Luke Casserly Brings A Performative Journey To The Irish Bog Landscape As Part Of Dublin Theatre Festival In DISTILLATION

Distillation: Luke Casserly brings a performative journey that will takes audiences to the Irish bog landscape as part of Dublin Theatre Festival.
 

Distillation is a response to the recent cessation of the peat harvesting industry in Ireland. Over the past year, Luke Casserly has collaborated with renowned perfume maker Joan Woods to create a unique distillation of the Midlands bog - the place where he grew up - as the starting point for an olfactory encounter which looks at our human relationship to place. Dedicated to the future of our broken landscapes – in the hope that by listening to them, we might be able to better understand them.

 

As an artist from the Midlands, Luke was inspired to make the piece as a way of stretching out further conversations around the environmental potential of the Irish bog landscape. The perfume featured as part of the performance has been designed by Joan Woods (Waters + Wild Organic Perfumery), who has collected and distilled botanicals from the Midlands landscape as part of the creative process. Each audience member will receive a small sample of the custom-made perfume as part of the performance, and will be seated around a large sculptural table which is composed out of sustainably-sourced peat from the Irish Midlands.

 

The audience will be invited to hold organic materials during the performance including soil and moss, and there will be gentle invitations to participate throughout. The creative team includes Joan Woods (Perfumer), Ger Clancy (Sculptor), Rex Daugherty (Dramaturgy), and Síofra Caherty (Jump The Hedges) who has designed a custom fanny pack - made from a piece of Bord na Móna tarpaulin - which will be worn by Luke during the performance.

 

Distillation is a multidisciplinary performance lecture which will feature original text, perfume, video design, and sculpture. The project is a co-production by the Abbey Theatre (Ireland) and Solas Nua (USA), originally commissioned by Solas Nua with support from Goethe-Institut Irland, IMMA and the Druid FUEL Programme. The project was developed through the support of an Arts Council Theatre Project Award.

 

Luke Casserly is a multidisciplinary performance maker from Longford, Ireland. His work weaves together environmental research, documentary, sound art, and site as a way of carving out space for new possibilities to emerge between live performance and physical landscape. To date, his projects have brought audiences through city streets, back gardens, train stations, beaches, and a bog in the Irish midlands. These works have led to the creation of a network of Irish wildflower meadows across Ireland (1000 Miniature Meadows, 2020) and the planting of 1000 indigenous trees in the Irish Midlands (Root, 2021). Luke was recently selected for the Norman Houston Commissioning Award with Solas Nua in Washington DC, in addition to being chosen to participate in the International Forum as part of Theatertreffen (Berlin Festspiele) 2023. He holds a BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College, and is a recipient of the Next Generation Award for 2023-24. For more information visit www.lukecasserly.org. 

 

 

Venue: Goethe-Institut Irland

Dates: 6-7 & 13-14 October

Times: 2.00pm, 5.00pm & 7.00pm

Duration: 50 mins

Tickets: €18.00

Booking: https://stage.dublintheatrefestival.ie/event/distillation/

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