Art-Illa is our Baleàric Irish Arts Residency supported by the Arts Council of Ireland International Residency is a creative immersive lab which consists of an immersive transnational exchange and cooperation across multidisciplinary art forms.

The first phase of the Residency took place in Mallorca. Read more about their experience here→

The second and final phase occurred in Ireland from October 23 to November 7, 2022. Jude Penders, Gill Byrne, Rosa Forteza and Alejandro Navarro spent one week in Dingle working with mentor and director Aoife Carry. During week 2, the Irish duo attended a 3-day workshop with Roberto Magro in Cork, and the Spanish duo delivered a hand-to-hand workshop in Dublin at Dublin Circus Project. The Residency ended at the National Circus Festival of Ireland in Tralee.

Here is what the artists say about their experience.

The Art-Illa residency on the Dingle peninsula was a breath of life and fresh air to me, on an artistic and personal level. Discussing the shared and differing nuances of our creative practices and experiences in the industry internationally was exciting, stimulating and valuable to my professional practice.

Talking, travelling, hiking, eating dinners, dancing, playing music, and connecting with incredible, intellectual, warm, supportive and giving artists – Aoife Carry, Gill Byrne, Rosa Forteza, and Alejandro Navarro Ramos – was everything I needed in my professional life. I feel more able to develop as an artist and to progress in my career.

As an Irish artist, being in the Kerry landscape for this residency was unique to say the least. Awe inspiring, emotionally challenging, creatively stimulating, and deeply deeply connected with my roots and my culture. These lands of ours are magic and leave no qualms to their authenticity and unashamed power.

-Jude

The first thing is to highlight the talent and sympathy of the Irish colleagues with whom we have shared this experience. We have met a Catalan director Enric Ases with whom we have already coincided in the past, and we have been able to share good moments as part of his research work on collective creation. Meeting Aoife Carry has been also wonderful. We connected a lot. Her talent and charisma have made us fall in love.

We have been able to contact interesting programmers in Tarrega. We have also been able to talk with several programmers in Tralee at the NCFI. An experience like this makes our career grow.

-Rosa and Alejandro

My experience in Ireland was incredible, especially working with Aoife Carry in Dingle. The work we touched on was so powerful and relevant to the work I want to make, I feel I gained a huge amount as an artist during this time. I did feel that our time was tight due to filming and planning, but the filming was also an incredible exploration into what we were doing. I just wished for more time to dive a little deeper.

Roberto Magro in Cork was a very different pace and style, very physically demanding and a more traditional theatre approach than I usually work with, but very valuable, and opened some interesting ideas for me in developing my hula hoop practise and style.

Overall I was absolutely delighted with the whole thing. I feel like I have grown and developed massively as an artist during this residency, and am so excited to bring ideas from this programme into reality.

-Gill

 

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