2023 - 2024
Recipient of an Arts Council Agility Award:
Mairéad received an Arts Council research grant in 2023 to support Attuning - a practice-based enquiry into the immediacy of each moving moment as ‘pure experiencing’. Deconstructing ‘notions’ of separation, as a function of our cognition or thinking mind. And ‘pure experiencing’ as a function of our whole(ness) bodymind. Dissecting, tracking and unraveling the ingredients of all of our experience? To explore, unpack discover - ‘pure sensation’ ‘living immediacy’ ‘potent immersion’ ‘moving zero’
Skeletal frame ~ gravitational support tissue facia ~ (re)organising material fluid tides ~ moving dynamics subtle system ~ potency light
Attuning remains the Source through which Mairéad’s work as a choreographer, facilitator, writer & researcher continues to evolve. Her choreographic work explores; ‘Movement as Stillness’, ‘Body-Mind as Space(iousness)’, ‘Creative Process as Emergent Unknown’.
2021 - 2023
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy - Mairéad graduated as a Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist (BCST) in 2023. This somatic practice is a natural progression from her PhD research & her somatically oriented Contemporary Dance and Choreographic Practice. Craniosacral therapy provides space for Mairead to work one to one with clients, through subtle touch & its generative capacity for self-healing. Craniosacral therapy cultivates a deeply embodied approach to living somatically - staying in contact with our felt sense. This supports a practice of staying fully aware and present to what is happening experientially in each living moment - dropping into the immediacy of our direct experience. Sessions support clients to feel, to sense both their capacity for stillness & wholeness more fully. Please refer to Craniosacral page for more in-depth information.
2020 - 2021
Attuning to Zero, funded by The Arts Council of Ireland Dance Bursary Research Award, supported by Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre
Attuning to Zero was a pivital moment within Mairead’s arts practice, after a rest period of solo pause.
This research examined ‘moving cessation’, ‘active-pause’, ‘dynamic-stillness’. Through a process of debriefing the superfluous, the following questions arose simultanteously - How do we engage in a process of ridding the superfluous - an emptying out to what is no longer required? How might we experience ‘grounding as groundlessness’, ‘moving immediacy as stillness’, ‘creative process as emergent unknown’ ?
‘Attuning to Zero’, explored transient and derelict spaces de(void) of meaning. Spaces of source potential, supporting a process of letting go, debriefing, emptying out, getting out of our own way , ridding the superfluous - moving as Zero.
(Pre-arranged periods of practice will be undertaken, both collectively and autonomously, by artists interested in engaging through a body-mind-space(iousness) perspective. If interested in participating/engaging, enquiring or witnessing, please contact Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre (www.westcorkartscentre.com) or maireadmv@gmail.com)
2018 - 2020
Uillin: West Cork Dance Artist In Residence, a two-year residency funded by The Arts Council of Ireland, supported by Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre
Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Cork County Council and the Arts Council of Ireland, funded a two-year dance residency to support Mairéads’ dance and choreographic research. This residency supported her artistic research & development, as well as providing her with an opportunity to share her dance and choreographic practice within professional, educational, community & health care contexts.
Mairéad Vaughan’s dance and choreographic research enquires into how we may cultivate our sensory, kinaesthetic and energetic awareness as a living practice. Awareness of body-mind-space, as one whole living, organising, evolving, intelligence. Feeling, sensing, re-connecting, realising our embodied reality. Dropping into our belly and root system to unveil our living interconnection, our non-separateness, our iving continuum, our ‘bodymind as spaciousness’.
As a choreographer Mairéad is interested in constructing performance installation experiences, that may provide space to elicit an immersive embodied response. Her work challenges more traditional perceptions of dance and moving body image. ‘Movement as Stillness’, ‘Body-mind as Space’, and ‘ Creative Process as Emergence’ are explorations that inspire ongoing investigation & discovery.
This 2 year residency includes:
the creation of a new multi-disciplinary dance, visual-art and video installation performance, by an international group of artists called inSkin: Unfolding Space and Time
the creation on of an intensive site-specific movement, performance art and visual art project for children called Mapping The Divide. Young people reclaim and occupy the streets, embodying space for play, creative exploration, curiosity, fun, rebelliousness, insight & discovery as part of Skibereen Arts Festival 2019
facilitate ongoing facilitation of a series of Attuning workshops - a dance, compositional and performance practice for artists working within any medium
facilitate a professional workshop considering embodying space through movement, performance & voice for actors, performers and directors, as part of the Fastnet Film Festival 2019
Attuning was created as part of Mairead’s Arts Practice PhD research into Creative Process/Choreography & Somatic Practice/Contemporary Dance. Attuning may be described as a ‘listening practice’. Listening through 3 centres of our bodymindspace - Belly, Heart, Head. Through ‘listening’ we cultivate our sensory, kinaesthetic and energetic awareness. We explore how we may practice ‘embodying space as Awareness’.
Attuning is informed by principles from: Release-based Contemporary Dance, Yogic & Somatic Practices as well as Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy. Through an improvised practice, we are guided to attune to our inner living space as an organising intelligent alive potent field of tissues, fluids, bones - of systems within systems. Arising from stillness.
How can we embody, sense, feel our system more fully, so that we can sense our inherent still spaciousness?
How do we embody spaciousness - can we simply Be Open Aware Receptivity?
Specific somatic movement principles, compositional sensibilities and cranial touch-based practices, explored within her 30 year profession inform Attuning. Attuning workshops are an open invitation to multi-disciplinary artists, performers, somatic practitioners and any person interested in engaging in an embodied creative exploration of space.
2011 - 2016
Arts Practice PhD, funded by The Arts Council of Ireland through 4 consecutive years of a Dance Research Bursary Award.
This body of research, supported the creation of two new choreographic studies - a screendance called ‘TerrainSkin’ and a durational performance installation called ‘TerrainSkin:4DFlow’. This work examined and reflected on ‘bodymind ‘as’ environment’, while deepening her research into sensory, kinaesthetic and energetic awareness, as living expressions of embodied intelligence.
Her enquiry unfolded without having a predetermined question in mind. Her practise based research was emergent, arising directly out of her embodied practice within a studio context. She examined the immediacy of her moving experience. Alongside enquiring into ‘intuition’, ‘simultaneity’, ‘multiplicity’, ‘insight’ arising out of an emergent creative process, as well as a durational installation performance.
This research provided for a period of in-depth reflective, analytical and experiential study into continuously arising threads within her choreographic practice. It provided a window through which she could immersive herself in examining : the immediacy of her moving experience, the immersive nature sensory & energetic awareness & a living experiential knowing of Bodymind ‘as’ Environment’.
1999 - 2013
Shakram Dance Company www.shakramdance.com
Please refer to the website which holds an archive of a body of 15 original choreographic works. This body of work reflects a fifteen year engagement with; Release Contemporary Dance, Post Modern Dance and Choreographic Practices (Improvisation, Site-Specific, Durational Performance), Bharatanatyam (South Indian Classical Dance) and Iyengar Yoga.