Sightless Cinema
Listening event
Lighthouse Cinema, Smithfield, Dublin
on Wednesday 27 September at 6:45pm –running time 90min –
Booking: www.eventbrite.ie Tickets €5
‘Inspiring, captured the imagination’; ‘impressive mix of comedy and honest insight’ – audiences responses to Sightless Cinema 2016
Gather in the darkened Lighthouse Cinema for the première of Sightless Cinema 2017 a programme of short radio plays in surround sound, where all the pictures will be in your head!
This third presentation of new work by the successful Sightless Cinema project is a lively mix, devised and performed by groups of blind and visually impaired people led by director Ciarán Taylor. The short pieces include hospital comedy Off Your Trolley, an historical drama on Ireland’s worst railway disaster Train Wreck, the chilling thriller Leonna, and comedy of errors Robbing Blind, and a live performance of comedy Can I Help You about a blind woman lost in Heuston Station.
Sightless Cinema 2017 is funded by Dublin City Council, hosted by the National Council for the Blind in Ireland, with recording facilities provided by Dublin City University, and is a Dublin City Council Social Inclusion event. The current group has been meeting since January exploring sound as a means of sharing stories and putting together the programme. There is also a play from members of the 2015-2016 Sightless Cinema groups who have continued as members of White Cane Audio Theatre.
Sightless Cinema empowers people with sight loss as artistic collaborators in the medium of sound, allowing a shared artistic experience with their audience. Using techniques of theatre devising, pieces are developed over an extend series of workshops then recorded in studio and on location. The workshops generate lively audio plays and documentaries. The performance is part of Dublin City Council’s Social Inclusion Week.
Contact: carpettheatre@gmail.com or phone Ciarán Taylor at 086-367 9342.
Audio clips and interviews are available on request.
Further Information:
This is the third year of White Cane Audio Theatre, which was originally funded by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Arts Office and presented in UCD Cinema in 2015. A new Sightless Cinema 2017-2018 workshop starts at Rua Red South Dublin Arts Centre in October, funded by South Dublin County Council in co-operation with NCBI, and supported by CONTACT Studio a South Dublin County Arts Office initiative
Sightless Cinema aims to empower people with sight loss as artistic collaborators and creators in the medium of sound, allowing a shared artistic experience with their audience. Using techniques of theatre devising, pieces are developed over an extend series of workshops. The project has proven an excellent platform for arts-participation, personal development and social inclusion, while also raising awareness of sight loss in the broader community, further promoting inclusion. The workshops generates a lively audio plays and documentaries.
Ciarán Taylor: (Director-Deviser)
is artistic director of Carpet Theatre and was Theatre Artist in Residence at Mermaid Arts Centre 2011/12. He studied directing at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and performance /devising at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris. In 2002 Ciarán established Carpet Theatre (formerly BDNC Theatre) to create new and devised work.
He has created six performance commissions for local authorities under the Per Cent for Art scheme, including Silent Journeys (2015) view here, which recreated stills from the films of Hollywood silent film director Rex Ingram in Kinnitty, the Co. Offaly where Ingram grew up.
He has director-devised nineteen productions for Carpet, which have toured Ireland and abroad, including: The Flood -a play in the dark (207); bouffon comedy The Blanch (2008-2011) inspired by a shopping centre; Pigeon (2012) a wordless mask play about the effects of personal financial crisis on one family; Two for Dinner for Two devised with Concorde Contemporary Music Ensemble, featuring live cooking and live music in a domestic kitchen; Ferry Tales a site-specific performance at Dublin Port ferry terminal; and Wexford Fire Station Tour a performance to mark the new station.
Ciarán’s acting credits include The Coleen Bawn (Project/Civic/Bedrock), which toured Ireland in 2010, and a lead role in A Cry from Heaven by Vincent Woods at the Abbey Theatre. TV roles include Corp is Anam, Ros na Rún , Rí Rá, (TG4), Fair City, The Clinic and Foreign Exchange for RTÉ.
Gareth Stack : (Sound and additional scripting)
is an independent radio producer, and sound designer – creating documentaries and drama series for local and national radio. He also writes fiction and for radio, stage and screen. He is an occasional arts correspondent for RTE Lyric FM’s Culture File programme and makes short films.