The Creative Process

Lucia Kickham, 'Dance is...'

In this audio file, Lucia Kickham reads aloud from a group automatic writing exercise in which participants responded to the prompts ‘language is’, ‘music is’, and ‘dance is’. Friel had thought extensively about the nature of all three, and the exercise was an attempt to generate material that engaged with similar thought processes.

Portrait: Lucia Kickham

Lucia Kickham is a Dublin-based dance artist performing and collaborating internationally since 2011.

Lámhscríbhinn Ghaolmhar

Is the play about this?

This note towards Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) is an example of Brian Friel’s habit of asking himself questions as part of his composition process.

Lámhscríbhinn Ghaolmhar

this nagging idea of Dance

Among Friel’s preoccupations whilst writing Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) were what he called ‘this nagging idea of dance’ on the one hand and the extent to which the play’s form should be naturalistic on the other.

“But this nagging idea of Dance [. . .] persists.” – Brian Friel

Lámhscríbhinn Ghaolmhar

Has language failed these people?

The idea that words are not enough was something that followed Friel through his writing career, and informed many of his most well-known plays.