Sophie Motley is the new Artistic Director of one of the country's most loved cultural institutions, Project Arts Centre in Dublin; throughout her 15-year career to date as both artist and arts leader, she's created, programmed and platformed work across Ireland and internationally, working as a theatre and opera director, dramaturg, and arts consultant.
Until recently Sophie served as Artistic Director of The Everyman, Cork - prior to that, she worked as Artistic Director/CEO of Pentabus Theatre in the UK, and was an Associate Director of Rough Magic, a staff director at English National Opera and resident assistant director at the Abbey Theatre.
We asked Sophie for her choice cultural picks...
FILM
I've been surprisingly good at going to the cinema recently. I love watching shorts, particularly Irish shorts during festival season – Galway Film Fleadh, CIFF etc - there is a wealth of brilliant stories beautifully told for under ten minutes of time that really hones in on a moment. I'm just sad we don’t have a streaming service for excellent short films like Jamie O’ Rourke’s Calf, which won at DIFF this year and tells family trauma in a series of stunning images, and Copper Alley Productions’ Lamb (there’s a baby farm animal thread here) which explores isolation and strangers, and creates a moment of tension impossible to look away from. Sticking with animals, I’ve just seen Orla Barry’s Notes From Sheepland, which is a piece of visual art in itself, charting and arting the journey of a prolific visual artist and her flock of LLeyn sheep. And then, I’m looking forwards to Kneecap.
MUSIC
I’ve got on board with the BRAT summer, and Charlie XCX’s lyrics on that album are just brilliant. I had some teenage lime green wedges back in the mid 90s and I wish I still had them! I’m new to Chappel Roan as well; Pink Pony Club (more animals) is a fantastic song.
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I like to buy an album and listen to it on my record player to get the songs in before throwing it onto the phone. I’ve always been a fan of Feist, but her performance at Sounds From A Safe Harbour in Cork last winter was sublime; a piece of interactive theatre and really reminds you how important live performance is.
BOOK
Megan Nolan’s Acts Of Desperation took me two minutes to devour when it was released last year. Ascerbic, terrifying, and utterly human. I’ve just read Say Nothing by Patrick Radden-Keeffe, which starts with the abduction of Jean McConville in 1969b and follows four key characters of The Troubles through the conflict to the present day. It reads like a novel, and really focusses on the human, the glory and heroism of a moment, and the dreadful repercussions which have echoed throughout the resulting years and quite simply destroyed people.
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THEATRE
I’m VERY excited to see Michael Keegan Dolan and Teac Damsa’s Nobodaddy at Dublin Theatre Festival this autumn. The storytelling and the scale of work is always impressive, and it is dance theatre that makes you feel, breathe and think. In terms of a play-play, I’m selfishly looking forwards to seeing something I worked on, The Giggler Treatment, return to The Ark this Christmas. It’s a Roddy Doyle favourite, but is, essentially, a musical about a man who almost steps in dog poo. It’s got the 'Shrek' factor; something that adults and children laugh at separately, in different moments, but together.
TV
I’m bad at TV, but I have recently caught up on the final series of Happy Valley, Sally Wainwright and Sarah Lancashire’s gritty crime drama set in North Yorkshire. Wainwright’s writing is pure theatre, every word considered, and she makes us care for terrible people, whilst also being afraid of them. I’ve watched Seasons 1 and 2 of The Bear three times. This isn’t me, but again the writing is so tight, if you miss a beat then you’ve lost a key plot point. It’s so real, we are in the kitchen with Carmy. And that Christmas episode… wheeeew! To really switch off, I watch Is It Cake?. Lovely kind American bakers gently support each other while some of their team bake cakes that look like real like household items. Celebrity chefs then guess whether it really is a hamburger and fries, or is it is cake. It’s sweet and BRILLIANT.
GIG
The last gig I attended was at Cork Midsummer Festival. Islander Music’s Winter Journey brought Schubert’s famous song cycle into the mouths and instruments of some AMAZING musicians in tiny butchers shops, courtyards, and gardens. Opera singer Emma Nash and the wonderful Rachael Lavelle performed in the living room of the tiny Guest House performance space, Icelandic artist JFDR and the brilliant Sheherazaad performed in the Church in Shandon, and Johnny McCarthy and Ciara O Leary Fitzpatrick, two of our most celebrated traditional musicians were sat in the corner of Maureen’s Pub. It was a treat to behold.
WINTER JOURNEY at @CorkMidsummer
— Islander (@islander_IE) May 28, 2024
Experience Shandon as never before, as a cast of artists from Ireland and abroad present a wholly new response to Schubert's iconic song cycle in cosy pubs, wild churches and austere gardens across the neightbourbood.https://t.co/AqdFUpWFFl pic.twitter.com/GTKfW445P8
ART
I was in New York in April, and went to the Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism exhibition at the Met. The work of Archibald Motley (no relation) juts blew me away. The exhibition explored the 'radically new development of the modern Black subject as central to the development of international modern art' between the 1920s and 1960s.
I’m also loving the current exhibition in the Project Arts Centre Gallery, The Flesh of Language / Feoil Na Teangan which is both thought provoking and shiny, deconstructs what text and words imply, and invites you to stand in the space and consider.
RADIO/PODCAST
Wherever I go on tour, I love to throw on the local radio station and listen to local views, and what is in everyone’s ears musically. It gives you a true sense of place. I’m a Morning Ireland-er, and a Women’s Hour switcher at some point of a quiet morning. And in terms of podcasts, I like to listen to an investigative story or an interview. The Serial podcasts, Dolly Parton’s America, WNYC, and then for the craic a bit of Joanne McNally and Vogue Williams.
I’m more of an audiobook listener though if I’m on a long drive. Sally Nugent’s novels work fantastically as audiobooks, as the imagination can catch you up.
TECH
I’ve just started using Notion, which is a really useful app in terms of notes, keeping track of your thoughts.
THE NEXT BIG THING
I mean, the next big thing is really Kamala. And also, an end to genocide. I really manifest for these to happen next. But I’m excited by the return to the analogue. We’re so reliant on the digital for getting around, for choosing our food, our dating, writing our projects with AI technology, that I think we’ll go back around full circle and start actually having conversations with each other. Online dating will end in favour of having a chat with a stranger. Hopefully through a Cilla Black hologram. We still have so much to learn from the elders, those who fought and invented for us to have our choices in our hands through our phones. We’ll head back around to growing our own food, to actively learning from others. I thought we’d reached the peak when the cronut was invented. But actually, there’s further to go. And we can take the cronut with us!
Find out more about Project Arts Centre here.
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