Unseen

© Tomasz Madajczak

There’s a line early on in Unseen, the new dance piece by Tara Brandel and Stacey White of Croi Glan Integrated Dance Company, where the voice-over says that plankton are so tiny that they are invisible to us. But sometimes, the voice continues, they bloom in such vast quantities that they can be seen from space. 

This dance piece explores the role that plankton – in plant form (phytoplankton) and in animal form (zooplankton) – plays in the life of our planet. It underpins all life but is fragile and threatened  by the effects of climate change. We remain oblivious to this existential danger because plankton does not cry out for our attention.

© Tomasz Madajczak

That disconnect, between the vital nature of this organism versus how aware we are of it, proves to be an apt metaphor for how we depend on our bodies – taking them for granted until they force us to forge a new relationship with them. 

Stacey White is a Californian artist who now lives here in West Cork. She has partnered (in life and in art) with Tara Brandel, who has created this choreographed event, three years in the making. I have written about Tara’s dance before – in Bridge and in Dancing Cappaghglass. Tara is one of the people (more common, she tells me, than we all know) who was injured by the Covid vaccine. It was catastrophic for her, leaving her profoundly debilitated, unable to walk, with difficulty breathing and a racing heart. Her recovery and rehabilitation have taken three years so far and is ongoing. The irony is striking – Croi Glan specialises in an integrated approach to dance, working with both able-bodied and physically- and intellectually-challenged dancers. Up to now, Tara has been the dancer we would describe as ‘able’

© Tomasz Madajczak

The dance begins with Stacey painting in a corner and Tara asleep on the floor. Projections and voice-overs run throughout the dance, introducing images of plankton, water and tides. There is no music per se, and yet there is a sense throughout of an elemental soundtrack. 

© Tomasz Madajczak

As Tara slowly comes to life her hand movement echo the pulsating and twisting movements of the plankton we have seen on the wall behind her. We see her coming to grips with the challenges of rediscovering the body her illness has given her,  and hear her compare it to putting together a 3D jigsaw, as she strives to heal and to compile the disparate pieces into a coherent whole again. Stacey’s voice also gives us an insight into the profound disconnect that  epilepsy, or rather the drugs she has taken to address it, has created between mind and body. We see them support each other, Stacey (literally) guiding Tara’s faltering steps. 

© Tomasz Madajczak

Besides the projections, Stacey’s small plankton paintings fill the wall space behind the dancers, hung to echo the Gulf Stream and Atlantic currents. At one point during the dance she strews them about the floor and Tara carefully makes her way among them before seizing larger pieces of drawing paper to wrap around her body, as if drawing strength from a medium other than the physical.

© Tomasz Madajczak

As someone at home, away from the world, slowly trying to recover from profound weakness, Tara shows us that she feels unseen, locked away from our sight. Sufferers of vaccine injuries have to contend with the neglect of their plight by governments and health systems, who start by ignoring them and then throw enormous burdens onto already-ill people to ‘prove’ that what has happened to them is the fault of the vaccine.

© Tomasz Madajczak

But this is not a pity-me piece, it’s a profound meditation on what it is, and how it feels, to be unseen, and to have the very foundations of the life we take for granted – whether we are talking about our planet or our bodies – suddenly under threat. And ultimately it’s about the healing power of art to help us face those challenges.

© Tomasz Madajczak

I have no doubt this piece will have an afterlife after the two current scheduled performances. Uillinn’s (The West Cork Arts Centre) dance season, now in full, er, swing, reminds us that art comes in many forms, including dance. Like plankton, art blooms where the environment encourages it. Hardly surprisingly, given the quality of what we saw in Unseen, all the dance performances seem to be well subscribed, so run don’t walk if you want tickets for any of the other events over the next week or so – it goes to November 5th.

Thank you to Tomasz Madajczak for allowing me to use his outstanding photographs.