Solas Nua, Washington, DC’s premier contemporary Irish arts organization, will bring an array of diverse disciplines in its fall artist lineup, collaborating with local and international established partners to bring immersive and interactive interdisciplinary events to Washington, DC.
LITERATURE
New wave Irish author and graphic novelist Luke Healy partners with Solas Nua for the US launch of his new book this September, Self-Esteem and the End of the World, which traverses two decades of tragicomic self-discovery. The novel examines the dissonance between our current selves and the personas we must evolve into as the world around us changes. The Guardian calls Self-Esteem and the End of the World “full of deadpan humour… a deeply felt exploration of happiness, trust and the lies we tell our friends and ourselves.”
Location: NYU Washington, DC Abramson Family Auditorium (1307 L Street, NW Washington, DC 20005)
Dates: Monday, September 16, 7:00 pm
MULTI-DISCIPLINARY/INSTALLATION
Multi-disciplinary Irish artists Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty bring their new work A Collection of Disarticulated Bones to DC with Solas Nua presenting. The work will occur on site for one night only as an installation and interactive post-experience dialogue. Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty received a Solas Nua commission to create their digital experience Landless in 2020.
Location to be announced.
Date: September 27, 2024
THEATRE/VR- AND AUDIO-IMMERSIVE DOUBLE-BILLING
Murmuration and Solas Nua present Summertime – a live performance enhanced through headphones in an intimate, storytelling experience. Solas Nua’s previous presentation of Murmuration’s audio-installation, One Moment Now, was hosted by Tony Award-winning Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company last fall.
Stash is an artist who works in a pub. Steve is her boyfriend. Their relationship is in trouble and they want to tell you how it happened – in unison, if they can. When one thoughtless comment knocks the pair out of sync, the fallout causes a rift that only deepens over the course of a summer. Hear both sides of the story, intricately rendered with a dynamic sound design from Jenny O’Malley.
Dublin’s The Arts Review gives Summertime five stars, calling it “heartfelt, genius, and beautifully executed.”
Solas Nua will present Summertime as a double-billing with Ar Ais Arís, a groundbreaking work from Brú Theatre. Hailed by the Irish Times as “Absorbing, evocative and sometimes unsettling,” Ar Ais Arís is a VR immersive theatre experience that has already captivated audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, now making its US premiere with Solas Nua.
Irish language, literature, and visual poetry are combined in virtual reality, to make Ar Ais Arís. The work is inspired by texts from Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Pádraic Ó Conaire and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill around the theme of migration.
Brú’s team of performers, creators, designers, and composers have come together to create three unique 180° films, immersing audiences in a fusion of movement, text, music, and Connemara landscape through the use of VR headsets. The work invites audiences to “lose” themselves “in this evocative, contemporary take on some of the finest writing in the Irish language.”
Locations and partnerships to be announced.
Dates for double-billing: November 1 – November 17, 2024
THEATRE/WORKSHOPS
Solas Nua and George Mason University present MORE DOGS – a workshop production. The workshop is an exploration through theatre and dance that examines how Irish immigrants became the police force in the United States. During the early and mid 19th century, discriminatory employment signs read, “NO BLACKS, NO DOGS, NO IRISH.” Through evocative choreography and dance from a team of award-winning artists, Solas Nua explores the stereotype and legacy of the “Irish cop” throughout US history.
The work is created by Rex Daugherty, Ashleigh King, and Liz Roche and commissioned by Solas Nua.
Dates: November 21 – 24, 2024
Solas Nua is proud to partner with Fishamble to offer their renowned Show in a Bag program to local DC artists. This is an opportunity for DMV area performing artists to develop their own work with the support of dramaturgs from Solas Nua and Dublin’s Fishamble the New Play Company. We aim to offer performers a vehicle to tell a unique story with a small-scale production that they can perform anywhere. At the end of this process, artists will have a complete solo script to produce and perform themselves with little to no physical production elements (limited to what can fit in a bag!).
Show in a Bag was started by Fishamble in collaboration with the Dublin Fringe and Irish Theatre Institute in 2010. Solas Nua is honored to collaborate frequently with Fishamble in producing and touring their projects, and now to bring their dramaturgical practices directly to our community.
Dates: Applications open September 2, 2024
DANCE
Solas Nua partners with Luail, Ireland’s National Dance Company and the Irish World Academy at University of Limerick for the Activating Archive Residency, in partnership with the National Dance Archive of Ireland and the Irish Arts Center, New York. With the Irish World Academy, Luail is creating a fully-supported, multifaceted residency opportunity for a dance artist to spend time immersed in various dance archives across multiple genres. The selected dance artist will be encouraged to engage with the materials for their own research purposes, or to work on developing a response – either choreographically or through further artistic documentation.
The residency, which will take place in November (US) and December (Ireland), is also in association with Our Steps in New York, The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and Solas Nua, in Washington, DC.
Former Solas Nua Executive Director Miranda Driscoll joins Liz Roche of Liz Roche Company as Creative & Executive Producer of Luail – Ireland’s National Dance Company.
Dates: November 11 – 12, 2024
Solas Nua’s Artistic Director of Theatre, Rex Daugherty, shares about the fall 2024 season, “The first half of the year featured storytelling at its most essential, incredible true-life stories simply shared by captivating performances. The second installment of the season builds on the same traditions but with a new element – immersive technology that enhances powerful storytelling with a fresh delivery. Solas Nua showcases why we are a Mayor’s Arts Award recipient for Innovation in the Arts with these groundbreaking, genre-defying productions.
I’m equally excited about the workshops and experimental artistic projects Solas Nua is generating this fall. We are knocking down the walls of multi-disciplinary work to explore the artistic space between dance, theater, music, performance, and our community. Audiences can expect to have an experience unlike anywhere else in the region and I can’t wait to share these diverse offerings with DC.”
Executive Director Andrew Dolan emphasizes, “The team at Solas Nua continues to partner with Irish artists who are working to push the bounds of their form and explore innovation across mediums. I’m thrilled to launch a fall season that furthers our work and brings exceptional international art to Washington, DC.”
ABOUT SOLAS NUA
Solas Nua – ‘new light’ in Irish, is an international arts organization based in DC that is exclusively dedicated to contemporary Irish arts. Founded in 2005, Solas Nua acts as an ambassador and advocate for Irish arts in the U.S., promoting contemporary Irish culture, multi-disciplinary arts, and creativity. Solas Nua commissions, produces, and presents thought-provoking and groundbreaking work across genres, work that is cross-cultural – representing today’s Ireland, a contemporary, globally diverse society – and reflecting how Irish culture is shared across borders, ethnicity, and economic lines.
