Two Miles Two Miles Of Earth For A Marking Stone
Landless in collaboration with Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty.
Commissioned by Solas Nua for International Women's Day and the Capital Irish Film Festival.
Two Miles Of Earth For A Marking Stone is a concert of traditional songs by the Irish four-part harmony group Landless, with an experimental video accompaniment produced for International Women’s Day 2021 by artists Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty.
Brigid, the Irish pre-Christian goddess of poetry, is the inspiration for a psychic vision exploring feelings of intangible longing arising from experiences of emigration. Film clips set in the North-West of Ireland will appear as interjections through the music, with the themes of the songs mirroring each corresponding scene in the saga. The songs will follow the story of two sisters, who journey across the ocean and through a mountain, representing a search for a better future as well as a descent into the subconscious. When her son Ruadán fell in battle, Brigid is said to have cried out - the first time keening was heard in Ireland. Landless’ singing can be thought of as a kind of keening, as might have been heard at an ‘American wake’, held on the eve of the emigrant journey.
Landless are Lily Power, Meabh Meir, Ruth Clinton and Sinead Lynch. Based in Dublin, Belfast and Sligo, they sing unaccompanied traditional songs in close four-part harmony. For this performance they will be joined by Consuelo Breschi (Varo/Nomadic Piano Project). Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty are collaborative artists based in the North-West of Ireland who use performance, video, sound installation and storytelling, informed by site-responsive research in order to open up spaces of renewed reflection.
Please note: This title is available to viewers located anywhere in the United States, U.S. Territories, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Photo: Film still, Two Miles of Earth From a Marking Stone, 2021
Kindly supported by the Embassy of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Bureau in Washington DC.
