by It is difficult to say what the fish from Mikel Murfis penetrate into their deep tanks in the Salthill Aquarium. Surrounded by rocks, he arranges himself on a small, raft -like deck on a solar chair. He breathes through a long curved tube, an oxygen tank that is hidden under his white shirt, and seems to be completely self-sufficient like a shipwreck survivor that is lost in his thoughts.
It is an astonishing opening for a 45-minute piece that is referred to in a gallery as performance art. On a bench with seats with the three -meter -high glass tank, the small audience examines the rehearsals in front of them. Murfi often works with other theater, dance and opera artists as a dizzying inventive physical performer and director. Here is his director Kellie Hughes with the designer Sabine Dargent (set) and Sinéad Wallace (lighting). While it seems to flow dreamy, this new work that you created with Loco & Reckless Productions and Galway International Arts Festival is based on Pinpoint Precision and Skills.
Only when Murfis Robinson Crusoe-like character completes his sophisticated weight lifting routine does he pay attention to the teeming life around him when fish swarms approach him, wreck fish and starry clear, smooth sharks, according to the program. To a soundtrack with the horn traffic, he playfully carries out the fish daring movement. Later he plays the piano in the water, the associated music that causes memories that seem to be connected with a past loss. The face down, rolls and glides like an astronaut and rides waves of mourning.
Declan Gibbons String and Percussion score rises when an excited Murfi appears a flashlight through the glass. While the storm wanes, he is thinking and floats and floats with a feeling of handing over or acceptance. With the fish that surrounded him while he swims, he has undergone a “change of sea in something rich and strange”.
• At the Galway International Arts Festival until July 26th
