The Creative Process

Running the ending (work in progress)

In this video clip taken from a Dance House residency in May 2019, Robbie Blake and Jessie Keenan try out Robbie’s new score for ‘Running the Ending’ for the first time.

Lámhscríbhinn Ghaolmhar

Michael's monologue

This draft of Michael’s opening/closing monologue from Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) features some of the ways in which Friel would annotate his notes.

The Creative Process

Belfast Book Festival Trailer

A key phase in the development of ‘Don’t anticipate the ending’ was the showcasing of work-in-progress. This is a trailer for an illustrated talk at the Belfast Book Festival 2019, during which Friel scholar Zosia Kuczynska spoke about the process of creating new work by Jessie Keenan and Robbie Blake from creative encounters with the Brian Friel Papers. Keenan and Blake then performed early versions of ‘So what is surfacing’ and ‘Running the ending’ respectively. This trailer uses material from the first full recordings of Robbie Blake’s ‘Running the ending’, filmed in and around the UCD Humanities Institute in May 2019.

The Creative Process

Robbie Blake, 'Running the ending' score

This is Robbie Blake’s original graphic score (pp. 1-5) for their live performance piece ‘Running the ending’, which is featured in this exhibition as a short film and which was inspired by Blake’s engagement with the Brian Friel Papers at the National Library of Ireland.

Lámhscríbhinn Ghaolmhar

At least it is a starting point.

In this note, dated 19 May 1989, Friel was struggling to choose a time period for Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). In the end, he decided to go with his intuition, reasoning that all starting points are ‘arbitrary’ before they become ‘an essence’.