Quotidian Upcoming Events
Ellipses
A World Premiere - Celebrating 25 Years of the Good Friday Agreement
Imagine this – the present at point blank range
its gift a target so unmissable
it is reckless generous.
Presented by Belfast International Arts Festival
Poet Maria McManus and composer Keith Acheson explore the wonders of the universe in this vivid collaboration for soprano, wind and string quartet. The work explores discovery, uncertainty, wonder and awe, from the minute to the infinite – science, humanity on our shared planet, ‘our blue home’.
Lasting approximately one hour, the world premiere of Ellipses will be performed at St. Joesph’s in Sailortown. It will feature the fabulous Arco String Quartet. Soprano and wind instrumentalists to be announced soon. The poetry text of Ellipses, inspired by The Armagh Observatory, was originally written by Maria McManus in 2019 as a commission for the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society as part of their Heritage Angels Awards. In 2020/21, it was set to music in a new and original score by composer Keith Acheson, supported by a grant from the Arts Council NI and Department of Communities through the Individual Artist’s Resilience Award.
Keith Acheson is a Belfast-based composer and conductor. After obtaining a BMus (Hons) in 1996 he was awarded a PhD in Composition from the Ulster University in 2002. Along with many pieces for choir, he has had work performed by the Ulster Orchestra, Gemini Ensemble, Arco String Quartet, HuuJ Ensemble, Philippa Davies, Anne-Marie O’Farrell, Megan Mooney and Brian Keenan. In recent years he has conducted the world premiere of his hour-long work 18, a setting of the poetry of Maria McManus, for soprano, women’s choir, poet, ensemble and tape, in Crumlin Road Gaol, Wretches at the Portico of Ards, and worked with choreographer Eileen McClory and poet Maria McManus in creating the score for their dance theatre piece Turf, premiered in Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin, Derry. He is currently the conductor of the Ballyclare Male Choir, Sing for Life and Crescendo Community Choirs and the Belfast Trust and Citi Belfast Staff Choirs.
Maria McManus’ most recent collection is Available Light, (Arlen House). Librettos include Wretches and Ellipses, both with the composer Keith Acheson and Tierra Sallada with Argentinian composer Martin Devek. Poetry dance & film collaborations are BIND, EPILOGUE, and TURF all of which are collaboration with ACNI Major Artist awardee choreographer Eileen McClory and filmmaker Conan McIvor and composer Katie Richardson (BIND) Essays are published in Impermanence (Centre Culturel Irlandais/ No Alibis), The New Frontier (New Island) and The Irish Times. She is on the Boards of Irish PEN/PEN na h’Éireann and Poetry Ireland. She founded the literary arts production company Quotidian in 2017, with the poet Deirdre Cartmill.
Limited-edition hand-stitched poetry journal created by Maria Isakova Bennett, from the publication of Ellipses, for Coast to Coast to Coast.
World Premiere: 20th April 2023 St Joseph’s Church, Sailortown, Belfast 7.00pm
5th May, 2023 Seamus Heaney Home Place, Bellaghy, Magherafelt
Watch this space for tickets and further updates
Supported by Belfast International Arts Festival, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland & Department for Communities (Individual Artists Resilience Fund)
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earth
13th of December 2022 Launch of earth, a collaboration of science and art, between the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University, the School of Biological Sciences and Quotidian.
Join us for the launch of Poetry Jukebox, Once Barefoot, poems for the earth, with poetry readings by Stephen Sexton, Maureen Boyle, Emma Must.
The event will also feature music by Arco String Quartet and a chance to hear more about the project from artistic directors Maria McManus & Máire Zepf
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BIND
“Carved in stone over the entrance to Armagh Robinson Library is an inscription in Greek, which translates as ’the healing place of the soul’. The creative team must surely have had that phrase in mind as they set about devising this hypnotic, soothing dance-poetry film, in which three dancers delicately flit and flutter along shelves and through pages, as though ‘on the powdered wings of butterflies.” Jane Coyle
Quotidian is delighted to present BIND at the Belfast International Arts Festival. A sumptuous poetry and dance film set in the exquisite Robinson Library in Armagh, BIND explores the legacy of binds between past and present, the tension between elevation, elites and access to knowledge, progress and change, the visibility and constraints on women, and how a visionary institution contributes to progress in the modern world.
This innovative contemporary dance and poetry film has been created in the Armagh Robinson Library, to celebrate its 250th anniversary. When he died, Archbishop Robinson requested that all his personal correspondence be burned and destroyed. In 2019, the poet Maria McManus ran an international letter-writing campaign to ‘fill the void’ left behind, with new letters. Hundreds of letters were received from people of all ages, and from across the globe. The subjects written about included contemporary issues, and also letters to the dead, the lost, the imagined, to the future, to the past, to the inner self, and to public figures.
The film explores the theme of ‘binding’ in several ways – the binding of books, as bonds across time and generations, in the costumes, and metaphorically linking corsetry to constraints on women and access to education and expression of the body, written and spoken words. The Robinson Library is also a character in the film, which was recorded there in July 2021
In-person screening on Sat 22 Oct at 4pm in QFT
It will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Jane Coyle with members of the creative team such as director & choreographer Eileen McClory, poet and producer Maria McManus, filmmaker Conan McIvor and composer Katie Richardson.
Book your ticket for the in-person screening:
Online premiere of the film at 7.00pm on 23th Oct.
Available on demand thereafter: watch this space!
Book your ticket for the online premiere:
BIND is a collaboration between choreographer Eileen McClory, poet Maria McManus, composer Katie Richardson, costume designer Úna Hickey, and filmmaker Conan McIvor. The dancers are Ryan O’Neill, Clara Kerr and Rosie Mullin. The poet Bebe Ashley translated the chosen lines to sign language, which formed the basis for development of the movement sequences. Voice-over is by Roisín Gallagher.
Photo credit: Michael McEvoy Dancer: Claire Kerr
Supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland from National Lottery Funds
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Acts of Commission
Quotidian brings you two newly commissioned poems; What Pa Saw at the Benders by Sinéad Morrissey and The Vocation by Nick Laird.
Further info on 'Acts of Commission' at The Belfast Arts Festival:
Supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland from National Lottery Funds & by Poetry Ireland
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Ambiguities
Poetry Jukebox is hosting twenty contemporary poets presenting new poems and projecting our future, 100 years from now. In the context of our turbulent present – the centenary of partition, the climate crisis, and our troubled modern world – Quotidian commissioned twenty of our finest and most innovative poets to project their vision one hundred years into the future.
The result is AMBIGUITIES. A new Jukebox installation at the Crescent Arts Centre, a launch event & a workshop!
Poets in this special Poetry Jukebox edition include Conor Cleary, Anna Loughran, Annemarie Ní Chuirreann, Cathal Póirtéir, Charles Lang, Mel McMahon, Cherry Smyth, Kerri Ní Dochartaigh, John Kelly, Nandi Jola, Linda McKenna, Susannah Dickey, Jess McKinney, Emily Cooper, Gerald Dawe, Allan Gillis, Scott McKendry, Sacha White, Paul Maddern and Siobhan Campbell.
Join the Launch Event and readings on Thursday 13th October at 7.30pm in The Cube at the Crescent Arts Centre.
All welcome (no booking required).
Scott McKendry was the recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2019 and his pamphlet, Curfuffle (The Lifeboat), was Poetry Book Society Autumn Choice 2019. He’s currently working on his first full collection.
5 Rue des Irlandais
A cornucopia of poems in Irish, French & English celebrating the ‘city of light’.
5 rue des Irlandais, is that most seductive of Parisian addresses – Centre Culturel Irlandais! It is also the name of a new anthology of Irish poets celebrating the city of light.
Poetry Jukebox will host a fantastic tri-lingual on-street audio installation in French, Irish and English at An Chultúrlann.
Launch Event
8th October at 1.00pm in An Chultúrlann. There will be readings, light refreshments and music. Bígí linn! Bienvenue!
Poets in this special edition of Poetry Jukebox include: Dermot Bolger, Iggy McGovern, Gerard Smyth, Catherine Phil MacCarthy, Afric McGlinchey, Mary Noonan, Caitriona O’Reilly, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbuigh, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Paddy Bushe, Mary Dorcey, Hugh O’Donnell, Michael Coady, Gerry Murphy, Derry O’Sullivan, Aifric Mac Aodha, Theo Dorgan, Pat Boran, Edward Denniston, and Matthew Sweeney.