This audio essay is a performative reflection on Jools Gilson’s writing and choreographic practice. Embodied practices form a core part of Gilson’s work as a dance, but also interdisciplinary, artist. Here she speaks about the relationship between movement and writing as an integral part of her process of embodied thinking. The essay explores examples from two works: the first Weathering (2023), directed by the dance artist and filmmaker Mary Wycherley, and the second Gilson’s own work Tempestries (2023–ongoing). The essay reflects on the palimpsestic nature of embodied research through writing and choreography. In Weathering this focuses on the choreographic and voiced use of writing on film in counterpoint with live performance. In Tempestries, this focuses on a text written/performed before a location field trip involving choreographic research, which subsequently informed her work with professional dance artists to choreograph/direct the same movement and text, and lastly, a text/performance emerging from the same field trip but different choreographic research.

APPENDIX

WEATHERING
Funding: Arts Council of Ireland and Limerick City and County Council. Supported by Dance Limerick, Project Arts Centre, Tipperary Dance, Tanzrauschen and Shawbrook Residency

Creative Team: Mary Wycherley (Director and Choreographer); Raja Nundlall (Director of Photography); Justine Cooper (Dance Artist); Aoife McAtamney (Dance Artist); Jools Gilson (Writer and Performer); Ceara Conway (Performer/Text); Jürgen Simpson (Composer)

Web: Weathering

“On Weathering, and exploring our relationship to our ancient past”, RTE, 26 March 2023, available at https://www.rte.ie/culture/2023/0326/1365627-weathering-and-exploring-our-relationship-to-our-ancient-past/ (accessed 2024-02-05).

TEMPESTRIES
Funding: Tempestries was funded by the Fulbright Commission (Irish Fulbright Scholar 2021), a Dance Bursary from the Irish Arts Council (2022–23), Seed Funding from the Future Humanities Institute at University College Cork (2023) and Science Foundation Ireland (Insight) Seed Funding (2023–24).

Creative Team: Jools Gilson (Director); Veronica Santorum (Textile Artist and Ecologist); Benjamin Burns (Sound/Media Artist); Brendan O’Flynn (Director, Wireless Sensor Networks Group [WSN] at the Tyndall Institute); Liudmila Khokhlova (Post-Doctoral Researcher WSN at Tyndall); Siobhán Ní Dhuínnín (Dance Artist); Justine Cooper (Dance Artist).

Web: Tempestries