Midland Arts and Culture Magazine - Register.ie

Midland Arts and Culture Magazine | SUMMER 2012Collaborate?Pontificate?Man-I-Pulate?UNIQUE TO OFFALY, MAN-I-PULATE IS A PERFORMATIVE INTERFACE, EMERGING IN ACURIOUSLY SPONTANEOUS MANNER FROM THE BOG BEFORE RETURNING TO IT.The group consists of a highlyincongruous jazz outfit ‘Miles ‘O BogEnsemble’ (Joachim Hein), a ratherunlikely farmer’s son from Cloghan;(Ronan Coughlan) and an out of jointcontemporary dancer (Nick Bryson) wholoathes being described as ‘from acommunity’ in Northern Ireland, yet whosecretly permits himself to be describedas an ‘interpretive dancer’.The only question we are concernedwith is “who is manipulating who?” –as ever. And it does all come down tolanguage and vocabulary; powerfulpeople are powerful because theyoccupy the vocabulary of power.As well the founding fathers, Man-I-pulateconsists of the highly skilled andmotivated musicians Anne Mcghee (flute),Connor Hein (guitar) and Dave Cashen(drums).This crowd of Sunday Miscellanies hasperformed equally bizarrely to a crowd ofdance aficionados at last year’s AbsolutDublin Fringe in what was a ratherargumentative pub Sweeney’s on Dublin’sDame Street as they launched a tiradeagainst the arts establishmentjuxtaposed with some arabesque in anattempt to placate the bewilderedaudience. This manifesto and bluster,counter culture and countering counterculture, posturing and provoking, is astrange thrashing about for an identity.So how is this collaboration translating?Bryson says: “I regularly shout these daysin my performance work ‘I am not scaredto live in Offaly!’”Describing what inspired his involvement,Coughlan would say: “Two fine gentlemenfrom different countries to me. One is aNordie and the other is a Kraut. Now don’tbe so easily offended they do not play upto their stereotypes, these two men are ofInternational mind. Pablo Picasso saidthat “a great artist has no nationality”.“I am a firm believer that a great artisthas no borders or boundaries and cansee national identity as a farce in itself.Every artist knows that, right? Maybe not.So we decided to try and put on a touringshow of what it’s like being a male artistin Offaly. It was a simple plan and webegan, talking that is. We decided to callourselves Man-I-Pulate. We were threemen of different generations trying tomake pulate a verb. Our shtick was thatof the rural avengers, I wanted to letpeople know that we are HERE! LISTENUP, we are artists from Offaly and we wantpeople to realise that it’s OK to be anartist from the countryside. I have put upwith years of stick over being an artistfrom my contemporaries but I don’t give as**t what anyone thinks of me, I wouldprefer if they had an opinion, position orangle, but ultimately begrudgery does notkeep me awake at night.“Audiences don’t know what to think ofus. People act like they know what ishappening; like they have figured it outwhen they haven’t... this is calledpretending. Like so many shows after, Ithink people find it hard to talk orapproach us because they think we aresome sort of manic assholes who hasmore time than sense and chip on ourshoulder that you could deem‘considerable’. But sometimes whathappens in an art space makes no senseat all.“I regularlyshout thesedays in myperformancework ‘I am notscared to live inOffaly!’”“Edmund Burke, the Irish philosopherstated that ‘evil prevails when good mendo nothing‘. Or in this case bulls**tprevails when Great men do nothing.Joachim, Nick, Dave, Connor and Anneare all brilliant at what they do, we havehad plenty of praise along the way and wework together to try and challengethe status quo.”Joachim Hein, a bassist and composer, isa musician who grew up with Miles Davis,Coltrane, Mingus, Monk and the prospectof working with Man-I-Pulate as themusical “founding father” was andremains beyond his wildest dreams.He describes his input as “about creating,through free form improvisation, thesoundtrack to the spoken word anddance performance, responding to subtlechanges in dynamics or mood,sometimes prodding the guys on to reacheven further, dig deeper, or search moreintensely. It is such a challenge every timeand in so many different ways, that I donot think a creative musician could askfor much more.“With this amount of complete creativefreedom comes a bundle ofresponsibilities, such as never overpowerthe performance of the front men, nor letthem down when they are reaching fortheir respective heights or, worst offence,just bore the socks off everybody. Like abinding circle that is permanentlychallenged until it bursts and then youhurry back to create a new, perhaps biggerbut certainly different form. I try to tame asubtle chaos only to unleash it again untilthe performance eventually comes to itsend. As a player in a collective of likeminds, yet individually inclined to bringtheir very own creative juices to the pot, Ibelieve this is as close as you can get toheaven this side of the coffin and I wouldnot want to miss it for the world. Long mayit continue!,” he concluded. M16