His Left, Her Right

A multidisciplinary collaboration

Dancer Karen Gleeson, playwright Philip St John, clown performer and movement director Michael McCabe and director Matthew Ralli are collaborating to develop the multidisciplinary theatre piece His Left, Her Right.

At some point in life almost all of us suffer a physical injury or trauma. Even something as simple as a sprained ankle can suddenly leave us feeling vulnerable and in need of care and assistance. Other injuries can be far more serious causing disability, long term mobility issues, or an inability to continue a career. His Left, Her Right aims to engage with audiences by sharing and exploring the impact of physical trauma on our lives.

In a lovely garden on a hot summer's day, a young boy recovers from foot surgery. On a plane home to Dublin, a talented young dancer faces up to career-ending ankle surgery. Stooped over a typewriter, a young man stands, only for his back to suddenly seize. In a magical interweaving of true-life stories ​His Left, Her Right explores physical trauma: the pain, shock and often lengthy period of recovery - but can it also lead to inspiration, creativity and growth?

2022/3 Development workshops

With project funding form the Arts Council of Ireland, the core creative artists continued to develop the multidisciplinary style of the piece with a wider creative team. This culminated in a presentation of work in November 2023.

Core creative team

Karen Gleeson (Dance Artist); Philip St John (Writer); Michael McCabe (Clown Artist/Actor); Matthew Ralli (Director)

Wider creative team involved

Fionnuala Wade-Doyle (Dance Artist); Fiona Bawn Thompson (Actor); Conor Donelan (Actor/Movement); Anderson De Souza (Dance Artist), Melissa Nolan (Producer); Sarah Foley (Set Design Consultant); Cormac O’Connor (Sound Design Consultant); Paul Johnson (Project Mentor); Hilde Elbers (Specialist Trauma Consultant), as well as Michelle Cahill (Dance Artist), Molly Mew (Actor) and Shadaan Felfeli (Actor) in earlier development work.

Exploring a multidisciplinary practice

The collaboration will devise work through dance choreography, original text, movement, clowning and traditional acting to share three personal stories and explore the effect of physical injury on the psyche. This will be a new way of developing work for performers Karen Gleeson and Michael McCabe. The process will push writer Philip St John into a new environment - story making not just with a language of words, but also the physical language of dance and choreographed movement. Director Matthew Ralli will oversee the development of the project.

Karen Gleeson received an Arts Council Dance Bursary Award in 2021 to develop movement research towards His Left, Her Right. Elements of this movement language and her experience exploring it will be used in further development of the project.

How the collaboration began

Writer Philip St John was born with a clubfoot (his left) and had serious mobility issues (a bad limp, a calliper) until physiotherapy and two operations largely repaired the defect by the age of twelve. Limited in mobility, Philip was forced to engage with the world imaginatively and believes he would not have become a writer had he not been born with this disability. In a way, the limitation freed him.

Dancer Karen Gleeson, on the other hand, was born mobile and spent her childhood and early adulthood expressing herself through dance. However, hyper-mobility issues led to a series of bad injuries (particularly to her right foot) forced Karen to retire at age 32.

During lockdown 2020, Philip and Karen, via Zoom, explored the possibility of a collaboration and thought their contrasting experiences could make an interesting and hopefully uplifting take on the creative consequences of physical trauma.  They invited performer Michael McCabe to join the collaboration. Finally they approached Matthew Ralli and Melissa Nolan to help develop the project and co-produce.

Wicklow County Arts Office - Culture Night 2020

With funding from Wicklow Arts Office, and support from Mermaid, Civic and Fishamble, Philip St John and Karen Gleeson, along with performer Michael McCabe and director Matthew Ralli, devised a short in-development piece for Culture Night 2020. Due to Covid-19, the piece had to be reconfigured from a live, outdoor presentation to a filmed, indoor one. This was shared with the public as Culture Night online content.