Wit & Whimsy
2024/2025
I am the Machine
2024
'I am the machine' is part of Zeitgeist Irland 24, an initiative of Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in Germany.
A nostalgia tinged sci-fi of music, song, dance and theatre set in the present day or the not so distant possible future. 'I am the machine' will feature three dancers, an actress and a musical group of five. Is it a psychiatric asylum, a post-apocalyptic safe bunker, a community of misfits or a dream being imagined by one of the characters? It is not until the end that we get a hint of why these characters are together in the same space. Some seeming not to notice the other, some seeking refuge or connection. ‘I am the machine’ seeks meaning and connection in a distrustful society, embracing the innovations of technology while in bed with branding and commercialism. It is an atmosphere of longing for an old imagined world while experiencing a new technological all-compassing landscape. It is an electrified, edgy losing of one’s mind in a broken society where we witness as we become an oversaturated, uncannily life-like forgery of ourselves.
It is longing, it is chaos, it is fear.
It is seeking comfort and succumbing to the inevitable.
It is a little bit of truth mixed it with a little bit of lies.
It is allowing your darkness and fears to show.
It is believing in magic and almost losing all hope.
It is being chipped and connecting to the Universal brain.
It is part machine and part human.
I am the machine is you and I almost giving up but finding in moments or connection, reasons to hang on.
Am I human, am I becoming something else.
Is there anything left we can't sell. I just bought you and sold you back to yourself.
When will you give yourself up to it.
Your life can be endlessly better now, now, now, now, now. It already is.
Artistic concept: Nina Hynes
Choreography: Orla Mc Carthy
Music: Nina Hynes, Yoyo Röhm, Andreas Bonkowski, Markus Müller, Veronica Maximova, Eileen Carpio
Dance: Orla Mc Carthy, Caia Leseure, Iza Fanore
Acting: Nova Hynes, Xavier Leseure
Sound: Aidan Floating Home
Lighting, Visuals: Victor Moise
Stage management: Tassi
Fundraising coordination: Vivienne Livingstone
Choreography: Orla Mc Carthy
Music: Nina Hynes, Yoyo Röhm, Andreas Bonkowski, Markus Müller, Veronica Maximova, Eileen Carpio
Dance: Orla Mc Carthy, Caia Leseure, Iza Fanore
Acting: Nova Hynes, Xavier Leseure
Sound: Aidan Floating Home
Lighting, Visuals: Victor Moise
Stage management: Tassi
Fundraising coordination: Vivienne Livingstone
Duration: 90 min
Presented in Dock11 Berlin November/December 2024.
Dream Baby Dream
2023/2024 (In Final Stage of Editing)
In 'Dream Baby Dream,' a 20-minute solo dance film by Orla Mc Carthy, she confronts the pressures of her dance career, weaving her internal struggles into a powerful narrative of self-acceptance and the transformative power of embracing vulnerability. This evocative piece celebrates the full spectrum of human emotion, inspiring self-compassion in the audience.
Testimonial from the work-in-progress sharing:
“I just saw a brilliant performance by Orla Mc Carthy, it was being filmed. We laughed we cried , huge emotions and questions . It will stay with me for a long time. " - Anica Louw
Cinematography: Gareth Byrne
Dramaturgy & Choreographic Assistance: Gal Fefferman
Music: SISTIR & 'dream baby dream' by Bruce Springsteen
Audio production: Tugkan Mutla
Text edited with: Michiel de Regt
Supported by the Arts Council Ireland, Creative Ireland & Shawbrook
that's my sister.
2022
Image and Clips by James Lock
‘that’s my sister.’ is a celebration of sisterhood. For the making of the film, sisters Aisling and Orla Mc Carthy came together to share their crafts; music and dance. This film is the result of their creative exchange. It is both a personal portrait of their relationship and a poetic reflection of the support, trust and vulnerability that we all know and need. The film reveals the inner dynamics and peculiarities of their unique bond while emphasising the unconditional love surrounding us all. ‘that’s my sister.’ is an illustration of the deeply personal and equally universal.
Choreography & Direction: Orla Mc Carthy
Music: SISTIR
Cinematography & Production: James Lock
Performance: Aisling & Orla Mc Carthy
Supported by Backstage Theatre, Longford
Shot in Co. Longford, Ireland
Presented in Wicklow Screendance Festival 2023 & Uillinn Dance Season 2023
Link to FULL FILM available upon request
Orla & Sam
2022
Orla & Sam is a tribute to the everyday warmth that we feel when we fall in love. Alongside her real-life boyfriend Sam van der Schot, professional dancer/choreographer Orla Mc Carthy composes and re-enacts the tender routines and spontaneous gestures that underline the couple's days together. Much like an old home video, the film creates a rich sense of nostalgia, exploring human intimacy in all its everyday flickers of affection, vulnerability and joy.
Director Anna Bogomolova accentuates Mc Carthy’s choreography with a playful point-of-view approach to cinematography, seeking to celebrate love as a reciprocal, responsive process.
The film affirms the idea that choosing lightness can be an act of love. As the perspective jumps from Orla to Sam, we see them respond to each other’s movement, thriving in each other’s gaze. They are shown witnessing and appreciating each other. It is this love and attention in the eyes of the beholder that allows the other to shine. Accompanied by the contemplative, slow-burning track ‘The Hustle’ by Lambchop, the film takes the viewer not only on Orla and Sam’s journey of discovery, but on their own self-discovery.
Written & Choreographed by Orla Mc Carthy
Performance: Orla Mc Carthy & Sam van der Schot
Directed by Anna Bogomolova
Cinematography: Nicky Pajic
Music: Lambchop - the Hustle
Sound Design by Kenny Kneefel
Colour Grading by Giovanni de Deugd
Gaphic Design by Bas Dobbelaer
Special thanks to Gabin Corredor, Majon van der Schot, Nick Duinmaijer & Cinesupply
Shot in Heidelberg & Ursenbach, Germany
Presented in CINEDANS film festival at the Eye Film museum in Amsterdam in 2023
Link to FULL FILM available upon request
MIND[e]SCAPE
2021
Running is a meditative form. It brings the subconscious lens into focus. This unconscious economy of (e)motion can focus the mind to find resolve in the agony of reflection, mediate obsessions, or find an ephemeral peace in a kind of vacancy of the immediate. Contemporary notions of mindfulness and mindlessness emphasise how we need weigh these fundamental aspects of the mind against one another. But is there value in the pursuit of compartmentalising these coalescing states, or is it an exercise in futility to view both mindfulness and mindlessness through anything other than the window of the present? What presence or transience of mind dictates to the body? Tension and release in the ligaments of our past behaviors and future selves constrict our ability to live absolutely in just one state of mind, surely?
Choreography, Direction & Performance: Orla Mc Carthy
Music: SISTIR
Cinematography: Sam van der Schot
Text: Luke Butt
Music: SISTIR
Cinematography: Sam van der Schot
Text: Luke Butt
Made with thanks to Dancer of the Dance Festival of Irish Choreography 2021
Screened at Uillinn Dance Film Season 2021
Shot in Heidelberg, Germany
Performing me
2019
Photo by Leon Poulton
Photo by Susanne Reichardt
One would think that dancing means to have reached a level beyond words. Yet in the process, dance feeds on a substructure of imaginary sentences. From a poetic point of view, the work of the choreographer may consist in giving one's own soul a temporary home in another body. Orla McCarthy's "Performing Me" is a determined illumination of the roles of the self as it staggers between private and public space, between intended gesture and impartiality. Faced with the challenging solo performance of Axier Iriarte, in the field between the two contrasting parts of the piece, this vertigo fades in the realization that we are always confronted with multiple identities. The performer appears as archaic as referring to a future state of humanity, in all that a map of our imagination. We, the audience, question us: who (else, other than me) is performing - me? While recognizing, being disfigured until we find ourselves ungarbled. What could be more contemporary?
Choreography & Direction: Orla Mc Carthy
Performer: Axier Iriarte
Music: Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat & O Superman by Laurie Anderson, edited by Perter Maximowitsch
Text: Sofie Steinfest
Performer: Axier Iriarte
Music: Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat & O Superman by Laurie Anderson, edited by Perter Maximowitsch
Text: Sofie Steinfest
DATES
FREIRAUM, DTH Zwinger 1 // 29.05.19
ZUKUNFT TANZT - Abend der jungen Choreografie, Frankfurt LAB // 29.06.19
Supported by DTH at Theater und Orchester Heidelberg
PERSON A
2018
Photo by Ashley Wright
Photo by Ashley Wright
Photo by Ashley Wright
Photo by Louise Amelie
Photo by Ashley Wright
PERSON A is a duet exploring appearances, expectations of oneself towards oneself, external expectations and their impact on how we present ourselves in an era of digitalisation and easy self display.
In the exciting duet PERSON A, Orla McCarthy and Max Makowski - aka oxmala - explore individual appearances in times of digitization and virtual self-portrayal. Recognising that social demand has changed from following a norm to embodying the most attractive version of oneself possible, we question this urgency to ‘save face’. The growing number of platforms for us to ‘be ourselves’, ‘express ourselves’, and ‘sell ourselves’ allow us to have multiple versions of ourselves. The question is, which one is real? We play a range of different parts determined by the situations we find ourselves in, the company we keep and how we think we are coming across. We all have many persona and identities which we relate to, yet we become pre-occupied with portraying the ideal, the desired and the hoped-for. Our appearance, our language, our manner are all aspects of ourselves which we manipulate to appear in the best light. However, there is not only the ‘ideal-self’, there is also the person we feel obliged to be. Forming an identity is a complex process, both defined by ourselves and the constraints of society. The increasing number of social networks where we are allowed to "be ourselves" allows us to design multiple versions of ourselves. A tension exists between each of these identities. PERSON A questions where the identities we form, both in the physical and virtual world come together.
Concept/Choreography: oxmala (Orla Mc Carthy & Max Makowski)
Dramaturgy: Gal Fefferman
Music: Frédéric Despierre
Production: Oliver Lau
Photography/Videos: Louise Amelie
Make-up: Alexandra Heinze
Videos: Rico Mahel
Make-up: Alexandra Heinze
Videos: Rico Mahel
DATES
Premiere: DOCK11 BERLIN // 18th may 2018
DOCK11 BERLIN // 19th - 20th may 2018
SommerBox, Luzern // 26th july 2018
Supported by OO Espaço Do Tempo, Shawbrook & Dock11
