Owenvarragh: A Belfast Circus on The Star Factory

Event information

There will be a few tickets available on the door, but a very limited amount. Doors open at 7pm and seating is unreserved so arrive early!

A new realisation of John Cage's 1979 score "_____, ____ _____ circus on _____"

Ciaran Carson's wonderful elegy to Belfast, The Star Factory, performed as a circus of sound, words, and images, featuring live recitation by Professor Carson, recordings and images of places and sounds from the book, and music from Belfast traditional musicians.

Produced and directed by Úna Monaghan and Martin Dowling

Ciaran Carson: recitation
Patrick Davey: flute / whistle
Martin Dowling : fiddle
Úna Monaghan: harp / concertina
Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn: uilleann pipes
Éamonn Ó Faogáin: voice



Tuesday 27th March 2012
7.30 pm (doors at 7pm)
£6 / £3
Sonic Lab at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Cloreen Park off the Malone Road)

In 1979 John Cage wrote "a means for translating a book into a performance without actors, a performance which is both literary and musical or one or the other." This score gives detailed instructions for creating chance-determined poems from the text and combining a recitation of these with recordings of places and sounds in the book, along with live music. The result is a rendition of the literary work as a "circus" of sound and words. John Cage first used his score to realise James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. The result, "Roaratorio, an Irish Circus on Finnegan's Wake" featured Cage reading Joyce along with traditional musicians Paddy Glackin, Seamus Ennis, Joe Heaney and others. Subsequently Cage developed it into a piece featuring dancers in collaboration with choreographer Merce Cunningham.

Úna Monaghan and Martin Dowling have collaborated to bring Ciaran Carson's enigmatic memoir of Belfast to life using the instructions published by Cage. Carson's method in the The Star Factory is well suited to Cage's score. Associating memories by stream of consciousness, by etymology, by sound and image and feeling, Carson created a collection of snapshots and vignettes, descriptions and stories, which has been described as "a vision of Belfast as personally recreated as Joyce's Dublin." The piece will feature live recitation by Carson of chance determined poems drawn from his novel, projected images from the book, sound recordings mixed by Úna Monaghan, and live performances by Belfast based traditional musicians beneath the metal grid floor.

A truly historic event, "Owenvarragh" forms part of the celebrations to mark the 100th birthday of John Cage in 2012.

In association with Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music
With assistance from Enterprise SU at Queen's University Belfast
High heeled shoes are not advisable, due to the grid floor at SARC