Catharsis - Release - Rock & Roll
Bród!
An Queercal Comhrá is a group of LGBTQ+ Irish speakers who meet on the third Thursday of every month. The group is now gearing up for their annual Bród celebrationAn Bál Aiteach. Ciara Ní É shares the joy in celebrating queerness and the Irish language.
Photo by
Eleanor Rogers.
The An Bál Aiteach event is inspired by the underground LGBTQ+ ballroom culture in 1980s' Harlem, as chronicled in the iconic documentary Paris is Burning. It is a celebration of queer and Gaelic culture, straddling the intersections of all that we are, mar Ghaeil aiteacha sa lá atá inniu ann.
Is cóisir mhór í, deis don phobal a gcruthaitheacht a léiriú i measc cairde, chomh maith le bheith san áireamh do na duaiseanna!
There are four different categories, with a winner in each. Performances like this are layered across time and space, with meaning found in both the performers’ intentions with their walk and audience’s perceptions of it. There’s an alchemy to it; what shared understandings are we relying on to make sense of what we are seeing? In what other space could you reference RuPaul and the Wren Boys in the same breath and be utterly understood? It is such a pleasure to create a space for queer Gaeil where that magic can happen.