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Emma O'Kane Pageant photo by Ros Kavanagh
Emma O'Kane Bursary

EMMA

BY SIOBHAN MCDONALD

Emma by Siobhan McDonald
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This film is an excerpt of our last collaboration together.  The movement is portrayed by Emma.  We walked the Djouce mountain at the beginning of lockdown.  I filmed a beam of light at the same spot each day through a clump of trees.  Emma described it as “a portal between one world and the next”. Her exquisite movements explore the sun through dance and point to places beyond our imagination.  

 

She literally embodies the movement of light behind the horizon - as reflected in the last poem she wrote:

STARBURSTS 

What I’ve learnt so far. 

Love is real and it heals. 

The love that people send does get to you. 

Thoughts are real too. 

Loving thoughts are powerful slingshots that are sent from one soul to another and they do get delivered in real time. 

In the very moment that you think it. 

In my greatest despair it keeps me afloat. 

The prayers from folk infuse my spine to be able to stand up tall even in my darkest hour. There are innumerable people, souls and spirits that walk this journey with you…this I know for certain. 

Light is what they give and all the light that you have emanated in your life comes back and is reflected back to you when you need it most. 

There are guardians, guardians of the light and it is their job to do this. 

They keep account of the light, the deeds, the smiles, the kind words, the soft touch. 

Each action gets transmuted into a colour that lives in the universe and like a beautiful starburst its rays fill your being when you are being relentlessly taken out by darkness. Those colours exist all around you and the guardians of the light direct it and penetrate it like lasers to diffuse the pain and suffering. 

Keep searching for the light, just reach out your hand in front of you and feel warmed and soothed by its presence, because it is real.

Emma O’Kane - January 2021

 

THANK YOU 

Deepest thanks to “The Slippers” - you know who you are, Kellie Hughes and Justine Cooper
 

Please see BIOGRAPHIES for more information about the artists involved.
 

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