé Pisco Sarah Groser and Yonit Kosovske
Tuesday 29 October I 8.00pm I €15  I BOOKING online
James O'Driscoll Gallery  I 60 mins

A full concert of live original music and contemporary dance, taking inspiration from the baroque and bringing it into the modern world. Harpsichord, viola da gamba and baroque violin meld with the electrifying contemporary dance in this dynamic trio. The concert will feature a full live performance of 'Triple Spiral' plus improvisation between dancer and musicians, and two premiere performances of new works by the trio.

Contemporary dancer Chloé Pisco will be taking Yumi Lee’s role and bringing her own vibrant choreography to Justin Grounds’ work.
Also featuring on the program will be the world premiere of ‘Seams in my Socks’ -a new collaborative work by Justin Grounds and Yonit Kosovske for harpsichord, tape and visual projections which explores neurodiversity, sensory issues and stimming.

As well as works by contemporary composers Will Ayton, Brooke Green, and Fiona Linnane.

ABOUT

Justin Grounds is a violinist, composer and music producer. Originally from Cambridge, UK he now lives in West Cork. He studied electroacoustic composition at Durham University and toured with the live electronic band Keiretsu. He has released four records of solo music, as well as working in the studio as a collaborator and producer with singer Pearse McGloughlin in the band Idiot Songs, The Vespertine Quintet and ADT recordings. Grounds has received commissions and awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, CREATE Ireland, Uillinn Arts Centre, Cork County Council, and Cork Orchestral Society, and he frequently creates works for contemporary dance and independent film. His groundbreaking score Passacaglia Apis won the inaugural composers’ competition at the 2014 East Cork Early Music Festival and was performed by Elizabeth Walfisch, Maya Homburger and Barry Guy. His large-scale oratorio The Embracing Universe was premiered to a sold-out audience at Skibbereen Arts Festival in 2019. In 2022 he premiered his orchestral work CumuloNimbus on Early Music Day (commissioned by the East Cork Early Music Festival) and Brightly Burning Flame with the Irish Doctors Orchestra. He also composed and performed the live score for Helga Deasy’s contemporary dance work CURA at the Firkin Crane Cork, and worked on a collaborative piece funded by the Arts Council with choreographer Philippa Donnellan. As composer and violinist, since 2022 he has been collaborating with harpsichordist Yonit Kosovske on Triple Spiral (2023) a live performance and interdisciplinary film project bringing together contemporary music for Baroque trio and dance, as well as Litany (2023), a powerful chamber work in homage to extinct animals. Litany is notated as an indeterminate graphic score composed for the unique combination of harpsichord, hang-drum, hurdy-gurdy, and violin. 

Yonit Kosovske performs as a soloist, collaborative musician, and interdisciplinary artist on harpsichord, modern piano, fortepiano, chamber organ, and clavichord.  She is dedicated to a diverse body of repertoire from the 1500s through contemporary music. Yonit is Co-producer of the Limerick Early Music Festival, Co-director of H.I.P.S.T.E.R. (Historically Informed Performance Series, Teaching, Education, and Research), and Artistic Director of WAVE~LINKS, a video documentary series exploring connections between music-making and artisanry. She is an Associate Professor in Music at the University of Limerick, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. Yonit holds a Doctor of Music from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, a Master of Music from San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Bachelor of Music from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts. 

Sarah Groser first played the viola da gamba as a child, encouraged by her viol-playing father, whilst waiting to start on the cello. She concentrated on the cello until her late teens when she heard viols playing in consort and was captivated by the sound. At Manchester University she was able to study both Baroque cello and viol with Charles Medlam of London Baroque and continued on to Rotterdams Conservatorium to study Baroque cello with Jaap ter Linden. Later she had lessons with Jordi Savall as an external student at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Since her studies, Sarah has concentrated on the viol, and more recently the violone. She was a member of the Rose Consort of Viols for fifteen years and of Sonnerie under Monica Huggett for three years. She has also played with London Baroque, Fretwork, Charivari Agréable, and the Dowland Consort. In 2001 Sarah moved from England to West Cork, Ireland, where she is in frequent demand as both a solo bass viol player and as a continuo player. In Ireland, she has played with The Irish Baroque Orchestra, the IBO Concert Soloists, Camerata Kilkenny, Morisca, The Orchestra of St Cecilia, Madrigal 75, and as a duo with Sarah Cunningham.

Chloé Pisco has been choreographing dance in Ireland since 1992. She attended Alvin Ailey NY/ Fordham uni for her BA dance and later, DOCH school of dance and circus at Stockholm university of the Arts, for a Masters in fine Arts research, (where she also taught.)
Pisco has been directing, performing and teaching dance, circus and varying forms of immersive theatre across the globe for 23 years now. She co-founded Rebus dance co in 2002, created No Frontiers Dance company in 2005 (An anti racism dance company), and later the Flying dance co. in 2006. These 3 all had full time anchor theatre / studio residencies and funding spanning 10 years. She also directed countless huge outdoor spectacles over this time.
Since 2012 she has freelanced as a performer, director and educator all over the globe, sometimes 18 countries in 6 months.
Her research and artistic themes include: Feminism, evolutionary psychology, neuroendocrinology and more recently marine mega fauna. Her research since 2013 is on oxytocin and it’s relationship to ART and the shape of human societal structures. Oxytocin is our empathy hormone and her thesis research proved that oxytocin is increased when we engage in live art. In Febuary 2020, in Stockholm, she premiered: "Save the 5 % - Empathy for Psychopaths" a live immersive show of this very research. 
Chloé has also been blessed to collaborate in dance and circus in remote Australia with First Nations people of this land. Developing shows and short Hip Hop /circus films collaboratively together. Including in Arlparra, Ampilatwatja,, Alpurruluam, Burringurrah, Millimgimbi. She has begun learning the basics of Noongar, Yolgnu and Alyawarr languages. Working with First Nations people is whole heartedly her favourite work on earth. Chloé herself is Basque by blood. A rare Indigenous group from Spain, connected to the west of Ireland genetically. 
Chloé also dances with wild whales, who dance right back.
She has carried out 9 weeks of underwater funded research on interspecies communication through dance, between wild humpback whales and humans. 
This work was done in Australian oceans: Indian, Pacific and Southern as well as in the waters around the Kingdom of Tonga.
This project has developed into a feature documentary, impact campaign and a live show, all named “Dances with Whales.”

TRAILER

CREDITS

Choreography and dance performance: Chloé Pisco
Composer and violinist: Justin Grounds
Viola da Gamba: Sarah Groser
Harpsichord: Yonit Kosovske
Hurdy-gurdy: Vlad Smiskewych