Common Sense, Profound Sense: A Message from Ireland

Liz Lerman has just returned from a jaunt to Ireland and England where she led workshops on Critical Response and other methods. At the Abbey Theatre studios, through the cooperation of Create, she taught and facilitated a CRP session with Irish choreographer Ríonach Ní Néill. Rionach presented her work Seandálaíocht (Archaeology), which she describes as “a highly personal exploration of the paradox of a language only spoken by one person.”

Rionach reflected on her experience with CRP in a message she sent to Liz and some of the workshop sponsors, and graciously granted permission for me to excerpt it here. I especially appreciate hearing her “next steps” and her reflections on the implications of Critical Response in an Irish cultural context. Thank you, Rionach.

“It was a privilege to me to present my work for the critical response workshop. I knew that, concerning identity and the Irish language, it dealt with a very sensitive issue in the Irish psyche and that everyone would have an opinion and an emotional response to it…. The workshop gave us the tools to engage with each other and the work, the method providing a safe place for the audience to give, and me to receive, feedback, and yet for us to be as honest and direct with our opinions as we needed. It was such an enriching experience for me. I have so much information to process and perspectives with which to revisit the work with further clarity and depth. I will be viewing the work as starting from the programme note. I will be examining how, without compromising its and my truth, it can communicate more precisely across a language barrier. And I will be enjoying performing it, as I now realise that it can say what I want to convey.

“I think the method is of particular use to us in Ireland, a point that arose in the workshop. Although words and the Irish are intrinsically linked, I think our love of the beauty of the sounds, the verbal landscapes and dances we can create with words, sometimes obscure the meanings. We use language to delight, to amuse, to dazzle, but maybe not so well to communicate. And so we are not so good at criticism, in fact, criticism here is usually equated with negativity. The method, in its polite neutrality, made us take responsibility for our thoughts, and made us focus on what we were really saying and really hearing. Common sense maybe, but a very profound sense.”