The Irish Times - Feature(2022)
Somewhere in the Body: shining a light on the real Lucia Joyce
Choreographer Áine Stapleton has spent eight years exploring Joyce’s artistry
Sat, May 14, 2022, 05:00
Michael Seaver
Choreographer Áine Stapleton will premiere a dance film installation, Somewhere in the Body, at this year’s Dublin Dance Festival. Photograph: José Antonio Muñoz
Whenever the name of Lucia Joyce is mentioned, the words “daughter of James Joyce” are never far away. A talented dancer, writer and musician, Lucia’s career was cut short after she had a nervous breakdown and was – some say inaccurately – diagnosed with schizophrenia. She spent the rest of her life in institutions where she was subjected to experimental treatments.
Lucia Joyce: Whenever her name is mentioned, the words ‘daughter of James Joyce’ aren’t far away
According to dance historian Deirdre Mulrooney, many accounts of her life are Mills & Boon-style narratives, where the real protagonists are famous male writers, including her father and Samuel Beckett, with whom Lucia had a relationship. Writing in Joyce Studies Annual, Mulrooney claims: “This misunderstood artist has been reduced to a ‘mad girl’, synonymous with mental illness, considered primarily in relation to her father, and filed away under ‘miscellaneous’ in coveted James Joyce special collections around the world.”
This two-dimensional caricature would be different had she fulfilled her artistic potential. In 1928 the Paris Times stated that, “When she reaches her full capacity for rhythmic dancing, James Joyce may yet be known as his daughter’s father”.
Choreographer Áine Stapleton has spent the past eight years forefronting Lucia Joyce’s artistry and will premiere a dance film installation, Somewhere in the Body, at this year’s Dublin Dance Festival.
“In 2014 I was working with some friends in a band who had created musical interpretations of Joyce’s major works for Bloomsday,” she says. “During the rehearsals, they told me a bit about Lucia and her dance career. That same week, I managed to source some letters that were written by Lucia during her later years in psychiatric care. I could instantly see a clear divide between the clichéd accounts of Lucia in the press and media, compared to the kind, intelligent and loving person that came through in her letters. These writings inspired me to make my first work about Lucia and I’ve been immersed in her story ever since.” Stapleton would concur with Mulrooney’s disdain for the superficial accounts of Lucia’s life.
“I try to avoid the clichés that are so often associated with her story, so it’s always important for me to research as thoroughly as possible. But it’s very difficult to find information about Lucia, due in part to the fact that Stephen Joyce, James Joyce’s grandson and long-time estate administrator, is known to have had part of Lucia’s correspondence with her father and Samuel Beckett destroyed following her death.” Poems and an unpublished novel have also been lost or destroyed.
Stapleton has created two previous dance films. Medicated Milk was based on a period of time that Lucia spent in Bray, Co Wicklow (“close to where I grew up, which Lucia described as a magnificent place, full of flowers”), and Horrible Creature, based on her life in Switzerland between 1915 and the late 1930s.
“Somewhere in the Body takes a different approach to my previous work about Lucia, which relies heavily on her biographical details,” she says. “For this film installation, I examine the psychic spaces that Lucia inhabited in her father’s mind, and how she appears in his writings, with a particular focus on Finnegans Wake.”
Lucia appears throughout the book under various names and in different eras. “Sometimes she is a mythical figure, such as Queen Maedhbh, or as the ephemeral character Nuvoletta or even as a little cloud. In other moments, she multiplies into seven or even 29 colours or dancing girls.” Somewhere in the Body also explores, to a lesser degree, how the medium of dance may have influenced the creation of the book.
“The film takes us into the dreamworld and ‘nat language’ of Finnegans Wake, in which Lucia appears under different guises.” What Joyce calls “nat language” has been postulated as meaning “not language” or “night language”, but either interpretation finds resonance in the unspoken language of dance.
Stapleton makes no claims as an expert on Finnegans Wake and worked with Joycean scholar Finn Fordham as an adviser in the later phase of her research. Another collaborator is German artist Pat Kramer, who has created neon light sculptures as part of the installation.
German artist Pat Kramer has created neon light sculptures as part of the installation. Photograph: José Antonio Muñoz
“The theme of light is important in Somewhere in the Body. Lucia described her name to a family friend as meaning ‘light, like the City of Light’. Lucia means ‘light giver’ and she was named after Saint Lucia, the patron saint of the blind. We filmed the dancers along the Costa de la Luz, which offered beautiful natural light and unique locations that relate parts of the book. Also this filming took place at the magic hour and at night in order to create a dream landscape fitting for Finnegans Wake, which Joyce described ‘a book of the night’.”
Creating a dance film differs from live performance in the amount of advance planning required. In performance, a choreographer can whisper a last-minute change in a dancer’s ear seconds before they leap onstage. In film, most artistic decisions are finalised in advance of filming and laminated in the post-production booth. This process rests easy with Stapleton, who always preferred to create choreographic scores, like sets of instruction or suggestions created in advance of rehearsals to be interpreted by the dancers.
For Somewhere in the Body she worked with dancers Katie Vickers and Colin Dunne. “We worked physically with language relating to the book in a dance studio for a few weeks, before taking the various choreographic structures we had created on location for filming.”
Stapleton’s next project, which is already in the early research phase, is based on Lucia’s childhood in Trieste, Italy. It will explore her early years, from her birth in 1907 until the family left Italy for Switzerland during the first World War. All of these projects are coalescing into a full embodiment of Lucia and her dancing.
“My hope is to reveal more about the person that Lucia was, in all her complexity, and to shine further light on her suffering and the experiences which may have led to any mental strain. I also want to focus on the creativity and freedom she seemed to experience during her dancing years, as well as how dance may have been a source of healing for her. Ultimately, I want to create a link between Lucia’s story and the modern day, and give an opportunity to shine some light on what we can learn from Lucia’s complex and tragic story.”
Somewhere in the Body, Project Arts Centre, May 18th-June 6th as part of Dublin Dance Festival.
TAGES-ANZEIGER - Feature (2022)
Grosses Kino für die vergessene Tochter
Die irische Filmemacherin Áine Stapleton stellt in ihrem Film «Horrible Creature» Lucia Joyce ins Zentrum. Die tänzerische Spurensuche in der Schweiz ist ebenso poetisch wie betörend.
Nick Joyce
Publiziert: 01.02.2022, 12:26
Áine Stapleton steht derzeit unter grossem Druck. Gerade noch rechtzeitig zur Schweizer Kinopremiere ihres zweiten Films «Horrible Creature» hat die irische Regisseurin, Choreografin und Tänzerin mit Jahrgang 1983 die deutsche Untertitelung abgeschlossen. Zudem bereitet sie ihre neue Multimedia-Installation «Somewhere in the Body» vor, die 2022 in Dublin, Triest und Strassburg gezeigt werden soll.
Bei beiden Arbeiten steht Lucia Joyce im Mittelpunkt. Viele Biografen belächeln James Joyce’ Tochter als familiäre Randerscheinung, die den grossen Schriftsteller mit ihren eigenen künstlerischen Ambitionen und einer labilen Psyche von seiner Arbeit ablenkte. Für die Regisseurin Stapleton ist Lucia Joyce, sie lebte von 1907 bis 1982, aber eine faszinierende Persönlichkeit, die Mitte der 1930er-Jahre von einer professionellen Tänzerin und begnadeten Musikerin zur Psychiatriepatientin wurde.
Traumata statt Krankheit
Lucia Joyce verstarb 75-jährig in einer Klinik im britischen Northampton. «Trotz ihrer langen Anamnese ist es nicht ganz einfach, an Informationen über Lucia heranzukommen», sagt Stapleton im Zoom-Gespräch. Denn: «Stephen Joyce, der langjährige Nachlassverwalter von James Joyce, liess bekanntlich einen Teil von Lucias Briefverkehr mit ihrem Vater und dem Schriftsteller Samuel Beckett vernichten.»
Stapleton zweifelt daran, ob Lucia Joyce tatsächlich schizophren war, wie es von einigen ihrer Ärzte diagnostiziert wurde. Vielmehr führt sie die Unberechenbarkeit von Lucia Joyce auf eine posttraumatische Stressreaktion zurück, ausgelöst durch die schwierigen familiären Verhältnisse, unter denen sie aufgewachsen war – und auf möglichen sexuellen Missbrauch.
Wie Lucia Joyce habe auch sie einige persönliche Traumata bewältigen müssen, sagt Stapleton. Nicht umsonst zieht sie in ihrem ersten Film «Medicated Milk» (2016) Parallelen zwischen ihrer Biografie und derjenigen von Lucia Joyce. «In meinen bisherigen Filmen über Lucia erforsche ich, wie man seinen eigenen Körper tiefer erfahren, Traumata durch das Medium Tanz verarbeiten und so einen Weg zur Heilung finden kann», erklärt die Regisseurin.
Tanz auf dem simplon
Für «Horrible Creature» wählte Stapleton einen radikalen und doch sinnigen Ansatz. Sie filmte ihre international renommierten Kolleginnen, die Tänzerinnen Michelle Boulé (USA), Sarah Ryan (Irland) und Céline Larrère (Frankreich), dabei, wie diese sich in die Rolle der Lucia Joyce hineintanzten. Gedreht wurde an Schweizer Schauplätzen, die in Lucia Joyce’ Vita wichtig waren.
So tanzen die drei Frauen auf dem Simplon, wo die Familie Joyce 1915 aus Italien in die Schweiz eingereist war, im Zürcher Hutten-Schulhaus, wo Lucia Joyce die deutsche Sprache erlernte, und in der psychiatrischen Abteilung des Hôpital De Prangins unweit von Genf.
Aus dem Off werden im Film Auszüge aus Lucias Briefen und Krankenberichten vorgelesen. Die Musik von David Best und Ed Chivers, die von der New Wave angehaucht ist, verstärkt die düstere Stimmung der verzweifelten Choreografien, der dunklen Gänge und Lucia Joyce’ tragischer Geschichte.
Sie beeinflusste seinen Roman
Gleichzeitig hat «Horrible Creature» eine poetische Vitalität, die diesen unkonventionellen Dokumentarfilm über seine grundlegende Tragik hinwegrettet. «Ich habe versucht, die gängigen Vorurteile gegenüber Lucia zu durchbrechen», sagt Stapleton. «Mir war es wichtig, ihre vielschichtige Persönlichkeit aufzuzeigen und die Leidenschaft erfahrbar zu machen, die sie beim Tanzen wohl erfahren hat.»
Im Rahmen der Recherchearbeiten zur geplanten Installation «Somewhere in the Body» geht Stapleton derzeit bei der James-Joyce-Stiftung in Zürich sowie beim gefeierten Joyce-Übersetzer Fritz Senn ein und aus. «Somewhere in the Body» handelt laut Stapleton davon, wie Lucia Joyce und das Medium Tanz «Finnegan’s Wake», den Roman ihres Vaters, beeinflusst haben. «Ganz besonders will ich darauf eingehen, wie Lucias Biografie die verschiedenen Grobfassungen von ‹Finnegan’s Wake› geprägt hat, die James Joyce über viele Jahre verfasst und wieder verworfen hat.»
POLYPHONY - Journal of Irish Association of Creative Arts Therapists
Writing the Language of the Body: Áine Stapleton's Score
Published on Jan 26, 2020 by Pamela Whitaker
Stapleton, A. (2019) Writing the Language of the Body. Dublin: Dance Ireland.
The performer creates a shape that is only partly seen by her audience. Her shape seeks approval to enter into the subtleties of the performance area, and it affects the space around her. As she enters the stage, travelling from the east, a pre-recorded sound that indicates a change of vibration plays at a low level. An alteration is felt by the dancer. She remains tranquil, breathes deep and centres herself. (Stapleton, 2019, Queen of Vacation choreographic score, personal communication, 8 October)
Áine Stapleton’s choreographic score is a landscape of words within which to compose dance. As a series of possibilities, the score encourages movement using a non-directive vocabulary. The dancer is invited to respond to a score that constructs associations to language. Words are chosen with a specific intention to structure a dance. There are metaphors, juxtapositions of meaning, and words in motion. The score’s text inspires ingenuity and the dance vocabulary is received both as a psychical and physical challenge to overcome predictability. Áine gathers language from lived experiences that evoke resonance. The words are found in the everyday, but they are not a narrative. The dancers respond with empathy and their own embodied histories. The aim is to inhabit different levels of consciousness at the same time—to not recreate what is already known, but to go somewhere different. This is not a representation of symbols, but rather a suggestive language that articulates through impressions.
The choreographic score is a provocation. It is authored for the purpose of achieving present moment discernment and responses that are at once both inside and outside of thought. The rehearsal is the platform for a reckoning with language that is scripted and interpreted in nonlinear ways. Words are rewritten in order to achieve a particular choreography, and language instructions can be reformulated during rehearsals. The point is to persuade a choreography of joint effort that is a liaison to non-exacting language. The score promotes relationship building—an execution of words that is entered as a landscape of communication. It is not only words on paper, but vocabulary that “illuminate the body’s dynamic relationship with time and space, expressing gratitude to the unknown” (Stapleton, 2019, Queen of Vacation choreographic score, personal communication, 8 October).
Stapleton, A. (2019) Writing the Language of the Body. Dublin: Dance Ireland.
Áine is influenced by choreographer and dance artist Deborah Hay. Hay celebrates transitory dance informed by fluctuating perceptions. This is the body as an ever-changing form, receiving information that deconstructs habitual intentions. Each dancer is given the space to be with language in an unusual way. By following specific instructions, the dancer is directed in a particular performance practice. Rather than reproducing a sequence of prescribed movements, it is the dancer’s practice of whole-body awareness while navigating Hay’s directions, that conjures a choreography. The score is an assembling of potentials—words meeting flesh—and the invigoration of sensations that are transmitted into action.
The choreographic score can take many forms, but in this case requires a visceral contemplation. It is not just a performance—it is an interaction that challenges the body to transform. Each dancer interprets the score in a different way, but ultimately there is an engagement with immediacy that is co-created. Áine’s choreographic score is written as a proposal for being within moments of permutation or learning through the body without thinking. The result is dance that bestows the language of the body into a shared immediacy. An audience is moved to pay attention, and to become surprised by their own impressions of freedom.
She merges with her situation in order to find a solution and simultaneously notices her body's absolute trust in the present moment. Suddenly she is no longer in the landscape, she is the landscape. (Stapleton, 2019, Queen of Vacation choreographic score, personal communication, 8 October)
Stapleton, A. (2019) Writing the Language of the Body. Dublin: Dance Ireland.
Áine Stapleton, Biography
ÁINE STAPLETON works in film, dance, and music. She has a First Class Degree in Dance Studies from the University of Surrey, London. She was selected as Associate Artist 2019 with Dance Ireland, the national dance development organization in Ireland. She recently premiered her experimental feature film Horrible Creature, based on Lucia Joyce, at The Irish Film Institute Dublin – “A stunning visual experience” Film Ireland. She will create a live dance production about Lucia Joyce for premiere in late 2020. This production is funded by The Arts Council and co-produced by Project Arts Centre Dublin and Dance Ireland.
Áine is an artist in residence at NMAC Foundation in Andalucia, researching and developing a short dance film ‘Borders and Beliefs’ with support from Dance Ireland. She has been invited to speak about her work at various symposia including 'Women, War and Peace' at Trinity College Dublin, 'Body Stories' at University College Cork, and ‘The Book and The Body’ at University College Dublin. She recently presented a dance and writing workshop for IACAT at Dance Ireland called Writing the Language of the Body, in collaboration with Maggie O’ Neill. Áine curates events in partnership with several organisations including Dance Ireland, Galway Dance Project, and First Fortnight Festival.
Author
PAMELA WHITAKER is an art therapist and lecturer in the MSc Art Therapy course at Ulster University, Belfast School of Art. She also works under the name of Groundswell, www.groundswell.ie.
FILM IRELAND - Feature (2020)
Áine Stapleton, director of ‘Horrible Creature’
Áine Stapleton introduces us to her film Horrible Creature, which screens on Wednesday, 8th January 2020 at 18.30 at the IFI as part of IFI & First Fortnight January 2020.
Horrible Creature is the second part of a proposed trilogy of films about Lucia Joyce. It examines her life between 1915 and 1950 and is filmed at locations where she spent time in Switzerland. The first film, Medicated Milk, was inspired by Lucia’s diaries which she wrote at a psychiatric hospital in Northampton, England, between the 1960s and 1980s.
Whereas Medicated Milk offers a more disembodied and fluid exploration of Lucia’s memories and dreams, Horrible Creature brings the body to the forefront and follows a linear structure of events. It meets Lucia during her earlier formative years and examines her education, dissension between her parents, childhood friendships, romantic relationships, her professional dance training, and ill-treatment suffered whilst in psychiatric care. It also looks at how memories of traumatic experiences can become clouded, repressed, and stored away in the body, but ultimately these subconscious and unconscious energies find expression through our feelings, dreams, and actions.
I began working on Horrible Creature directly after finishing Medicated Milk in 2015. I moved to Zurich, Switzerland, for one year and researched part-time at the Zurich James Joyce Foundation, which is directed by the legendary Fritz Senn. The Joyce family moved from Italy to Zurich in 1915, to escape the turmoil of WW1. Lucia later trained as a professional dancer in France and performed throughout Europe. She returned to Switzerland for psychiatric treatment in the 1930s, most famously with Carl Jung.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many firsthand accounts by Lucia from this time period. I revised the letters and diaries that I had gathered for Medicated Milk and searched various archives for earlier writings and letters of communication by Lucia, her friends, family, and doctors. I edited these texts to create a film script and a choreographic score. A choreographic score is a detailed language score, that is interpreted by performers through movements and vocalisations. For example, this score was filmed in the church at the Madonna Del Sasso monastery in Locarno – ‘She goes to the garden where she remains inaccessible. The garden is rather sad, but there are some beautiful colours and stained glass inside. She sits in the green like flowers on a grave, and is in sympathy with the present. The light here is wonderful so she can sing at last, and her bird song is a little monotonous. Her song is a reminder of a lifeless place.’
Horrible Creature is a retelling of Lucia’s life through the art form which was her passion and explores the transformative nature of dance. I was grateful to work with a cast of three diverse and outstanding dance artists from different countries – Michelle Boulé (USA), Sarah Ryan (IRE), and Céline Larrére (FR). We began our process by rehearsing in-studio at Dance Ireland, Dublin, and Culture D’arbois, located in the Jura mountains close to Geneva. Over a number of weeks, the performers embodied and reinterpreted the details of the language score. The score was also layered with experimental movement practices, that aim to cultivate present moment awareness. A separate voiceover was performed beautifully by Dublin based actresses Aenne Barr and Rebecca Warner.
I acted as producer and searched for locations in Switzerland where Lucia spent time. I was provided with some archival materials including Swiss German school books from Lucia’s school years, and an old treatment machine from her psychiatric hospital. The school books contained lesson plans about war and nature. I combined these texts with imagery of mountainous landscapes and the dancers’ bodies, to further reference the effects of violence and human destruction of the natural world.
Lucia’s own dancing was also inspired by nature. She created a stunning fish costume for a performance in Paris, as well as playing the role of a tropical vine in a ballet. I worked with a fantastic Dublin-based Italian designer Ivan Moreno Bonica, to redesign these original costumes and other clothing from Lucia’s early life.
Director of Photography was Will Humphris from England. Will is an extremely experienced cinematographer and I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work with him – plus massive thanks to Zoe at My Management for her support. It was Will’s first time working with dancers, but he remained constantly alert to the changeability of their movements and fully embraced the style of the project. The nature of the choreographic practice meant that both the dancers’ movements and their use of space altered with each take, so the performers and Will had to be extremely creative in their collaborations during the filming process.
All of the venues, such as hospitals and schools, are still functioning in their original forms. Due to privacy and access limitations, as well as budget constraints, we filmed with a small crew of myself as director, DOP, and the three dance artists, over a nine-day shoot. We began at Lucia’s psychiatric hospital near Geneva, then drove across to Simplon Pass, a mountainous area where the Joyce’s crossed from Italy to Switzerland, Ticino, and finally up to Zurich and the surrounding districts. We filmed in early February, so both travel and filming conditions were a bit extreme at times. The dancers were exposed to varying weather conditions and environments – as well as my driving skills!. They worked diligently to practice the language score whilst remaining present and open to the energetic textures and histories present at each location.
It was never my intention to create a solely historical account of Lucia’s life, so I didn’t alter the design of the locations much at all. I wanted to allow for a sense of connection between then and now. The buildings are all really stunning in their present conditions, and at Lucia’s school, for example, there was a beautiful display of student’s artwork from modern-day combined with 100-year-old science posters from Lucia’s school years.
In post-production, I decided to first structure the entire film as a purely visual piece. I wanted each element of the production to have its own creative space and rhythm, before layering everything at the final stages. For me, this way of working adds a layer of tension to the work, which helps to sustain my interest as a viewer. This was quite a slow working process, and I spent a lot of time picking apart the footage before post-production. I worked on the edit with a good friend and wonderful editor / filmmaker José Miguel Jiménez, who I had worked with previously on Medicated Milk.
A very beautiful and haunting soundtrack was created by Ed Chivers and David Best, two members of the British band Fujiya and Miyagi. The duo worked from extracts of Lucia’s writings and gained further inspiration from songs that she would have sung or played on the piano. As a choreographer, I’m not particularly interested in dance following music or vice versa, so Ed and David didn’t watch any of the footage until the last stages of their creation process.
Horrible Creature premiered at the IFI in June 2019, and I’m delighted to present it again as part of the First Fortnight Festival. I’ve had an exciting and ongoing relationship with the First Fortnight team since they presented Medicated Milk at the IFI in 2016. I’m also curating a series of dance and wellness workshops in partnership with First Fortnight, Dance Ireland, and Galway Dance Project for the festival in 2020.
Horrible Creature is kindly funded by The Arts Council of Ireland, The Embassy of Ireland in Switzerland, with additional support from Arts & Disability Ireland, Dance Ireland, The James Joyce Centre, The Ticino Film Commission, Zurich James Joyce Foundation, Tanzarchiv Zurich, and FringeLab. Thanks to everyone who offered advice and support during the making of the work. I’d also like to say a big thank you to Sunniva O’ Flynn and the IFI team for their ongoing support of my film work.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Áine Stapleton.
RTE Culture - Feature (2020)
On Lucia Joyce - investigating a life through dance
Updated / Wednesday, 8 Jan 2020 15:21
Áine Stapleton's new work is a 'creative investigation' of Lucia Joyce (pictured)
Dancer Áine Stapleton talks about her film Horrible Creature, a 'creative investigation' of the life of Lucia Joyce, which screens at the Irish Film Institute this January, as part of this year's First Fortnight festival, which challenges mental health stigma through creative arts.
I started dancing when I was 7 years old. My mam allowed me to attend modern and ballet classes, and it was my favourite thing to do. I was in full control of my body, and with that came a real sense of freedom and joy. Dance remains vital to my well-being, as it allows me to play out the unlimited potential of my body. I can often feel uneasy and restricted in my regular daily life, having to comply with socially prescribed normative behaviour and gender roles. My mother died when I was 15, and I don't remember crying or even talking about what was happening, I just choreographed whenever I could. I created dances that seemed abstract, but the movement somehow made sense to me for what I was trying to express. All those feelings that I had difficulty comprehending in my mind were being processed by my moving body.
Dancer Áine Stapleton
Listening to and trusting my body is one of the most important lessons that I continue to learn from my dancing. I completed a Dance Degree at the University of Surrey in London in 2004. Since then my artistic work has expanded to examine issues relating to environmental protection, human rights, and trauma - in particular the after-effects of sexual violence and incest. I’ve been creatively investigating the biography of Lucia Joyce (daughter of the writer James Joyce) since 2014, through both choreography and film.
I have no interest in romanticising Lucia’s relationship with her father.
Lucia once commented to a family friend in Paris that she wanted to ‘do something’. She wanted to make a difference and to creatively have an impact on the world around her. Dancing was her way of having an impact. She trained hard for many years and worked with various avant-garde teachers including Raymond Duncan. She created her own costumes, choreographed for opera, entered high profile dance competitions in Paris, and even started her own dance physical training business after apprenticing with modern dance pioneer Margaret Morris.
Until this time she had lived almost entirely under the control of her family, and had to share a bedroom with her parents well into her teens. I imagine that dancing must have been a revolutionary feeling for her, and would have offered her an opportunity to process her chaotic and sometimes toxic upbringing. It was during these dancing years that she was finally allowed to spend some time away from her family, but this freedom did not last long. Her father's artistic needs and his sexist disregard for her career choice interrupted her training at a vital stage. She was forced to stop dancing, and the circumstances surrounding this time remain unclear. I do not believe that she herself made the decision to quit dancing. Lucia was incarcerated by her brother in 1934, and then remained in asylums for 47 years. She died in 1982 and is buried in Northampton England, close to her last psychiatric hospital.
Lucia Joyce
I've read Lucia's writings repeatedly over the last four years, and my opinion of her hasn't changed. She was a kind, funny, intelligent, creative and loving person. After her father James’ death in 1941, she had one visit from her brother and no contact from her mother, yet she only writes good things about her family. She was consistently thankful to those people who made contact with her during her many years stuck in psychiatric care. She appreciated small offerings from friends, such as an additional few pounds to buy cigarettes, a radio to keep her company, a new pair of shoes or a winter coat, all of which seemed to offer her some comfort in her later years.
Lucia once commented to a family friend in Paris that she wanted to ‘do something’. She wanted to make a difference and to creatively have an impact on the world around her. Dancing was her way of having an impact.
I have no interest in romanticising Lucia’s relationship with her father. I also don’t believe that she was schizophrenic. I think that whatever mental strain Lucia experienced was brought on by those closest to her. Her supposed fits of rage or out of the ordinary behaviour only brought to light her suffering. We know that many women have been mistreated and silenced throughout history. Why do we still play along with a romanticised version of abuse? And why is James and Lucia’s relationship, or 'erotic bond' as Samuel Beckett described it, regarded as an almost tragic love story?
Horrible Creature
Horrible Creature examines Lucia's story in her own words, and also focuses on the environment which shaped her during this time. The work attempts to tap into that invisible energy that can provide each of us with a real sense of aliveness and connectedness to the world around us, even in moments of great suffering.
Horrible Creature is the second in a proposed trilogy of films directed by Áine Stapleton and is filmed at locations in Switzerland where Lucia spent time. The first, Medicated Milk, challenged the accepted biography of Lucia's life and considered the complexity of mental instability. Here, Lucia’s own writing, interpreted by a cast of international dance artists, conjures her world between 1915 and 1950. The film fearlessly explores her difficult family life, her unproven illness, and her undoubted talent. Horrible Creature screens at the Irish Film Institute, Dublin on January 8th at part of this year's First Fortnight festival - find out more here.
Journal.ie - Feature (2018)
Lucia Joyce: Why she was more than the 'mad daughter of a genius'
A new dance show looks at exploring another side to Lucia, daughter of James Joyce, who was herself a professional dancer.
Jun 26th 2018, 6:30 PM, 27,212 Views, Share213
Aine Stapleton (left) and the poster for her show.
THE FASCINATING – AND disturbing – life of literary legend James Joyce’s daughter Lucia Joyce is to be explored in a new show tomorrow night.
The life of Lucia Joyce, who was sent to a psychiatric institution by her brother Giorgio, is being examined by the critically-acclaimed Irish choreographer Áine Stapleton for a new work called Horrible Creature, which will be shown in Dublin.
Like Stapleton, Lucia was a professional dancer – but Joyce’s daughter’s career was cut short and she ended her life never having fulfilled her creative dreams. Her story has long captivated people, but as Stapleton began to research what happened to her she realised that there is more to Lucia than what many thought.
Stapleton has previously made a dance film called Medicated Milk (2016), which was created from letters written by Lucia at a psychiatric hospital in England between 1952 and 1982 (the year she died – she spent decades in institutions).
Horrible Creature will examine Lucia’s life between 1915 and 1950, and explore her time as a professional dance artist. It will also look at her romantic relationships – including her short romance with writer Samuel Beckett; the circumstances surrounding her incarceration by her brother, and her time under threat in an occupied zone at a psychiatric hospital during World War 2, shortly before her father’s death.
‘Mad daughter of a genius’
During her life, Lucia was treated for various health issues and was forced to undergo experimental treatments.
“Lucia was a professional dancer and a talented artist, but is generally regarded as the mad daughter of a genius,” says Áine. “Horrible Creature aims to give Lucia a voice and to provide her story with contemporary relevance.”
Stapleton believes that Lucia’s mental strain was the result of ill-treatment and neglect, which she believes the young woman may have experienced from a young age.
“It’s a difficult but fascinating project to undertake as so many of her letters – including a novel and letters of communication between her and her father – were destroyed by her nephew following her death,” she said.
Tomorrow night’s show – which is a work-in-progress – will draw on writings by Lucia which Stapleton has found in The National Archives in London and The University of Tulsa in Oklahoma.
Stapleton told TheJournal.ie that when she first heard of Lucia, she had many questions about her.
“She is more popular now, but at the time I opened one of the newspapers and in her article about her family her name was in brackets,” she said. “She was written off as the crazy one who lost her mind and had a breakdown.” Stapleton questioned this story and wondered why there wasn’t more out there about her: “If she did have some kind of mental breakdown, what brought that on?”
“The more I looked into it, the time before she had the supposed breakdown she had a really thriving career in contemporary dance,” said Stapleton. “It didn’t make sense and it still doesn’t make sense what happened to her in the time period.”
Because her nephew Stephen Joyce destroyed some of her writings, it is hard to find papers or letters written by Lucia, but Stapleton managed to get her hands on some of them which are kept in US archives.
They include dream diaries which she kept for therapy in her older years.
As well as the show, she has received funding to make a full-length film about Lucia, which will be made in Zurich where the Joyce family lived.
As Stapleton tries to make sense of who Lucia truly was as person, she has been led to believe there are a lot of misconceptions about her. She believes that it wasn’t just numerous failed relationships which led to the breakdown which Lucia had in the mid-1930s and which later saw her diagnosed with schizophrenia. Stapleton believes that Lucia’s early life may have contributed to the trauma.
She also queries whether Lucia was actually schizophrenic. “Even in her doctors’ reports they are really varied, some wouldn’t sign off on a definitive diagnosis,” she said.
Some of Lucia’s treatments included methods which are not used today, such as induced fever to treat psychosis.
‘She seemed to be really kind’
Stapleton said that reading Lucia’s letters has given her an insight into who Lucia was beyond the reports of her mental issues.
She was really kind and I feel like that’s missing [in the discussion of her life]. Everything seems to focus on her supposed insanity. She was just so thankful for everything [in the letters]. If someone called her up she was so grateful for it.
“There was another occasion when her shoes didn’t fit her and then she had them sent from her psychiatric hospital in Northampton to a care home in another part of in England, so someone else could use them. This is after being locked up for up for approximately 35 years – she was still thinking of other people. She also commented to friends in some of her letters that they should try to not feel sad about their own life situations. ”
Lucia was a very creative dancer, and this made Stapleton reflect on what dancing may have meant to her.
“I think it would have been a really important way for her to process what she had been through in her life, including any possible traumatic experiences,” said Stapleton.
“Her medium was the body and I imagine that it meant a lot for her to express herself through her body.”
Because of the possibility she had difficult relationships with her family, Stapleton said that dancing may have been a way for Lucia to communicate.
Learning more about Lucia has made Stapleton think more about her feelings about James Joyce. “I think there’s a lot of resistance when it comes to accusing historical or current popular figures that people idolise,” said Stapleton. “No one really wants to think about the bad stuff or have their view of someone knocked. “Some people are good at making a division between an artistic work and its creator. I’m not, I don’t really have any interest. I can’t divide the feeling of the person and the work.”
Stapleton said that her new show Horrible Creature is “very open to interpretation” and that she doesn’t want to push ideas on people. What she wants is for people to watch the show and her exploration of Lucia’s life, and to be present and see where it takes them.
I’d like the work sharing to be an opportunity for both the performer and the audience to mutually experience a sense of increased aliveness in their bodies, which is something that Lucia may have felt during her dancing years. Also, to acknowledge how this sensation of freedom and creativity was taken away from her.
Horrible Creature will be presented as a work-in-progress at DanceHouse tomorrow, 27 June at 7.30pm.To book your place, contact: info@danceireland.ie or ring 018558800. It is supported by the Arts Council’s Arts and Disability Connect scheme managed by Arts & Disability Ireland. Horrible Creature is created in partnership with Dance Ireland and The James Joyce Centre Dublin.