Anushiye Yarnell: On Beltane: Alternatives to Survival

Anushiye Yarnell, Mary-Anne Roberts and Bragod with Robert Evans offer performance and song in celebration of Beltane, the Gaelic May Day festival, marking the beginning of summer.

Working together over the past two years, Anushiye Yarnell and Mary Ann Roberts have gathered to spin ways and times with others, unfolding the dark replenishing presences of our circadian rhythms, subliminal within religion, dreams, fear, violence, prejudice, death, motherhood, cosmos and carnival.

These shadowy worlds have woven sparkling possibilities and questions. Beltane is a portal of Brightness, Blessing, with the fluency to seal fate and portend death – a moment that asks to be marked.

The artists will explore female sovereignty, polytheistic layers of flesh, spirit, myth and archetypes that abide within a myriad of Marys. The vibration between virgin and hōre divinity denoting and mingling what is tainted, what is pure and what is chosen.

About the artists:

Anushiye Yarnell is an interdisciplinary dance maker and performer whose work is drawn from personal experience, past and  future  mythologies. Her works examine the intersection of dream and fantasy realms with ordinary life, seeking out connections between day-to-day experiences of the world and anthropological, philosophical, poetic and artistic frameworks.

anushiyeyarnell.uk

Mary-Anne Roberts-O’Reilly was born and grew up in Trinidad. She has danced professionally from the age of 12 and has worked in theatre from the age of 18. She has participated in Carnival all her life but began to study its rich history in 1982 when she joined Trinidad Tent Theatre. She has taught movement, voice, mark-making and mask-making, through the particularities of Trinidad Carnival archetypes. She delights in low-key, everyday rituals in domestic settings, people-centered activities, and anything involving food.

Since 1999, Mary-Anne has worked with the early music duo, Bragod with Robert Evans. Together with musician, academic and instrument maker, Robert Evans, she researches, develops and presents a dynamic performance-practice showcasing Medieval Welsh praise poetry and music on historical instruments. Bragod has recorded 3 ground-breaking CDs: Bragod, Kaingk and Llatai and in 2018 recorded Oran Bagraigh with 9 other musicians from Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Bragod featured prominently in Turner nominated Gentle/Radical’s installation at Coventry 2021.

https://bragod.com/

Robert Evans’ research and experiments in medieval, bardic music and poetry have made him a world authority on the music of the crwth. He is responsible for the revival of this bowed-lyre as a viable historical instrument, which he plays in Pythagorean tuning. A renowned fiddler, instrument-maker, expert in medieval Welsh string music, his interpretations and compositions, based on medieval Welsh sources, have been performed across Europe and the Americas. Robert has mentored many of today’s generation of traditional musicians and crwth-players. He is regarded as one of our finest critical thinkers on the role of tradition in a contemporary culture.

Anushiye Yarnell, Mary-Anne Roberts and Bragod with Robert Evans offer performance and song in celebration of Beltane, the Gaelic May Day festival, marking the beginning of summer.