Issue 118, Winter 2006 - Cavan - Niamh Smytha: Those who hear not the music think the dancer mad, Troubled images: posters and images of the Northern Ireland conflict - Johnston Central Library - 14 August 2006 and June, September 2006.
Circa 118: Review  | | Niamh Smyth: performance shot from, Those who hear not the music think the dancer mad , 2006;courtesy the artist | A young woman in a loose-fitting black dress slowly washes her feet in a basin with a jug of clean water. While she does this the sound of cellos adds to the impression that we are witnessing a profound act, a cleansing ritual which is both the dancer’s preparatory care for the body, and a symbolic yearning for a fresh beginning. Taking to her feet, she circuits the room and glances over the framed images on the walls, not settling on any one. A neutral position seems to be adopted from the outset, a step back from the angry tones prevalent all around. Niamh Smyth’s dance/ performance entitled Those who hear not the music think the dancer mad , performed in response to the exhibition Troubled images: posters and images of the Northern Ireland conflict , attempted to re-interpret these divisive and propagandising images. The piece was divided into two distinct parts, beginning with a performance-art action and ending with a hybrid dance, bringing in elements of ballet and traditional Irish dance. The exhibition comprises a collection of posters spanning a period from the late ’60s up until 2000. Graphically, the design, layout, colours and typefaces used tend to echo the prevailing political ideologies of the warring parties, while somewhere in between there tends to be more free play, both ideological and aesthetic. A coloured drawing by notorious loyalist Michael Stone of the UDA prison wing in the Maze is an exercise in order and ritual, a triumphant gesture by a mass murderer seeking to take control of his world view, now greatly diminished. At the other political extreme is a poster from Republican Sinn Féin, whose traditional and conservative design is married to the breakaway faction’s brand of carryon-the-fight-style republicanism. A feature of such posters is that they were initially designed for the street, to arrest the attention of passing pedestrians and motorists. For the most part they would have been pasted up in areas sympathetic to their messages, making them topical momentarily not only as information and propaganda, but also as a disposable form of re-territorialisation of a particular neighbourhood. In this manner they would perform the same function as the more permanent gable-end murals seen in Belfast and Derry. The republican movement’s usurping and appropriation of the markers of national identity were made manifest in Smyth’s dance, by way of elements of paramilitary posturing reminiscent of the IRA’s propaganda material. Dancing about graphic art about political conflict may appear to be as deliberately convoluted as Frank Zappa’s assertion that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Rather than complicate an already well worn quagmire of religion, social class, ethnicity, identity, history and politics, Smyth’s performance enlightens by its direct confrontational nature. Watching the performer frantically pacing every floorboard as if unintentionally retracing her steps, and thereby re-living again and again a recurring nightmare, added an extra dimension to the space. In my eyes, it became not just a room in a building; the performance provoked an air of claustrophobic angst which temporarily transformed the room into an enclosure – an enclosure which echoed the entrenched positions of closed minds made visible by the posters, in which some key words are repeated: ‘yes’ and ‘no’. These simple words reveal the depths of a polarised society in which no room for transformation, inherent in words like ‘perhaps’, ‘maybe’, or ‘possibly’ is considered. A little history of Northern Ireland’s recent troubles is contained in these posters, which shout and argue across these walls. The use of Irish on certain posters by nationalists and conversely of Ulster-Scots by the UK Unionists is a tactic of further entrenchment which precludes facilitating understanding or listening to the other side’s opinion. Those who hear not the music think the dancer mad , as a title, asks us to step back a little and take in the noise coming from the other side, which may help to clarify a seemingly crazy and incomprehensible situation. The dancer’s movements centre the human body as the physical site and symbol of the atrocities committed throughout the conflict. An interpretation of these images, their historical legacy, and future hopes is realised through bodily actions and not words. A tentative optimism is displayed by Smyth’s laying out of sheets of white paper to walk upon, which crucially are marked with red-stained footprints. She follows this path, then steps off it, washes her feet again and begins to lay a new path, this time of untainted white paper.
Jason McCaffrey is an artist and critic. Cavan - Niamh Smytha: Those who hear not the music think the dancer mad, Troubled images: posters and images of the Northern Ireland conflict - Johnston Central Library -
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