Acclaimed choreographer Liz Roche introduces her latest work, Yes and Yes, which receives its Irish premiere this November at Dublin's Project Arts Centre.
"Oh... I'm not sure... Let me try and read it first... Let me think about it for a while... How would I even begin?"
These were a few of my responses over Zoom to Miranda Driscoll, Executive Director of Solas Nua in Washington D.C, as she suggested the idea to commission a new work from me and my company responding to James Joyce's Ulysses.
Of course, with 2022 being the centenary of the novel I was interested, but I had a few initial reservations. For some reason I had the preconceived idea that Joyce's work was not accessible to me. This may have been because I am not a great reader and in my dance work, I consider myself a choreographer who works in a non-verbal creative space, so tackling so many words, ideas and directions was daunting.
But I was wrong.
Over the 6 months it took me to read the book, I discovered so much unexpected beauty, fun, fragility, and sadness, within a surprisingly modern framework, that I was just knocked sideways by it.
To my mind, Ulysses is written from a position of exile, which is unfortunately still the experience of many in our world today. Joyce said that he "wanted to give a picture of Dublin so complete, that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book".
Having trained and worked overseas in my late teens and all throughout my twenties, I now regret not reading Ulysses earlier in life as I feel the familiarity of the characters and sing-song rhythms of the language would have helped me with my constant homesickness.
I see Ulysses as a love letter to the city, and to the way in which its inhabitants pass through it in their daily life. The city is of course hugely different now than how it was in 1904, but somehow 100 years later, I can still recognize and relate to that Dublin in the book, as if I were there, today.
Moving this from the page into the body was challenging. With a desire to not get caught up in adapting the work for dance but instead to be truly inspired by the book to create something new, the whole collaborative Yes and Yes team, from dancers to designers, thought about what the book means now, 100 years on.
How does a body in 2022 respond to this epic text? Yes and Yes maps through the changing chapters of the book, acknowledging the ever-evolving writing styles throughout. The dance piece follows the book in unusual ways, sometimes using it as a set of instructions and sometimes taking one word or sentence for inspiration.
Streams of consciousness in the text become waterfalls of movement; songs become notations or timings and numbers become meetings. It all gets very surreal at times but is rooted in the evolving logic of the book.
As a choreographer I make crafted, often flowing, and evocative dance pieces. It has been exciting to apply my type of movement sensibility to Joyce's bold texts and watch as Ulysses' dynamic brashness and abandon pushes me out of my usual comfort zone, to places I did not think I would or could go.
Supported by Culture Ireland, Yes and Yes had its US premiere in Washington D.C last month and went on to perform in Philadelphia. Now we are back and gearing up for our Irish premiere at Project Arts Centre, with a tour in Ireland and overseas planned for 2023.
For all its challenges, this has been an extraordinary experience and we cannot wait to be performing the work in Dublin; the city that inspired it.
Yes and Yes by Liz Roche is at Project Arts Centre, Dublin from November 10th - 12th - find out more here.
Production images: Steve O' Connor
