SoloSIRENs is a theatremaking and producing collective based in Tallaght and in residence at the Civic. Its core team is director Jenny Macdonald, producer Jennifer Webster and theatre artist Martha Knight.
SoloSIRENs amplifies female identifying voices onstage and beyond. We collaborate with other theatre artists and with a local, intercultural and intergenerational community collective. We also collaborate with local arts organisations including the Civic Theatre, Rua Red - South Dublin Arts Centre, and Tallaght Community Arts.
We received an Abbey Theatre 5 x 5 residency in 2019 and used it to devise a performance with our community collective. We were then invited by the Abbey to create a film for Dear Ireland III in 2020. In 2019, we produced the first SoloSIRENs Festival at the Civic. The festival presented three professional, solo shows, as well as the work of the community collective. The festival happened over six weeks, allowing an audience dialogue to grow and us to explore facilitated discussions and other audience engagement strategies.
We approach our audiences as our extended community, engaging them in regular dialogue through our newsletter, our social media platforms and our symposia. Our online symposium in 2020 placed our work in conversation with academics from Trinity College Dublin, members of the Irish theatre/arts community (Abbey Theatre, Dublin Theatre Festival, Irish Theatre Institute and CREATE) and our audiences.
We are committed to widening access to the arts for all people in our society and to addressing the systemic discriminations that intersect with gender inequality. Our work is feminist, anti-racist and non-hierarchal. We have a universal design officer who ensures that all our productions incorporate accessibility for all people from their inception. In June/July, 2021 we produced 'Cessair', a performance and sonic installation sharing one hundred audio stories collected during online workshops with women from South Dublin County, around Ireland and internationally.
We have just finished a project exploring grief and loss with the Irish Hospice Foundation and are now creating work with Liz Roche Company as part of their Creative Audiences programme. In February, 2022 we toured two shows from our 2019 festival to venues in the west of Ireland. We are mentoring members of our collective to develop as facilitators in collaboration with the Abbey Theatre. And we are leading a new collaboration between the Civic and Tallaght Hospital using theatre to explore stories of healthcare workers.
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