An award-winning choreographer, director, contemporary dancer and aerialist originally from West Cork, Tara Brandel has been channelling her creativity through the medium of dance since the early 90s. Her new project, Change by Croí Glan, will premiere at Dance Cork Firkin Crane on March 14 and 15.
The last thing I saw and loved was… Kneecap the film.
The book I keep coming back to… Rebecca Solnit’s Not Too Late. She writes beautifully and she’s so articulate about the vital importance of hope as we face climate change.
I find inspiration in… landscape. Seeing the layers of history and geology in the landscape of West Cork, especially the islands of Roaring Water Bay, always acts as a reminder to step back from the worries of the daily minutiae of my life. I am just one tiny moment in the vastness of history. This too shall pass.
My favourite film is… The Big Short. I love complicated films about economics and political corruption and this one explains the whole 2009 crash and what happened economically to get us there. I’ve seen it three times.
My career highlight is… there have been a few! But I especially loved performing with Croí Glan in the first Unlimited Festival at the South Bank in London during the 2012 Paralympics. The range and calibre of work by professional disabled artists during the festival was so enriching and the Royal Festival Hall is such a glorious building – talk about layers of history!
The song I listen to to get in the zone is… anything by Nils Frahm. I got to see him perform live at the National Concert Hall recently. I was in the front row so I really got to see the detail of how he works musically.
The last book I recommended is… The Ministry of the Future. It’s a brilliant, dense, enormous novel about overcoming climate change. It’s a deeply thought-provoking book about what it will really take personally and globally for us to get through this and it’s refreshingly uncompromising in its political analysis.
I never leave the house without… water. I try to drink four litres a day.
The performance I still think about is…Mikel Murfi in The Man in The Woman’s Shoes. I saw it outdoors on a cold grey evening at Aghadown GAA pitch. He had no set, no lights, it was just him on a little platform in the middle of the pitch and he completely transported me. He played multiple characters and I felt like they were all familiar people that I’d actually known from my childhood in West Cork.
My dream role would be… well, I’ve always wanted to work with Belgian choreographer Sidi Labri Cherkaoui.
The best advice I’ve ever gotten… “Life is easy”. Even when that doesn’t feel true, it’s a great reminder to stay in radical trust and just breathe into it all.
The art that means the most to me is… Go Went Gone by Jenny Erpenbek. It’s a novel about African refugees in Berlin told from the perspective of an East German man who’s still coming to terms with reunification and living in western capitalist Germany. It’s told with such kindness and humanity and his responses to the harrowing stories of each refugee he gets to know kind of gives me hope for the small acts of kindness we can all bestow on people who have already been through so much.
My favourite moment in Change is… the ending, but I won’t give it away! Let’s just say it’s hopeful.
The most challenging thing about being on stage is… actually, I love it. I love the craft of performing, the pacing of energy, the alchemy of performer and audience. It’s magic even after all these years.
After a performance, I… love to get a big hug from someone I’m close to.
If I wasn’t a choreographer, I would be… an environmental activist.
The magic of dance to me is… what the American poet Mary Oliver called “the soft animal self.” I love the way dance takes me out of my verbal mind and drops me into my body, that place where I can instinctually connect nonverbally with a wide variety of humans and other mammals. I love the way it takes me beyond my human self.
Change premieres at Dance Cork Firkin Crane on March 14 and 15. You can find out more information and get your tickets here. Photography courtesy of Tara Brandel.
