Paper short abstract:

In Teac Damsa's Mám, language is muted in favour of sound and movement as media of encounter within the landscape and soundscape of West Kerry. I explore the relation of these three media within Mám, and how Mám gains its tremendous power to "communicate and extend" the living forms or West Kerry.

Paper long abstract:

In Teac Damsa's 2019 production, Mám, contemporary dance and music encounters the landscape and soundscape of West Kerry. In its production process and in the show itself, language is muted in favour of sound and movement as media of encounter within the landscape and soundscape of West Kerry. Cosmopolitan contemporary dance and music meet locally embodied practices and sensibilities both within dance itself and in the dialogue between traditional musician Cormac Begley and the Berlin-based ensemble, s t a r g a z e. In this paper I explore the relationships between sound, movement and speech as media of encounter within the production of Mám. I argue that the muting of language enables us to evade dominant semiotic ideologies, creating a revelatory encounter between ourselves and the powerfully communicative congeries of forms we experience, such that we are brought into the presence of West Kerry itself as a newly-recognisable "semiotic landscape."