Project Description

The Here and Now Performance Art Festival (HANPAF2025) took place over 13/14th September in The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon and Lahinch Beach, Co Clare.

See here for information last years Festival.

It was an incredible, creative community led weekend of performance, community participation and creative events. Once again we say a huge thank you to everyone who supported and helped us make it happen.

FESTIVAL EVENTS

Day 1: Saturday 13 September. Venue: Courthouse Gallery

Main event day of performances:

10 – 12pm: Performance art workshop

Facilitated by festival co directors Rachel Macmanus and Slavek Kwi.

An exploration of movement and connection to the space around us and within us.Centering of the body as the site of the art, group and individual exercises to develop embodied awareness and physical confidence. Exploring abstract listening and sound perception in relationship to body in non verbal environment, primarily sound.This workshop is suitable for all levels of experience, inclusive and accessible. Not to be missed.

2PM Performances

El Putnam

EL Putnam is an artist working predominantly in performance art and digital technologies. Their practice focuses on borders and entanglements, particularly the interplay of human embodiment with the machinic. EL actively presents artworks and performances across the United States, Europe, and beyond.

Waves over Rocks, by El Putnam for HANPAF 2025. Reviewed by Rachel Macmanus

The artist enters the space, crouched, face down, their multi coloured hair obscuring their face. One hand drags a black plastic tarpaulin across the floor, with evident difficulty, in stops and starts. In the other hand they hold a wind chime aloft. The chimes tinkle in contrast to their laboured breathing.

Reaching the centre of the space they open the tarp to reveal it is full of rocks. Rocks the size of a large persons hand. Carefully climbing atop the rocks, they slowly unroll a length of teal gauzy fabric, held aloft.

The performance continues its symphony of contrasts- the artists pale feet balanced on the sharp rocks, the combination of swaying looping material against with the cow bell that the chimes have been replaced with in their other hand. The precarious balancing on the rocks against the determination and strength required to swing and sway the material and violently sound the bell, over and over.

Will they fall? How long can they keep going? The action feels like an act of penance, or a ritual which they have no choice but to complete. There is nothing easy or comfortable about this experience. They push and loop and swirl and swing, on and on, gasping audibly for breath, until suddenly it stops. The stillness that follows the action is the last contrast we are presented with.

Olivia Hassett

Dublin based Olivia Hassett creates site-specific performance and video artworks. Hassett regularly collaborates with other performance artists and works on cross disciplinary projects. She graduated with an MFA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (NCAD) in 2012 and a BFA from NCAD in 1997. Ongoing projects include the development of a series of solo performances and performative video works in response to various Neolithic sites across Ireland.

T A (i) L (e) of F I R E for HANPAF 2025. Reviewed by Rachel Macmanus

Dressed in full length bright yellow and orange, the artist slowly advances into the gallery space, hands holding a dark object against her face, yellow veil covering her head. Behind her drags a tail of cloth, stretched taut from the weight of the stones that bulge in the tail end, dragging along the floor. The rocks scrape along the floor and the sound is volcanic, guttural, sharp. She comes to the centre of the space, crouching down over the object which might be a lump of charred wood. This object feels precious, powerful.

The artist paces around the edge of the space, hemming us in, moving fast, dragging the stones behind. Pausing, struggling to access them within the confines of their costume, she pulls out small parcels and hands them out to the audience. The action is sacred, beautiful, like a ritual exchange, a holy sacrament. She gives, smiling, and the audience receives. The parcels contain small pieces of scented dough. We enjoy this sensory interlude while the artist works with their own piece of dough, pressing it into her face, inspecting the result. Are they making a mask? A cast? Armour?

The work is punctuated, narrated throughout with breathwork- sighs, gasps, moans. When the wood is pressed against their mouth we hear choking and struggling sounds. She holds the dough against her stomach and slaps and punches herself with force. The tempo continues to increase- she spins round and round, tail of stones lifting and spinning, slapping against her body as she changes direction.

This artist is not afraid to be vulnerable, and use all of their flesh, their body, to bring us through these rituals, these lamentations. A powerful offering.

Joseph Hendel

Joseph Gold Hendel is a performance artist based in Kinvara, Co. Galway, originally from New York. He has made performances at the Jezuit Gallery in Poznan (PL), SODAS in Vilnius (LT) at the Not Quite King, Not Quite Fishartistic research symposium, Les Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels (BE) at the (Pas Si) Fragile emerging performance artist festival, The Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan (IE), and at 126 Gallery in Galway for the Fite Fuaite performance art day and the Acts of Healing and Modality durational performance event.

Moses begat Mulligan (And a Spud Pancake) for HANPAF 2025. Reviewed by Rachel Macmanus

The performance begins informally, with the artist sat behind a cloth covered table, sorting through sheafs of paper and arranging many items on the table,  which include what appears to be a paper mache house. Joe is dressed in a waistcoat and shirt, with his Kippah, a small cap worn by Jewish males as a sign of Jewish identity, on his head.

There is a lot to look at, with candles, potatoes, paper, whiskey, and other objects, on the table and the floor.

The artist moves within these objects, singing Hebrew songs, and quoting James Joyce’s Ulysses from his sheaf of papers. At one point he stands on his head, feet against the wall, and sings, his strong tenor voice loud and the words getting faster and faster, legs akimbo. There is a kind of absurd solemnity to the whole proceedings, which it’s clear that Joe is in control of.

Between the texts, the songs and the prepping of the potatoes for his spud pancakes, he talks to us about his performance motive- the difficulties of being a jew in the west of Ireland. Examples given were trying to locate a rabbi to carry out Brit Milah- the circumcision ceremony performed on Jewish baby boys- for his new son.  Other more nuanced challenges involved his relationship with his Jewish family back in NY, and their differing viewpoints regarding the Israel Palestinian conflict.

As he talked and sang, he continued with his vegetable grating. I find myself speculating whether some finger flesh will make its way into the spud pancake, so much is going on. Many paper towels are utilised.

The performance continues with the squeezing of a pomegranate, throwing it to the floor, then smearing its juice onto the walls of the paper house, whilst again Ulysses is read out. The completed spud pancake is eaten, whilst wearing the paper mache house. The loud slurping of the pomegranate juice sticks in my mind.

The performance is complicated, messy, cerebral and also semiotic laden. It deals with identity and place and asks difficult questions that are not easy to answer in these difficult times. It’s silly and thought provoking. A brave work.

Aoibhinn O’ Dea

Aoibhinn O’Dea is a choreographer and dance artist working across the contemporary dance and visual arts field. She trained in contemporary dance and somatic movement in Berlin (Tanzfabrik, Marameo, Katapult and Ponderosa), and graduated with a BA in Fine Art Sculpture (NCAD) and MA in Dance and Performance (The Irish World Academy). Her practice is often site-specific and public, exploring the effects normative social structures have on the body.

The Foot of The Lungs for HANPAF 2025. Reviewed by Rachel Macmanus

In a bright peach coloured  loose shirt and red trousers, O’ Dea held a position at the back of the space, facing away from the audience. They began moving with very slow controlled gestures, magnified by bare feet and loose flowing hair which mostly obscured her face.

There was total silence in the space, which amplified the subtlety of O’ Deas actions. We were held by the total control and at ease in which she inhabited the room. The silence also allowed us to hear the faint notes, sounding at intervals, as she moved.

Her slow, controlled movements would change suddenly to  a series of frenetic, fast scrabbling shuffles and twists. Nothing was predictable. Indeed her such was the agility and bodily control exhibited that at times her hands became feet- feet became hands.

At some points it felt like she was being controlled by forces unseen, through long, drawn out poses and jerky, violent shuffles, as if being shaken by invisible hands.  Other times it felt like she literally was playing with us, experimenting, right on the spot.

We discovered that the notes came from a harmonica, strapped to their mouth, as if to stop them speaking, but also, through it, providing a singular way to intake and expel air. We heard the notes only when she took a breath, or exhaled. At first these notes were faint, echo like, punctuated by the movements- a jerk of the shoulders, an arch of the back. Were the breath notes guiding the movements or was the body controlling the breaths? The dance between the two made it endlessly hard to tell.

Having spent much of the performance reaching, arching, travelling around the space, she finally sat, facing us, breathing in and out through the harmonica, observing the observers. A confrontation. A master class in poise, control, like physical poetry.

5pm – 6pm p(art)y Here and Now. A participatory, live group performance which all artists and attendees of the festival are invited to particpate in. p(art)y Here and Now is an inclusive, welcoming event staged on a monthly basis around Co Clare to foster live performance and grow a community of creative perforamnce practitioners in the Mid West Region. p(art)y Here and Now is faciiltiated each month by Festival Co- Directors Rachel Macmanus, Slavek Kwi and Laura Jane Allis. See images of the performance below. Artists included Slavek Kwi, Terri Dineen, Laura Jane Allis, Paul Regan, Deej Fabyc, Volodymyr Topiy, Brian Tuomey, El Putnam, Rachel Macmanus, Joanna Purcell, Aoibhinn O’ Dea, Olivia Hassett and Rocky Meany. All images by the festival photographer Mariya Hoyin.

Day 2: Sunday 14 September. Venue: Lahinch Beach  

Tide Map is a Public Participatory performance durational event led by Festival Co- Directors Rachel Macmanus, Slavek Kwi and Laura Jane Allis. Tide Map is an community art endevour where we will walk along the tide line from 10am to 4pm, at its highest and lowest points. We do this as a durational performance event, as a way to bring awaresness to the local environment and our fragile ecosystem, and as a way to be together and experience time passing in the here and now. You are invited to partipcate for as much or as little of the 6 hours as you wish.

Tide map was a wonderful, sensory, revelatory, joyful community led day. People arrived on a windy, cold, wet day, and participated, some for an hour, some for all of the performance. Our huge thanks to those who came out and supported us and participated in the beautiful environment fo Lahinch Beach. Artists pictured here include festival co directors Rachel Macmanus, Laura Jane Allis, Slavek Kwi, and artists Paul Regan, Terri Dineen, Deej Fabyc, Volodymyr Topiy, Brian Twomey, Ann Marie Harrington, Evelyn Sorohan and Mary Fahy.

Festival Supporters

This year we asked people to donate what they could for a ticket to attend the festival.
We had initially decided to charge for tickets this year as after an intensive period of work applying for funding,  we were unsuccessful in getting Arts Council funding to pay for the festival. We raised the funds through the generosity of local Clare based businesses who have donated to the festival. Without their support we would not be able to go ahead with the festival.
Below are the wonderful businesses without whose generous support HANPAF2025 would not have been able to go ahead.