Vickey Curtis

GAA MAAD was developed by Vickey Curtis and Áine O’Hara as part of the DUETS programme in 2019, which was in partnership with Fishamble, Dublin Fringe Festival and Irish Theatre Institute.

It was an exploration of sport and theatre, and being a gay fan in a straight game.

GAA MAAD ran for 2 weeks in Bewley’s Cafe Theatre as part of Dublin Fringe 2019. It was the recepient of Out Burt Arts Festival Queer Fringe Award and was remounted at OutBurst in 2019.

Finem Respice (consider an end) was presented at the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2016. It was an exploration of grief and living through loss and how we deal with death. Finem Respice earned me a nomination for best performance at the Dublin Fringe Festival.

It was developed through THEATREClub's The Theatre Machine Turns You On and Smock Alley's Scene & Heard programme.

Finem Respice waws written, performed and produced by Vickey Curtis. Music by Elaine Mai. Directed by Daithi and visuals by Stephen McDevitt.

Have you ever loved, lost, and lost again? Ever wondered how you ended up here in the first place? Ever wondered how you’d get out? No news is good news but what happens when the bad news hits you? Have you ever thought about your ending? Good grief, bad times and emotional highs. How do we survive the lows of being bereaved and bereft? How do we turn darkness into light? How can we be present with our pasts? This is life verses death.

You can listen to an interview with me about the piece on The Ryan Tubridy Show on RTÉ Radio One here.

Images courtesy of Beta Bajgaratova and Peter Orford

A Rose by any other Name was a project based around the street harassment that both men and women face every day. As a spoken word artist I aim to shed light on how the language that we use towards each other can be harmful. Using my voice and experiences alongside information gleaned from a public survey, I created a collaborative piece that took place online and live at DLAF16.

We started at The Spire on O'Connell Street and we walked a route taking in ten places where the people who took part in the survey experienced verbal abuse. The audience were free to join in at any point on the route, as a witness to the performances and the journey, which will culminated at MART Studios in Rathmines.

Stick and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. How many times can we use that mantra before we finally break? How do the negative words that we hear chip away at us? How do we make it better?

A Rose by any other name explored this on the streets of Dublin with an audience walking alongside for 2.5 hours.

You can read about an audience members reaction to it here.

Photo credit: Fiona Kileen of Blueprint Photography

I began collaborating with Livestock at their Queerstock evening in 2017.

They invited me to perform a spoken word piece and since then I have performed with them at the Dublin Live Art Festival in August 2017. We are also collaborating on further endeavours in 2018. More on that soon.

Vickey Curtis Isn't Sorry was performed as part of Live Collision 2016.

The performance took place in my home with a live audience.

I wanted to explore our relationship with the word "sorry" and at what point does “sorry” creep into our vocabulary? And how can we stop saying it? This performance explored the distance between a three-year-old constantly asking “why”, to a 33-year-old always saying “sorry”. How do we say sorry and what spaces do we say it in? When does it lose all meaning? What happens when we keep apologising for ourselves and what happens when we stop saying sorry. Vickey Curtis isn’t sorry for her presence any more and either should you be.

You can listen to a piece that featured on RTÉ Radio One's arts programme Arena here.

You can read about it on the RTÉ Culture site here.

There is a review here from DRAFF magazine.

Photos courtesy of Abi Denniston

Come Rhyme With Me was founded by Vickey Curtis & Una Mullally in 2012.

It was born from a want to gather up the troops and let me people vent about the state of the nation.  OutHouse, a LGBT resource center approached us to host an evening with them and we thought CRWM was the perfect event for this.

We perform our own works and invite guests along to get up and shout out what they’re about on the stage with us. 

Our main philosophy is that everything spoken is spoken word.

We like to include our audience in on the action as well. We make up parlor word games and interact with the audience to create a collective piece of poetry/spoken word.  Our evenings are themed and one of the games we play is QUOTES! We take topical quotes from politics, pop and pretty much anywhere, number the quotes, distribute them throughout the audience, who read them out by us calling out numbers at random and assembling the quotes to form the audiences spoken word piece. We also like to make our audience fortune cookies and put inspirational ideas into them that they can carry out.

You can browse our tumblr here.

Below is a list of events we have performed at or curated.

OutHouseFebruary2012 through 2017

Body & Soul festival2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

Dublin Gay Pride June 2012,2015

Culture Night 2014

The Bram Stoker Festival 2014

GAZE: International LGBT Film Festival 2013

Electric Picnic 2012

Dublin Fringe Festival September 2012

First Fortnight2013

Here are some quotes/reviews about the show:

 “Spoken word slams into the festival and collides with the city at the hands of the amazing Ms’ Curtis and Mullally “

Róise Goan Dublin Fringe Festival Director

“Heart on sleeve stuff with bashful delivery adds to charm. If you relish turns of phrases to turn screws and are on the Dahl – Milligan nonsense wavelength, this will suit you.”

entertainment.ie

Scéal's of the City is an evening of spoken word & song in aid of local homeless services in Dublin city centre.

This is a non ticketed event but we're asking for donations on the night so that we can give to local homeless services in the area. If you like what you see spare some change or give big.

You know those friends you grew up with? Went to school with? Laughed, cried, partied and pulled with? D’you ever wonder sometimes, if they’d ever just F*CK OFF? Real Life friends Vickey and Aine, aka Victor and Gord, have only one thing in common, each other. Sneaky cans. Sneaky fags. Free love. It was Ballinclea Heights. It was Killiney. Victor and Gord is a funny and moving theatrical celebration of friends and family featuring Jason Breen. Real Lives. Told by the people who live them.

Written by Una McKevitt and Cast

PERFORMANCE DATES

Le Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris 2012
Pavilion Theatre Dun Laoghaire 2011
Electric Picnic Festival 2011
Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre 2011
Kilkenny Arts Festival 2010
Project Arts Centre 2010
Dublin Fringe Festival at PAC 2009
Queer Notions Festival 2009
Project Brand New 2009
 

Images courtesy of Una McKevitt

Blessings is a spoken word piece about the abortion rights movement in Ireland.

Selfie is a spoken word piece about struggling with mental health and being true to yourself.

I shut up and play the hits and produce club nights and craic events.

This is a gallery for those moments.

A space for my contributions to various podcasts & publications.

PODCASTS:

Juvenalia - click here to listen

The Irish Times Women's Podcast - click here to listen

The Weekly General Meeting - click here to listen

The Fumbally Exchange Podcast for Open House on Queer Spaces - click here to listen

ONLINE ARTICLES:

GUTS MAGAZINE - click here to read

GCN interview - click here to read

GCN travel piece - click here to read

GCN open letter - click here to read

GCN Sean Meehan obituary - click here to read

RTÉ Culture feature on F Festival - click here to read

RTÉ Culture feature on Live Collision - click here to read

VOICEOVER:

RTÉ Crinniú na Cásca Campaign 2017 - click here

I have worked in television production since 2000. Working across many genres and departments within RTÉ. I have gained innumerous hours of live television and production experience.

SHAME // LESS

Shame // Less is an artistic response to the findings of “Culture and Sexual Risk: An Ethnographic Analysis of Gay Male ‘Sexual Worlds’ in Ireland Today,” funded by an Irish Research Council COALESCE/Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy Programme Award (PI: Thomas Strong, Maynooth University).

Shot in Dublin’s iconic Boilerhouse sauna, Shame // Less transports the viewer on a kaleidoscopic cruise of Dublin’s queer underbelly, featuring the scintillating talents of Lady K, Karl Hayden, Luis Noguera, Pradeep Mahadeshwar, Goblins Goblins Goblins, Vickey Curtis, Day Magee, Attracta Tension, Osaro and Meg Woods.

Shame // Less invites you to peer through the glory hole of a post-Marriage Equality, post-Repeal, post-Twink answering machine message world and to see if you like it like that. Does that feel good? How about there? Careful now, you might even enjoy it.

Shame // Less initially premiered for a limited run online during Dublin Pride, 2021 and then played to sold out screening in the Irish Film Institute as part of GAZE International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, 2021. In 2022, Shame // Less was also selected as one of the opening films of the 34th Galway Film Fleadh.

Creative direction/programming: Stephen Quinn

Direction/photography: Luke Faulkner and Noel Donnellon

Conception/production: Thomas Strong and Andrew Leavitt

Sound: Mathew Thomson

Featuring: Stefan Fae, Lady K, Luis Nogera, Pradeep Mahadeshwar, Goblins Goblins Goblins, Vickey Curtis, Day Magee, Andrew Deering, Meg Woods, Osaro and Karl Hayden.