‘The Return Of The Lesser Known Púca Ó Ruairc’ & ‘The
Tin Tabernacle Of Tunes’
The performing artist Little John Nee developed a video project with the North
Leitrim Men’s Group entitled The Return of the Lesser Known Púca Ó
Ruairc. The
Púca Ó Ruairc is a tired old soul who has been damaged and disempowered by past
experiences, trauma, and his own outmoded attitudes. His return to his old
haunts and the incidents he encounters allows him to be radically transformed
and to have his integrity as a Púca shapeshifter restored by these experiences
in a town that has never been better.
A central motif in the finale of the “Púca Ó Ruairc” story was the “The Tin Tabernacle of Tunes”. The “Tin Tabernacle” is a small tin shed structure built by the Mens Group and inspired by the Chapel of Ease at Lurganboy. The structure was accessible to the public, where up to five people could enter and play music together on metal drums/chimes/instruments tuned to a pentatonic scale which allowed five strangers with no musical experience to play together spontaneously and in harmony. Alongside this main structure was a number of additional smaller sound sculptures all of which could be played simultaneously by the visiting public.
The Tin Tabernacle of Tunes occured at the LSC Gallery on Friday November 15th 5 – 8pm and Nov 16th 11am-4pm, 2019.
Little John Nee
Little John Nee is a playwright, performer and musician based in the west of Ireland. He is a recipient of an Irish Times Theatre Award for Sound Design, a Helen Hayes Nominee (Washington DC), a Prix Italia Special Mention Award and in 2016 was elected to Aosdána (honours artists whose work has made an outstanding contribution to the creative arts in Ireland.
‘PERFORMING NORTH LEITRIM’ is a community-based performing arts collaboration between Leitrim Sculpture Centre & The Glens Centre in Manorhamilton, North County Leitrim. This ongoing collaborative partnership explores site-specific engagements with ‘place’ through a creative collaboration between the two Centres advancing cross-disciplinary support and participation through the sharing of resources, knowledge, expertise and skills. Drawing on the idea of collective creativity within the visual and performing arts traditions - including theatre, performance and installation art, street performance, story-telling, sound and music generation, and the performance of the everyday - the project develops opportunities for artists to collaborate with local communities on a cross artform basis using the resources of the two Centres. (Sean O’Reilly, LSC 2019)
PERFORMING NORTH LEITRIM was financially supported by CREATIVE IRELAND under the CREATIVE COUNTIES project organized by Sarah Searson, Director, The Dock, Carrrick on Shannon, 2019.
Website: www.creativecounties.ie/
Twitter: twitter.com/creativecounti1
Facebook: facebook.com/creativecounties/
Instagram: instagram.com/creativecounties/
Creative Counties is a network of six venues, in four counties who are developing a programme of three exchange projects. The Creative Counties programme was awarded a Creative Ireland National Award and is supported by Local Authorities in Leitrim, Longford, Sligo and Roscommon. The project is led by Dock and includes The Hawks Well, Backstage Theatre, Roscommon Arts Centre, The Glens Centre and Leitrim Sculpture Centre. This network bring together venues, audiences and creative communities through sharing projects which focus on The performing arts, music and theatre devised for the broad communities in which the venues exist.
Performing North Leitrim realized two projects in 2019 entitled Traces by visual artist Sandra Corrigan-Breathnach, and, The Return of the Lesser Known Púca Ó Ruairc & The Tin Tabernacle of Tunes by performing artist Little John Nee.
Project 2: "The Return of the Lesser Known Púca Ó Ruairc & The Tin Tabernacle of Tunes"
