I spent August in Angola, working on a documentary, and have written this piece on the town of Kuito for Le Monde Diplo. Here’s a one-minute intro to the documentary, which I hope to complete in the new year.
On Angola in Le Monde Diplomatique
In Africa, Aid & development, International on November 7, 2009 at 5:59 amMichael Keegan Dolan’s rites of Spring
In Ireland, Theatre on November 1, 2009 at 4:01 pmMichael Keegan Dolan has made some of the most provocative and inspiring work on the Irish stage in the last 10 years. But his next production is a ballet at, bizarrely, the English National Opera. So has Dolan abandoned the theatre? And has he abandoned Ireland?
Dolan is possibly the most significant innovator to have emerged in Irish theatre in the last decade or so. His company, Fabulous Beast, has produced some of the most striking shows in successive Dublin Theatre Festivals — and done so all from their Amish-like base on a farm in the midlands, near to Dolan’s home place in Co Westmeath.
Their work is “dance-theatre”, but the label is of use only to people who need to fill niches in festivals. Combining speech, live music, dance of all types, and ritual, Fabulous Beast have sought to interrogate on stage the historical roots and contemporary foibles of this quirky small country.
In Giselle, The Bull and James Son of James, Dolan created a trilogy as significant — or more so — for Irish theatre as Martin McDonagh’s Leenane Trilogy
Aziza Brahim sings of Western Sahara
In Africa, Culture, International on November 1, 2009 at 3:41 pmRecently returned from the Western Saharan refugee camps in Algeria, where I was working with Donal Scannel on a documentary he’s making of the Sahrawi exile singer, Aziza Brahim. Here’s a glimpse of Aziza during some downtime on tour in Spain this summer.
