SacrumProfanum

SacrumProfanum is an hour-long multimedia work for amplified ensemble, tape, text and film that explores the enigmatic stone carvings found in Ireland known as Sheela-na-gigs. Benjamin Dwyer spent ten years traveling across Iereland (and parts of Britain) researching, photographing and sketching these mysterious figures. Responding artistically through the Sheela, Dwyer has created a multimedia work exploring themes such as feminism, colonialism, identity, religion, symbol, rite, sexuality and the disintegration of Gaelic culture. In a score that combines contemporary music interfacing with traditional Irish forms, instruments and sean-nós singing, SacrumProfanum explores these themes through raw, visceral and often abject music. The work includes a collaboration with the American filmmaker Dylan Griffith. In the film Gierador (with music by Dwyer) Griffith has created visual meditations on landscape, the female body (and its objectification), and rite while offering perceptive critiques of contemporary exploitations of Irish culture and abstract visual responses to the central themes. SacrumProfanum features internationally renowned performers: violist Garth Knox, flautist Emma Coulthard, early Irish harpist and sean-nós singer Siobhán Armstrong. Poet Jona Xhepa has written a specially commissioned poem. The composer also performs on harp and bowed guitar.